AAS2026 Conference Connection

I have a paper that was accepted by the AAS conference (SWCAS) at San Antonio, Nov. 7-9, 2025, and was withdrawn for personal reasons. The title is The Chinese Intellectuals:  Idealism in Education and Practitioners in Public Officialdom。I like to post my availability to step in and replace a speaker on the AAS 2026 Conference, if a withdrawal happens and a replacement is required.

Paper abstract

The role of Chinese intellectuals in traditional Chinese society has been so influential that no civilization since has accomplished anything comparable. This force that energized the political life of China for thousands of years was the product of one substantive cultural strategic tool, the merit civil examination system.  The selected talents were born secular and their consciousness was shaped by the ethical principles of various philosophical texts, primarily Confucianism.  They were chosen to guide the development of Chinese civilization as priests or aristocrats.  Excellent in literary work while simultaneously serving as political officials, these elite intellectuals oversaw the civil as well as legal affairs from local to central offices. Their mental conflict, trained as idealistic scholars yet positioned as practitioners in public office, must have been overwhelming.

Given that their success in the test stemmed from the vision and insights shown in their literary achievements, they could express their emotions in poetry as superbly as they conducted the work of their political life.  Their poems are so tender and romantic that one would think their conflicts in public life had found an outlet and were balanced therein. The frustration and emotions experienced in public careers might have been alleviated when expressed in their poetry about private life.  This paper aims to examine how these sentiments, these personal conflicts, are uniquely reflected in the poetry of some of the most accomplished public intellectuals in traditional Chinese Society.