評Dongfeng Xu, Friendship and Hospitality

Many studies have investigated the early encounters between Christian missionaries and Chinese literati under the theme of friendship, and the relationship between Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) and Xu Guangqi 徐光啟 (1562-1633) has often served as a model. Xu Dongfeng, professor at Colgate University, renews the theme by bringing hospitality as a necessary complement to friendship as well as refreshing the method by using a deconstructivist perspective based on the philosophy of Jacques Derrida, especially his writings on friendship and hospitality. Through examples from the works of the Jesuits and the Confucian response, he argues that difference is the absolute condition of possibility under which friendship and hospitality between two individuals or between two cultures happen.