Tobias Benedikt Zürn
Biographic Data
| ID | 1145124 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tobias Benedikt Zürn |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tobias Benedikt |
| FAMILY NAME | Zürn |
| SIGNATURE | ZÜRN T B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Reed College |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8508-763X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 5 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 4 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 5 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Reading Texts as Bodies: Object Agency in the Age of Human Empowerment
We scholars tend to project discursive approaches and anthropocentric orientations based on our own reading habits onto the writings we study. This tendentious attitude repeatedly leads to misunderstandings and mistranslations of texts produced in communities that do not share our inclination towards these writings. I illustrate this danger by introducing the case of the Huainanzi . This massive and extraordinarily constructed classic from the se…
The Paradox of Being: Truth, Identity, and Image in Daoism
Reception History and Early Chinese Classics
Thus far, the study of early China and its texts is dominated by originalist approaches that try to excavate the authentic meaning of the classics. In this article, I promote the idea that a shift in focus from the intentions of the authors to the readers' concrete responses could meaningfully accompany our research on the classics' "original" meaning. Beyond merely illuminating the cultural and intellectual environments in which the various rece…
The HanImaginaireof Writing as Weaving: Intertextuality and theHuainanzi's Self-Fashioning as an Embodiment of the Way
Writers in the Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) apparently experienced writing in weaving terms. Such animaginaireof writing as weaving was probably fully manifested in the first or second century BCE and crystallized in the coining of literary terminologies such as classics (jing), weft-writings (weishu), and literature/texts (wen). Situating theHuainanziand its intertextual writing practice within thisimaginaireenables us to reassess both theHuaina…
Overgrown Courtyards and Tilled Fields: Image-Based Debates on Governance and Body Politics in the Mengzi , Zhuangzi , and Huainanzi
Thus far, scholarship on early China has mainly focused on conceptual debates and re-interpretations of terminology. I showcase in this article a methodology called metaphorology that enables us to analyze how discourses developed through the reworking of images. In particular, I reconstruct a discourse on governance and self-cultivational practices as enshrined in Mengzi 3A.4, the Zhuangzi ’s “Mati” chapter and Huainanzi 9.13. While Mengzi 3A.4 …
Reception History and Early Chinese Classics
Thus far, the study of early China and its texts is dominated by originalist approaches that try to excavate the authentic meaning of the classics. In this article, I promote the idea that a shift in focus from the intentions of the authors to the readers' concrete responses could meaningfully accompany our research on the classics' "original" meaning. Beyond merely illuminating the cultural and intellectual environments in which the various rece…
The HanImaginaireof Writing as Weaving: Intertextuality and theHuainanzi's Self-Fashioning as an Embodiment of the Way
Writers in the Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) apparently experienced writing in weaving terms. Such animaginaireof writing as weaving was probably fully manifested in the first or second century BCE and crystallized in the coining of literary terminologies such as classics (jing), weft-writings (weishu), and literature/texts (wen). Situating theHuainanziand its intertextual writing practice within thisimaginaireenables us to reassess both theHuaina…
Overgrown Courtyards and Tilled Fields: Image-Based Debates on Governance and Body Politics in the Mengzi , Zhuangzi , and Huainanzi
Thus far, scholarship on early China has mainly focused on conceptual debates and re-interpretations of terminology. I showcase in this article a methodology called metaphorology that enables us to analyze how discourses developed through the reworking of images. In particular, I reconstruct a discourse on governance and self-cultivational practices as enshrined in Mengzi 3A.4, the Zhuangzi ’s “Mati” chapter and Huainanzi 9.13. While Mengzi 3A.4 …
The HanImaginaireof Writing as Weaving: Intertextuality and theHuainanzi's Self-Fashioning as an Embodiment of the Way
Writers in the Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) apparently experienced writing in weaving terms. Such animaginaireof writing as weaving was probably fully manifested in the first or second century BCE and crystallized in the coining of literary terminologies such as classics (jing), weft-writings (weishu), and literature/texts (wen). Situating theHuainanziand its intertextual writing practice within thisimaginaireenables us to reassess both theHuaina…
The Paradox of Being: Truth, Identity, and Image in Daoism
Reception History and Early Chinese Classics
Thus far, the study of early China and its texts is dominated by originalist approaches that try to excavate the authentic meaning of the classics. In this article, I promote the idea that a shift in focus from the intentions of the authors to the readers' concrete responses could meaningfully accompany our research on the classics' "original" meaning. Beyond merely illuminating the cultural and intellectual environments in which the various rece…
Reading Texts as Bodies: Object Agency in the Age of Human Empowerment
We scholars tend to project discursive approaches and anthropocentric orientations based on our own reading habits onto the writings we study. This tendentious attitude repeatedly leads to misunderstandings and mistranslations of texts produced in communities that do not share our inclination towards these writings. I illustrate this danger by introducing the case of the Huainanzi . This massive and extraordinarily constructed classic from the se…
Chinese history and philosophy (4 works) · History (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Aesthetics (3 works) · Art (3 works) · Epistemology (3 works) · Japanese History and Culture (3 works) · Literature (3 works) · Sociology (3 works) · Law (2 works)