Chinese traditional culture cannot be understood without some familiarity with the I Ching, yet it is one of the most difficult of the world's ancient classics. Assembled from fragments with many obscure allusions, it was the subject of ingenious, but often conflicting, interpretations over nearly three thousand years. Teaching the I Ching (Book of Changes) offers a comprehensive study at a time when interest in Asian philosophy and the culture of China is on the rise. Still widely read in China, it has become a countercultural classic in the West.
Recent scholarship has radically altered our understanding of this foundational work. Geoffrey Redmond and Tze-Ki Hon present an up-to-date survey of recent studies including reconstruction of the early meanings, excavated manuscripts, the New Culture Movement, and the Cultural Revolution. To facilitate introducing the classic to students, the necessary background is provided for university teachers and students, even non-China specialists. The teaching approaches described will foreground the otherness of the classic, yet engage the interests of twenty-first-century students. Rather than dismissing the text's popular association with divination, they explain why this mode of human thought has persisted for millennia. Thus, Redmond and Hon mediate between the two extreme views of the classic: a source of timeless ancient wisdom on the one hand, and a historical curiosity on the other.
Teaching the I Ching (Book of Changes) makes this important classic accessible to a broad readership, thus providing a crucial service for those interested in China, early civilization, and world religion. Now anyone with a serious interest can understand a text that continues to have a decisive influence on Chinese and world culture three thousand years after its original composition.
Industry Reviews
"This balance between the critical and the nonjudgmental is one of the more distinctive features of this book. The stance continues in the sections "How Does the Yijing Work?" and sections on how the text has been compared with science, mathematics, and computers... It covers the major English translations, describes more fully the various layers of text, and provides very complete instructions on consulting the Yi and interpreting the results." -- Joseph A.
Adler, Dao
"Teaching the I-Ching (Book of Changes) is a reliable road-map for students to navigate the intriguing intellectual terrain of the ancient Chinese Classic, detailing the historical background and the text's structure and content. Redmond and Hon's narratives are readable, and their scholarship underpins the accessible translation. This book should serve as an important reference book for undergraduates, graduates, and general readers, who want to
explore the multifarious and mysterious world of 'Changes.'"--Dennis K. H. Cheng, Chair Professor of Cultural History, Hong Kong Institute of Education; European Chair of Chinese Studies, Leiden University;
Professor of Chinese Literature, National Taiwan University
"A magnificent achievement, offering a well-written and judicious synthesis of existing scholarship on the origins, development, and transnational travels of the I Ching. In addition, Redmond and Hon offer their readers insightful suggestions about how to understand and productively use this fascinating document-not only in the classroom but also beyond."--Richard J. Smith, author of The I Ching: A Biography
"The uniqueness of this book is its combination of scholarly rigor with a willingness to explore the phenomenology of divination practice. It is an excellent history of the I Ching as a book, including the ways it has been interpreted both in China and the West up to the present day. The two chapters (1 and 11) that 'cross the great water' into divination practice do so without 'going overboard' into the trendy realm of popular I Ching
enthusiasm."--Joseph A. Adler, author of Reconstructing the Confucian Dao: Zhu Xi's Appropriation of Zhou Dunyi
"These authors provide a judicious, illuminating account of this classic Chinese text. Teaching the I Ching is a valuable reference for scholars and students alike, and a superb sourcebook for teaching the I Ching at the undergraduate level."--Harold C. Washington
Saint Paul School of Theology
