In the received version of the Analects, it’s quite apparent that all of Confucius’s disciples were men. So one might wonder: is this an ethics built just for men? Today we are happy to be joined by Professor Erin Cline, Tagliabue Professor at Georgetown University, to discuss this timely issue, focusing on a controversial passage that features the only woman cited by name in the Analects, Nanzi 南子. Professor Cline argues that the conventional reading of this passage is wrong and that a more plausible understanding of it is important for addressing common criticisms of patriarchy and sexism in the Analects. We also explore various pedagogical themes and strategies for teaching the Analects to students.

Please check out Professor Erin Cline’s faculty profile and list of publications here.

Key passages

      Analects 6.28

子見南子，子路不說。夫子矢之曰：「予所否者，天厭之！天厭之！」

The Master visited Nanzi. Zilu was unhappy about it. The Master swore an oath to him, saying, “If I have done anything wrong, may Tian repudiate (yan 厭) me! May Tian repudiate me!”

(Analects 6.28, from Erin Cline’s forthcoming translation, to be published by W.W. Norton & Company)

Sources and phrases mentioned

• Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
• Nanzi 南子, the only woman mentioned by name in the Analects
• Erin Cline, The Analects: A Guide
• ren 仁 (humaneness, benevolence, Goodness)
• junzi 君子 (exemplary person, “gentleman”)
• ren 人 (humankind, gender-neutral term for people)
• Tian 天 (Heaven)
• Thorian Harris, “Moral Perfection as the Counterfeit of Virtue” (argues that the early Confucians rejected moral perfection as a moral ideal – see citations in this paper for Kongzi’s self-professed flaws and shortcomings)
• Emily Wilson’s translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey (texts traditionally attributed to Homer)
• Analects 8.20
• Zilu 子路 (one of Confucius’s better-known disciples)
• Duke Ling of Wey (Wei) 衛靈公 (probably Nanzi’s husband)
• Song Chao 宋朝 (the handsome man that some later historians and commentators thought to have had an affair with Nanzi)
• Kuai Kuei 蒯聵 (Duke Ling’s son)
• Mizi Xia 彌子瑕 (Duke Ling’s courtier and possible lover)
• Olivia Milburn, “Gender, Sexuality, and Power in Early China: The Changing Biographies of Lord Ling of Wei and Lady Nanzi” (describes the shifting accounts of Nanzi over the course of later Confucian history)
• Analects 5.1
• Mary Magdalene
• The Daodejing 道德經
• “The Gospel of Matthew”
• “The Chosen” (television show)