The symposium on "The Analects and Their Contemporary Values" was held at the Confucius Museum

On October 15th, the Academic Seminar on "Analects and Their Contemporary Values", co-sponsored by the National Library of China and the Confucius Museum, was held at the Confucius Museum, and experts from the National Library of China, the Beijing Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage, the Chinese Cultural Heritage Research Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, East China Normal University, the Hangzhou Cultural Heritage and Historical Building Protection Center, the Confucius Research Institute, the Jiangxi Archaeological Research Institute, taizhou College and other units attended the event, and Zhang Zhiqing, deputy director of the National Library of China, and other guests delivered speeches.

This seminar is an academic extension of the Confucius Museum's annual key exhibition, the Analects. Co-sponsored by the National Library of China, the Nishan World Confucianism Center, and the Confucius Museum, the analects of the Analects brings together 371 volumes/pieces of physical exhibits from a number of cultural relics collection units, including the classic documents of the Analects of previous dynasties, the Confucian Stone Scriptures (rubbings), the wooden Jian of the Analects unearthed by archaeological excavations, the long scrolls of the Analects of the Tang Dynasty, and the translations of the Analects in foreign languages. In July this year, the exhibition was successfully selected as the key promotion project of the 2021 theme exhibition of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage "Promoting China's Excellent Traditional Culture and Cultivating Socialist Core Values".

The Confucius Museum held an exhibition on the theme of "Analects" and held an academic seminar on "Analects and Their Contemporary Values", using the cultural relics resources in the collection to let cultural relics speak and history speak, which is the active exploration and response of Wenbo people to this proposition.

The theme of this seminar is "Analects and Their Contemporary Values", focusing on how to expound the Analects in the contemporary context, excavate and promote the modern values of Confucian culture, interpret the parts of traditional culture that are integrated with the core values of socialism, and promote the creative transformation and innovative development of China's excellent traditional culture.

The "Analects" theme exhibition displays the "Xiping Stone Classic", "Kaicheng Stone Classic", "Taixue Stone Classic", "Qianlong Yuding Stone Classic" in the "Analects" rubbings, which is the first joint exhibition of the "Analects" stone rubbings in China. In view of the exhibits in the exhibition, Yu Wanli, distinguished professor of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and specially appointed chair professor of Ma Yifu College of Zhejiang University, made a report entitled "The Publication of the Xiping Stone Sutra and the Discovery of the Remnants of the Analects", sharing the research experience of the Xiping Stone Classic over the years, revealing the historical context and research process behind the Xiping Stone Classic, and clarifying the unique historical and cultural value of the Xiping Stone Classic and the Analects.

Yang Chaoming, president of the Confucius Research Institute, made a report entitled "The Analects as the Symbolic Meaning of 'Civilization'", pointing out that the "Analects" condensed the essence of Chinese civilization for thousands of years before Confucius's lifetime, represented the development height of Chinese culture during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and made the Chinese people realize that Chinese civilization is a special civilization standing proudly in the East.

Many precious cultural relics such as translations of the Analects in foreign languages, rare books of the Analects, and rubbings of the Analects in the Xiping Stone Classics exhibited in this exhibition are all collected by the National Library of China. At the seminar, Zhao Daying, an expert from the Ancient Books Library of the National Library of China, made a wonderful sharing on the topic of "Discussion on the Translation of the Analects of the 17th and 19th Centuries collected by the National Library", and introduced its historical background and academic frontier research on the translation of the Analects in foreign languages collected by the National Map.

Yang Jun, a researcher at the Jiangxi Archaeological Research Institute, combined with the excavated Hanjian and other materials in the exhibition, introduced the excavation and research status of the "Analects" Hanjian and "Confucius Screen" and other cultural relics in the tomb of Liu He in the Western Han Sea in Nanchang, Jiangxi in 2016. Attendees were able to glimpse the long-lost "Qi Analects of Knowing".

Liu Peide, associate professor of the School of Humanities of Taizhou University and member of the Compilation Committee of Zizang, delivered a lecture entitled "Talking about the Cognition of Confucianism from the Perspective of Literature", taking literature as the starting point and talking about the new understanding of Confucianism in combination with history and the present.

Experts fully affirmed the confucius museum's useful attempt to expound the ideas of the Analects in the language of the museum, and pointed out that the way the academic seminar was combined with the exhibition was very beneficial to the practice of "two innovations". It is hoped that the Confucius Museum can apply the academic results of the seminar to the practical work in the future, use the language of the museum to tell the story of Confucius and The story of China, and create more high-quality and characteristic exhibitions. (China Daily Shandong Reporter Station)

Source: China Daily