Contemporary Interpretations and Readings of the Yijing: The Changes in Our Times

This book questions whether the ancient, iconic Chinese book of divination, The Classic of Changes (Yijing) might help us navigate the precarious, complex, and seemingly unpredictable intricacies of present contemporary times. The essays contained in this book respond affirmatively to this question in seeking to show how The Classic of Changes can help us think through the particularly human challenge of establishing meaning and making choices between alternatives. The author’s book explores and discusses novel and often surprising ways for contemporary readers to interpret and apply this ancient Chinese classic, touching upon fields such as narration, technology, ecology, psychology, aesthetics, ontology, cognition, semiotics, and gender issues. This book is of appeal to both students and informed readers with an interest in the mysteries of The Classic of Changes, and to researchers in areas of Chinese philosophy, Chinese history, religious studies, and East Asian approaches to health and well-being.

Geir Sigurðsson is Professor of Chinese studies and philosophy at University of Iceland. His research seeks ways to facilitate meaningful dialogues between Western and Chinese philosophy through comparison of methodologies, epistemological approaches, cosmology, views of education, and values of life. He is author of Confucian Propriety and Ritual Learning: A Philosophical Interpretation (2015), which received Society of Professors of Education Outstanding Book Award Honorable Mention, an annotated translation of the ancient Chinese classic Sunzi’s Art of War into Icelandic (2019), and over 50 journal articles and book chapters.

Tze-ki Hon is Professor at the Research Center for History and Culture of Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai 519087, China. Concurrently, he is Dean of Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at BNU-HKBU United International College. Before he relocated to Zhuhai, he taught at City University of Hong Kong, State University of New York at Geneseo, and Hanover College, Indiana. Over the last three decades, he wrote four books: The Yijing and Chinese Politics (2005), The Allure of the Nation (2013), Teaching the I Ching (Book of Changes) (with Geoffrey Redmond, 2014), and Revolution as Restoration (2014).