"Li Zhi's Pedagogy of Provocation" (Trans-Asia Graduate Student Conference)

The talk will address the writings of the sixteenth century Chinese maverick intellectual Li Zhi (1527-1602) who shocked contemporaries. His writings too proved scandal: in them he flouted Confucian orthodoxy by overturning established judgments and excoriating and publicly humiliating high officials. His writing style abounds in paradox, irony, and contradiction, rhetorical flourishes that cause readers to stand still in their tracks and wonder “Did Li Zhi really mean this?!”