Benoît VermanderFudan University · School of Philosophy, Department of Religious Studies
Benoît Vermander
PhD
About
349
Publications
50,629
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246
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Introduction
My life and research have been largely about the modes and evolving meaning of cultural and spiritual encounters..“Universals” appear and disappear at the junction that both unite and separate language and perception, practice and thought - when, after having engaged into failed attempts at unearthing them, one looks in retrospect at “sketches of landscape which were made in the course of these long and involved journeyings.” (Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Preface)
Additional affiliations
March 1999 - March 2000
Position
- Peace culture in Taiwan
Description
- Discerning resources for building up a "culture of peace" in Taiwan and East Asia
October 1996 - June 2010
Ricci Institute
Position
- Grand Dictionnaire Ricci de la langue chinoise
Description
- Direction committee of the "Grand Ricci": final stage of paper publication and, later on, preparing specialized dictionaries and digital publication
Education
June 2005 - June 2009
Facultés Jésuites de Paris
Field of study
- Theology
September 1994 - May 1996
September 1982 - May 1984
Publications
Publications (349)
The present article discusses remarks and suggestions made by Andrew Meyer and Dennis Schilling on a previous contribution of the author. It assesses the status of the root-branches analogy in the Huainanzi 淮南子, and the compatibility of the said analogy with the composition of the same work as a ring composition. It also discusses the numerology pr...
This Special Issue crisscrosses three theoretical questions that the ten contributions gathered here integrate into a unified subject of investigation [...]
The last sentence of Chapter 10 of the Analects describes a brief encounter between Confucius and a hen-pheasant, and it does so in puzzling terms, ridden with lexical difficulties. At the same time, intertextual references insert this fragment into the context of Confucius’ life mission as well as of Chinese mythological narratives. This contribut...
Les discours portant sur « la connaissance des choses divines » ont été partiellement remodelés par la transposition vers le champ théologique du lexique et des méthodes propres à l’épistémologie contemporaine. Inspirée par ces tentatives, cette contribution distingue sept façons principales de répondre aux questions formulées quant à la possibilit...
La volonté de la Chine d’affirmer un leadership global et de diffuser largement sa vision du monde, notamment au regard du modèle occidental de développement, n’est plus un mystère. Mais quelle est donc cette alternative qu’elle entend incarner face au modèle occidental encore dominant ? Aux yeux de Pékin, le processus de modernisation basé sur le...
The way spiritual discernment applies to decision making and management can be approached by detailing the values and/or duties that a decision will rely upon, or, alternatively, by first elucidating the modus operandi that discernment unfolds. This contribution privileges the second approach when appraising the insights brought forth by two spirit...
This article uses a typology of action framework to analyze a selection of the gospels’ parables. It does so by connecting these parables to A. G. Haudricourt and C. Ferret’s research on the “anthropology of action”. After summarizing Haudricourt’s and Ferret’s results, I relate modes of action to types of emplotment. I select four parables as the...
Among other contributions, Jean Gerson (1363-1429) has played a decisive role in establishing spiritual theology as an experimental science, the foundation and process of which are independent from the ones of dogmatic theology, even if their results need to eventually coincide. Based, as all works in the field, on Pseudo-Dionysius, Gerson’s De the...
»Geschichte der Philologien« (bis 2019 »Geschichte der Germanistik«) wurde 1991 von Christoph König als Organ germanistischer Wissenschaftsgeschichtsforschung gegründet. Aus der Beobachtung anderer, benachbarter Philologien wurde allmählich eine Komparatistik der Fächer, im Sinn des historischen Vergleichs und der philosophischen Reflexion. Das int...
Introducing
Alain Bonjean, Benoît Vermander
L'Homme et le grain - Une histoire céréalière des civilisations
Les Belles Lettres, 2021
ISBN : 978-2-251-45235-7
Un panorama mondial qui envisage les céréales et pseudocéréales dans leur rapport à la sédentarisation de l’humanité, à l’évolution des différentes civilisations depuis le Néolithique,
et à l’avenir de nos relations avec toutes les formes du vivant
, in Swancutt, Katherine, New York, Oxford: Berghahn, 2021 [ISBN 978-1-80073-237-7 $120.00/£89.00], pp.25-54.
Starting from a historical reflection on the concept of hybridization, and in particular on its circulation between natural and social sciences, this contribution attempts to identify some of the processes by which cereal rituals are reformulated when the relevance of associated representations and practices is eroded. Among other examples, it mobi...
The progressive dominance of historical-critical methods in the reading of ancient Chinese classics has led scholars to privilege micro levels of textual analysis. Consequently, the question as to whether laws of composition could be identified in this corpus has often been ignored, or considered irrelevant. Working on Chinese number symbolism as w...
This chapter offers vignettes of Protestant and Catholic communities in Shanghai, to try to give an idea of the strange combination of “isolation” and “outreach” that somehow defines the engagement of Christian churches with society at large in Shanghai and in other parts of China. These churches negotiate, on the one hand, the various local and gl...
This Handbook, comprises of forty-eight essays, showcases the Bible’s translation, expression, interpretation, and reception in China over the last thirteen hundred years: 1) translation of the Bible into China’s languages and dialects; 2) expression of the Bible in Chinese literary and religious contexts; 3) Chinese biblical interpretations and me...
Jouer, de Roberte Hamayon, apporte un éclairage spécifique sur les mécanismes régissant tout un pan des interactions sociales, dans le monde asiatique et au-delà. Pour en souligner la fécondité, cet article procède en quatre temps. En l’abordant sous l’angle d’une « économie morale du jeu », il le rapproche et le contraste tout à la fois de l’Essai...
Depuis Shanghai, où il demeure, l’auteur mène un colloque intérieur où nous sommes conviés à entrer et que nous sommes incités à poursuivre. L’expérience du confinement reste en nous vive, féconde, elle incite tant à faire mémoire qu’à réveiller nos puissances d’imagination. Elle nous a davantage ouvert à la relecture du passé, non pour nous y love...
- “The Vatican, China, and the Future of the Chinese Catholic Church” Concilium 2020/2, pp.142-150.
L’épidémie de Covid-19 a d’abord pris l’État-Parti chinois au dépourvu. Il a ensuite mobilisé et encore renforcé toutes les techniques de contrôle social dont il dispose, afin de juguler la pandémie qui menaçait. Mais, sur les réseaux sociaux, une partie de la population laisse émerger sa frustration face aux restrictions imposées à l’information e...
https://www.laciviltacattolica.it/articolo/polemiche-sulla-chiesa-in-cina-la-tentazione-donatista/
CONTROVERSIES REGARDING THE CHURCH IN CHINA: THE DONATIST TEMPTATION
In a social and ecclesial context that leads to rapid judgments without the possibility to appeal, it is good to recall and appreciate the Church’s position during the Donatist cri...
The social and spiritual message of Pope Francis calls for all actors, individual and corporate, to engage into a form of radicalness in both thought and deeds. Francis has progressively elaborated a «mission statement» that articulates objectives to be prioritized, not only by Christian organizations but also by social, economic and political stru...
The Journal of the Macao Ricci Institute
Nov 2019 (4)
China’s dramatic process of urbanization has profound influence on the country’s religious communities, practices and psyche. This article focuses on a village of North Shanghai that has been integrated into urban life through demolition and relocation at the turn of the century. It follows the evolution of the ritual practices of its former inhabi...
From 2015 onwards, “sinicizing religions” has become the mantra of China’s religious policy, inspiring new regulations and constraining the functioning of religious organizations. After summarizing the “sinicization” doctrine and policy, this paper examines how Chinese scholars in religious studies position themselves in such a context. It reviews...
RESUMEN: El encuentro entre jesuitas y literatos chinos fue decisivo para la evolución cultural de China y de Europa. Lo sucedido en aquella época puede ser valioso para los encuentros culturales y espirituales contemporáneos. Por ello, la arqueología de la sinología nos ayuda a explorar reflexivamente la forma en que nuestros esfuerzos de investig...
Depuis 2012, l’équipe dirigeante de la Chine construit une nouvelle religion civile, par laquelle l’Etat reprend sa fonction de pourvoyeur de sacralité, contrôle strictement les cultes locaux et organise la vénération de la terre chinoise éternelle. On peut se demander si un tel rêve chinois peut accrocher sur les nouvelles réalités urbaines du pay...
“Rationalités croyantes au travail : les espaces sacrés à Shanghai” in Thierry-Marie Courau (dir.), Le dialogue des rationalités culturelles et religieuses, Paris, Cerf, 2019, pp.811-831
À l’instar du Domaine royal dont elle partage les origines, la ville de Versailles s’est constituée en un organisme pourvu de son dynamisme propre — en un écosystème. L’ouvrage est d’abord le récit, souvent surprenant, de l’évolution d’une ville dont la place dans l’histoire politique française est sans équivalent.
Inséparable en ses débuts de la...
Shanghai, a dynamic world metropolis, is home to a multitude of religions, from Buddhism and Islam, to Christianity and Baha’ism, to Hinduism and Daoism, and many more. In this city of 24 million inhabitants, new religious groups and older faiths together claim and reclaim spiritual space.
Shanghai Sacred explores the spaces, rituals, and daily pra...
La possibilité d'une « rhétorique comparée » Benoît V Ce texte s'inscrit dans le prolongement de deux contributions qu'il me faut évoquer au préalable pour le bon entendement de ce qui va suivre. Le premier de ces textes s'essayait à situer la lecture comparée des classiques chinois dans un moment historique, celui qui voyait s'élaborer l'entrepris...
“Religion and Society in Today’s China: The View from Shanghai”, in Religions in Society in Asia: Conflict and Convergence, Michael Amaladoss (ed.). Bangalore, Claretian Publications, 2017, pp.35-50.
When trying to give an account of faith experience, Christian theology usually favors
the “listening” dimension to that of “vision”, and such preference is consistent with its
founding project to develop a discourse based on reason. This comes with the danger
of denying the lived reality of the believer, ignoring how the emergence of faith and
the...
This essays focuses on the way Taiwan’s aboriginal societies integrate millet into narratives and representations that are at the same time cosmological and social, as well as on the ritual practices linked to such representations. It further investigates how these symbolic resources are re-interpreted and mobilized when asserting aboriginal identi...
Trying to capture the nature of their experience, pastors and theologians working in Asia have been speaking and writing of a “Theology of Harmony.” The expression does not constitute a mere catchword: It opens the door to a nexus of concepts and approaches that gives a specific account of the way God continues to reveal Himself and to care for His...
Le colloque que nous venons de vivre a témoigné de l'actualité et de la fécondité d'une vie et d'une oeuvre. Il est nécessaire et juste de souligner que cette oeuvre a été rendue pleinement accessible, qu'elle a pu très vite poursuivre et mul-tiplier ses effets grâce à l'exigence, à la minutie et-disons le-au génie éditorial que Luce Giard a déploy...
帕斯卡：护教论与“机遇的几何学”
Pascal : Apologetics and the "Geometry of Chance"
（法） 魏明德（Benoît Vermander）
谢华 译 (Translated by XIE Hua)
Summary
Pascal's apologetics cannot be separated from his scientific pursuits. Among the latter, Pascal has notably laid the foundation of probability theory, and thus opened up an area he called "the geometry of chance" (géomét...
耶稣会士和中国文人双方均从事经典比较阅读，对于汉学的形成、研究方法、焦点和传播方式产生了决定性的作用。解读他方的经典是充满假设和挑战的试炼，需要双方各自逐渐构思新的诠释性原则。另外，观察他者如何阅读
和了解己方经典属于交流过程的一部分，如此双方才能诠释对方的知识论。汉学在诠释观的相互影响下形成，跨文化对话的省思在当代更为活跃，交流的发展更加充满提问与见解。关于中西经典之间的交流与再诠释的方式，本文
将客观事实贯通为叙述：进一步指出此类思索如何丰富当代跨文化背景中我们对经典的阅读，同时关注“比较神学”这一正在形成的学术领域；思索汉学、比较经典共通的方法论，以及人文领域所反映的问题之对话特质。
Questions
Questions (2)
I am conducting a research on "wheat and religions", and am interested in cereal offerings in the larger context of defining the nature and rationale of non bloody sacrifices in different religious settings.
I am conducting a research on “wheat and religions.” I’d like especially to know how the Islamic tradition interprets the following passage of the Ibn Abbas commentary:
“The tree which God forbade Adam and his spouse was grain. … So God cast him down from Paradise, where they both had eaten of plenty, he cast him to a place without plenty to eat and drink. He was taught how to make iron, and commanded to plow. So he plowed, sowed and watered until his crop ripened. Then he harvested it, trashed, winnowed, ground, kneaded, baked bread, and ate it. Knowledge of these things did not reach Adam until God wanted it to reach him.” (WHEELER, 2002, Prophets in the Quram, An introduction to the Quram and Muslim Exegesis, London, Continuum.: 29)
And also the following passage of Muhamed b. Jarir al-Tabari :
“It is said that from among the things which Adam brought out of Paradise with him was a bag filled with grains of wheat. It is also said that Gabriel brought wheat later, after Adam became hungry and asked his Lord for food. God sent Gabriel to him with seven grains of wheat. Gabriel put it in Adam’s hand. And Adam asked Gabriel: “What is this?” Gabriel said to him: “This is what caused you to leave Paradise.” Each of the grains weighed as much as 100,800 dirhems. Adam said: “What do I do with this?” He said: “Spread them in the earth.” So he did and God caused them to grow immediately. Sowing in the earth thus became a custom for Adam’s children. The God commanded him to harvest it, to collect and husk it by hand. Then he commanded him to winnow it. Gabriel brought two stones to him and placed one of them on top of the other and ground the wheat. Then God commanded him to knead it, and commanded him to make bread in the ashes. Gabriel gave Adam a stone and iron. Adam struck them together and fire came out of them. He was the first to make bread from ashes.” (WHEELER, 2002: 28-29)
