TÜHI research seminar: Lisa Indraccolo

The next TÜHI research seminar will take place on 7 December at 16:15 and our speaker is TÜHI professor of Chinese studies Lisa Indraccolo. The title of her presentation is "The Language of the Body in Early Chinese Thought: Body Metaphors and Biopolitical Language in Classical Chinese Philosophy" The discussant of the seminar is Liisi Keedus, TÜHI professor of political philosophy. The seminar is in English and takes place in room M-649.

Synopsis of the lecture:

The body politic is a well-established type of metaphor that has been present in Western politico-philosophical discourse since antiquity. However, it is still a relatively understudied topic in the field of Classical Chinese philosophy, despite the abundant evidence of the resort to a rich repertoire of physiological images in different kinds of early Chinese sources. In particular, the contribution provided by medical texts is often excluded in broader considerations on the use of body-related imagery in metaphorical representations of the state. Actually, body metaphors are a common rhetorical trope in early Chinese philosophy. The ideal sovereign – typically compared to the ruling “heart-mind” (xin) of the body – as well as his are consistently associated with specific tasks and roles that are supposed to be mirroring the functioning and the relationship existing between different body organs and body parts. Thus, a well-functioning governing body is metaphorically represented as a healthy physical body.
The presentation introduces three different perspectives on and ways of conceptualizing the body in premodern China (ca. 4th cent. B.C. – 2nd cent. A.D.), looking at the medical body in early Chinese pharmacopeia and medical texts; the Daoist body or the body as landscape; finally, the body as a political body. Through pertinent examples drawn from pre-imperial and early imperial received literature, the present contribution aims to show that biopolitical metaphors are a pervasive characteristic of early Chinese texts beyond their alleged genre and across different trends of thought, representing an underlying conceptual thread that belongs to a shared cultural repertoire.

All are welcome to participate!