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Comparative Reflections on Embodied Virtue, Performance and Competition in China and Greece
Lisa Raphals, Professor of Chinese and Comparative Lite, University of California, Riverside
It is difficult to compare Greek and Chinese views of what, in both cases, look like athletic performance. In Greek views of sport as competitive there are clear winners and losers, but also a morality of competition that puts virtue ahead of victory. In the Chinese case, what on the surface looks like competitive sport may be a performance for (the entertainment of) a ruler or the gods (and incidentally, the general population). I explore these comparative questions through the intersection of three topics: (1) court performance and egalitarian
competition; (2) physical "self-cultivation" and embodied virtue; and (3) the problematic of deception.
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