Guoxue and Transdiscipline As Illustrated by Law and Literature

Abstract

The complexity of society is producing more and more disciplines–yet the side effect of such proliferation is a lack of collaboration between these disciplines. Therefore, researchers are introducing transdisciplinary work to integrate them. Although guoxue is an old-fashioned research about China and things Chinese, it not only indicates that the idea of disciplines has existed in traditional Chinese academia, but it also has a transdisciplinary nature. In this article, in order to make transdisciplinarity and guoxue illustrate each other, I will explain how it is possible for guoxue to be transdisciplinary and use law and literature as an example to show how disciplines can work together and be transcended. In addition, I will use some Confucian classics, which scholars read as guidelines for how to be a local government official, as examples to illustrate the transdisciplinary nature of guoxue.