Beyond self-cultivation: Moments of transcendence in ego-documents of Kore-an Confucian provenance (B02)

• Subject Area: Asian Studies
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 441126958

The religious dimension of Confucianism is frequently being sought in self-cultivation, under-stood as a quest for self-transcendence. The project aims at testing the validity of this assump-tion for Korean Confucians of the Chosǒn era (focussing on the 16th to the early 19th century) by studying the metaphors employed in expressions of transformative experiences as found in self-expressive texts such as travel essays, dream records, and study diaries, thus mapping the notions of and expectations towards the “beyond” current among members of the literati class.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 1475: Metaphors of Religion. Religious Meaning-Making in Language Use
• Applicant Institution: Ruhr-Universität Bochum
• Project Head: Professorin Dr. Marion Eggert