Thesis (M.A.)--Trinity International University, 2002. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 119-129).

Thesis (Doctoral)--Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität zu Frankfurt am Main, 1983.

Thesis--University of Washington. / Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [446]-464).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, March 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--Guo li Taiwan da xue / Cover title. Mimeo. copy.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1981. / Vita. Bibliography: leaves [241]-253.

In recent years, literature in Taiwan has developed dynamically in a context of rapid social change and intense debate in intellectual circles over ideology. Chu Tien-wen (1956- ) is the eldest daughter of the most notable literary family in Taiwan; the principal founder of the "Three-Three" literary coterie in the late 1970s and the most successful screenwriter of the Taiwanese New Cinema in the 1980s. However, as yet no book-length study has been devoted to the works of this important figure in the contemporary Taiwan literary scene. The present thesis is a study of Chu T'ien-wen's work up to 1996, with chapters arranged broadly in chronological order. It traces the formation of her early sinocentric, utopian political and social beliefs, and their modification in the light of her increasing contact with Taiwan-centred Nativist ideas. This study endeavours to address the many facets of Chu's writing identity (Chinese tradition - Taiwan identity - Feminism - Creative writing), and examine how her works reflect her maturing understanding under the influence of changes in society. Forced to re-evaluate her ideas by the clash between her vision of Confucian Chinese ideals and the development of Taiwan-centred Nativism, Chu broke through to her unique style in Splendour of the End of the Century, a collection of stories which won immediate critical acclaim both for its unconventional subject matter and its unorthodox style. Since then Chu, in writing about the moral and spiritual decadence of modern urban life in The Notebook of a Desolate Man, has maintained her basic belief in the role of the shih, but, at the same time, she has yielded to the inevitability of destruction of traditional values. Nonetheless, her writing on previously unmentionable subjects has broadened the parameters of what is acceptable in literature. This study will demonstrate that in writing her "decadent" fiction, and through her depiction of sensual refinement, Chu showed that social changes in Taiwan had forced her to accept the fact that Confucian thought has irretrievably lost its primacy in intellectual life, and that her original utopian vision is no longer attainable. As she accepts democracy more, she has had to leave behind her early ideal, be more pragmatic, and become a "decadent" writer philosophically.

Submitted to the Faculty of Arts in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Theology in the Department of Religion Studies at the UNIVERSITY OF ZULULAND, 2008. / After a brief introduction, a new translation of De Legibus II, and prolegomenal remarks, the commentary discusses in Cicero's sequence: how place connects to ancient times and traditions (4), God's Law and his judgment on human laws (5-6), tension between Roman religion and Greek philosophy (7), and the setting forth of Cicero's code of religious law (8), the code covers whom to worship (9), the power of Cicero's own priesthood (10), religion and political unity (11), social justice and religious rites (12), Cicero's digression on a turf-war between augurs and pontifices and priestly responsibility for religious law alone (13), the rites of death (14), and the prospect of immortality (15). Excursuses within the commentary include: holy reason as imago Dei in humans; dialogists' family and friendship; legitimacy of law in Confucianism; the supreme God and His/Its relation to lesser deities, especially Minerva; hyperphilologism and ancient holist theology (hence reference to current African philosophy and theology and to modern religious traditions). Cicero's anti-Platonism/anti-utopianism. parallel Confucian-Mohist enmity, and the common substrate of family and family rite; mistaking propriety for agnosticism and tacit knowing for unbelief; reliability of the canonical texts; the sages' descendants and classical explicators; tyranny as the sin of parricide: Roman priesthoods with reference to the religious power of women; family religious rites; the augural priesthood and its liberationist implications. Selected interpretive issues meriting further enquiry follows: the integrity of theology in DL2 and aspects of classical Confucianism; Cicero's theological language and the use of translations; theological anti-totalitarianism in Cicero and his contemporary Han Dynasty Confucians; scholarly contempt for Cicero and its civic-theological implications: late-dating of DL as buttress of its civic-theological character; lsocrates as anti-Platonic paradigm of theological political praxis; the distinctiveness of our sages over against mediaeval philosophical theology in the West and China; and anti-imperialist theology in Viet Nam and Cicero's Philippics. The conclusion offers encouragement in civic-theological resistance to tyranny, the role of humane reason in theology and the present applicability of aspects of the theology of Cicero and that of Confucius.

published_or_final_version / Asian Studies / Master / Master of Arts

published_or_final_version / Chinese Historical Studies / Master / Master of Arts