Ian Normile begins this study from the premise that critical thinking is often conceptualized and practiced in problematically narrow and instrumentalized ways. Following Ronald Barnett, he suggests ...that the idea of critical being can help expand the theory and practice of critical thinking to better meet the needs of education and society. Essential to this effort is greater consideration of how critical thinking articulates with other aspects of being. Normile uses two examples of “non‐critical” experiences that he argues can help critical thinking expand into critical being. First, he explores the emotive power of wonder as a source of inspiration and emotional education, and as an essential aspect of critical thinking. He then argues that curiosity, wonder, contemplation, and critical thinking are complementary aspects of critical being. The second example is the Chinese concept of wu‐wei, a form of efficacious non‐critical action. Normile argues that inevitable breakdowns in wu‐wei provide opportunities for critical reflection while the unlearning common to both wonder and wu‐wei facilitates receptivity to new perspectives and possibilities beyond the boundaries of the familiar; in this state, one is capable of facilitating the metacritique that is essential to truly transformative critical thinking. Normile concludes with some brief thoughts on implications for practice as a starting point for further inquiry.
The pathogenicity of foodborne
is a major concern for global public health. This study aimed to optimize the liquid-solid extraction of Wu Wei Zi extracts (WWZE) against
, identify its main ...components, and investigate the anti-biofilm action. The extraction conditions optimized by the single-factor test and response surface methodology were ethanol concentration of 69%, temperature at 91 °C, time of 143 min, and liquid-solid ratio of 20:1 mL/g. After high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis, it was found that the main active ingredients of WWZE were schisandrol A, schisandrol B, schisantherin A, schisanhenol, and schisandrin A-C. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of WWZE, schisantherin A, and schisandrol B measured by broth microdilution assay was 1.25, 0.625, and 1.25 mg/mL, respectively, while the MIC of the other five compounds was higher than 2.5 mg/mL, indicating that schisantherin A and schizandrol B were the main antibacterial components of WWZE. Crystal violet, Coomassie brilliant blue, Congo red plate, spectrophotometry, and Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) assays were used to evaluate the effect of WWZE on the biofilm of
. The results showed that WWZE could exert its dose-dependent potential to effectively inhibit the formation of
biofilm and clear mature biofilm by significantly destroying the cell membrane integrity of
, inhibiting the synthesis of intercellular polysaccharide adhesin (PIA), extracellular DNA secretion, and reducing the metabolic activity of biofilm. This study reported for the first time the favorable anti-biofilm effect of WWZE against
, which provides a basis for deepening the application of WWZE in the preservation of aquatic products.
Drawing on our research in China’s southern mountains about ethnic medicines, and intrigued by the proverbial Chinese view that
Yao Shi Tong Yuan
(food and medicine have the same source), this ...article traces the eventfulness and powers at play in healing and eating when they are seen as closely related forms of life. Ancient and modern traditional Chinese medicine understandings of flavor are here shown to be a common basis for the healing and harming powers of both food and medicine. The term
Wu Wei
, or five flavors is explored as both experiences of eating and cooking, and some patterns of qi movement that animate and invigorate the body. Following Vivienne Lo’s term “potent flavors,” practices of harmonizing (
He
,
Tiao He
) flavors in Chinese medicine, as in cooking, express a world of natural powers and expert embodiment that goes far beyond mere taste.
In his work on Wu wei, Edward Slingerland argues that the classical Chinese ideal is an inherently paradoxical concept that is first and foremost spiritual and political only secondarily. Through a ...close reading of the Dao de Jing, the first major classical text to substantially deploy and develop the concept, I argue that Wu wei isn't inherently paradoxical and that this is seen precisely when it is viewed in terms of its political primacy. On my reading, the emergence of Wu wei in the Daoist canon is an equilibrating moment of political mediation between the highly intentionalized sphere of human pursuits and the purposeless fluidity and boundless flux of the natural world. Wu wei here takes on a different aspect-mystery rather than paradox-when considered within a form of political collectivity in which the intentional and the innate, purposive and natural are constantly juxtaposed and contending with one another.
Positioned itself in the stance of critical posthumanism, this essay examines the virtual corporeality in Markus Selg and Susanne Kennedy's VR performance I AM (VR). By introducing Zhuangzi's idea of ...Tenuous self (虛我) and Jean-Luc Nancy's take on the liminal body, this essay asks how do we consider the physical form of the body, assembled in reality-reality within the immersive sharing and exchanging process of virtual-reality? What kind of transformation that the body might experience when it immerses into that otherworldly reality? I Am (VR), as an embodied performative happening of both artistic research and practice of virtual reality, provides insightful perspective in searching for possible answers. Taking this analysis as a departure point, this essay further investigates the possible entanglements between the ‘I’ and the ‘VR'.@font-face{font-family:"Cambria Math";panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;mso-font-charset:0;mso-generic-font-family:roman;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face{font-family:"Arial Unicode MS";panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;mso-font-charset:128;mso-generic-font-family:swiss;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:-134238209 -371195905 63 0 4129279 0;}@font-face{font-family:"\@Arial Unicode MS";panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;mso-font-charset:128;mso-generic-font-family:swiss;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:-134238209 -371195905 63 0 4129279 0;}@font-face{font-family:STSongti-TC-Regular;panose-1:2 1 6 0 4 1 1 1 1 1;mso-font-charset:136;mso-generic-font-family:auto;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:647 135200768 16 0 1310879 0;}@font-face{font-family:"\@STSongti-TC-Regular";mso-font-charset:136;mso-generic-font-family:auto;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:647 135200768 16 0 1310879 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal{mso-style-unhide:no;mso-style-qformat:yes;mso-style-parent:"";margin:0cm;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-fareast-font-family:"Arial Unicode MS";border:none;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA;}p{mso-style-priority:99;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;margin-right:0cm;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:0cm;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";}.MsoChpDefault{mso-style-type:export-only;mso-default-props:yes;font-size:10.0pt;mso-ansi-font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:"Arial Unicode MS";border:none;}.MsoPapDefault{mso-style-type:export-only;}div.WordSection1{page:WordSection1;}@font-face{font-family:"Cambria Math";panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;mso-font-charset:0;mso-generic-font-family:roman;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face{font-family:"Arial Unicode MS";panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;mso-font-charset:128;mso-generic-font-family:swiss;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:-134238209 -371195905 63 0 4129279 0;}@font-face{font-family:"Helvetica Neue";panose-1:2 0 5 3 0 0 0 2 0 4;mso-font-charset:0;mso-generic-font-family:auto;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:-452984065 1342208475 16 0 1 0;}@font-face{font-family:"\@Arial Unicode MS";panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;mso-font-charset:128;mso-generic-font-family:swiss;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:-134238209 -371195905 63 0 4129279 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal{mso-style-unhide:no;mso-style-qformat:yes;mso-style-parent:"";margin:0cm;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-fareast-font-family:"Arial Unicode MS";border:none;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA;}p.Default, li.Default, div.Default{mso-style-name:Default;mso-style-unhide:no;mso-style-parent:"";margin-top:8.0pt;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:0cm;line-height:120%;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";mso-fareast-font-family:"Helvetica Neue";mso-bidi-font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:black;border:none;mso-style-textoutline-type:none;mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-dpiwidth:0pt;mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-linecap:flat;mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-join:bevel;mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-pctmiterlimit:0%;mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-dash:solid;mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-align:center;mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-compound:simple;}.MsoChpDefault{mso-style-type:export-only;mso-default-props:yes;font-size:10.0pt;mso-ansi-font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:"Arial Unicode MS";border:none;}.MsoPapDefault{mso-style-type:export-only;}div.WordSection1{page:WordSection1;}
In their adaptations of Hamlet, the two Chinese films, The Banquet and Prince of the Himalayas, present the protagonists' dilemma from a very different light and emphasizes the role of non-action in ...their exploration of self-worth and the objective truth. As a popular Taoist practice, wu wei, as prince Wu Luan clearly shows, allows one to achieve integration with primordial nature. In politics, it helps one govern in the most natural and unselfconscious manner. For the Tibetan prince, Lhamoklodan, the Buddhist meditation is key to attaining the truth. This deliberate non-action helps the prince to discover his lineage and reach spiritual awakening. Neither of the films gives non-action an unqualified endorsement, however. An uncritical observance of wu wei leaves one vulnerable in the political world; for Buddhism, violence is sometimes justified, insofar as it helps a would-be wrong-doer avoid the accumulation of further negative karma.
This paper is rooted in my investigation of the artistic processes and practices of artists with disabilities through field observations at Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, California. Through ...this investigation, I develop the concept of a pedagogy of waiting, which allows for a consideration of embodied differences. This pedagogy of waiting is conceptualized by and with 1) the everyday artistic processes and practices of artists at Creative Growth; 2) my positionality of being a Chinese art educator and researcher in an art studio, Creative Growth, in the United States; and 3) my conceptual and theoretical exploration with philosophers and disability studies scholars. Among the artists who informed the pedagogy of waiting is Latefa Noorzai, a native Farsi speaker and immigrant to the United States. The temporalities demonstrated through Latefa’s art practice and the pedagogical practice at Creative Growth challenge the normative temporalities in art learning and art making. The pedagogy of waiting is both informed by people with disabilities and as an alternative to able-bodied and able-minded pedagogies.
Beginning with a discussion of adaptations of François Jullien’s understanding of ‘potential born of disposition’ and ‘silent transformation’ in two recent analyses of capitalist contemporaneity (by ...Bennett and Dufourmantelle), this essay argues that as a philosophical tool, ‘China’ bears within it a rich and underanalysed genealogy that reframes critical theory’s approach to nature and its objects in a new geopolitical context. The remainder of the essay then unpacks the intellectual history and textual philology of one earlier and pivotal moment of critical theory’s entanglement with ‘China’: Walter Benjamin’s transformation of ‘non-action’, or wu wei, into a complex for thinking through possibilities of what he might, with Jullien, call not-being in debt to Being.
(Schisandraceae) is a medicinal plant widely used in traditional Chinese medicine. Under the name Wu Wei Zi, it is used to treat many diseases, especially as a stimulant, adaptogen, and ...hepatoprotective. Dibenzocyclooctadiene lignans are the main compounds responsible for the effect of
. As a part of ongoing studies to identify and evaluate anti-inflammatory natural compounds, we isolated a series of dibenzocyclooctadiene lignans and evaluated their biological activity. Furthermore, we isolated new sesquiterpene 7,7-dimethyl-11-methylidenespiro5.5undec-2-ene-3-carboxylic acid. Selected dibenzocyclooctadiene lignans were tested to assess their anti-inflammatory potential in LPS-stimulated monocytes by monitoring their anti-NF-κB activity, antioxidant activity in CAA assay, and their effect on gap junction intercellular communication in WB-
cells. Some
lignans showed antioxidant activity in CAA mode and affected the gap junction intercellular communication. The anti-inflammatory activity was proven for (-)-gomisin N, (+)-γ-schisandrin, rubrisandrin A, and (-)-gomisin J.
There is increasing interest and research into non-Western perspectives on wellbeing and ways of flourishing in different cultures. This study builds on this by investigating the Taoist concept of ...wu-wei, translated from Chinese as ‘non-action’ or ‘actionless action’, through the experiences of ten runners (age 40 to 63; four identifying as male and six as female) who run for charitable causes and how this contributes towards their wellbeing. Semi-structured interviews were conducted then transcribed, and four core themes and eight subthemes identified using thematic analysis. Analysis showed that the four core themes for participants to achieve wu-wei were experience of suffering or adversity, being fully focused on the present (with an element of mindfulness), having a shared experience with the running community, and adopting a broader perspective on life (including in meaning or purpose). By accepting their experiences of suffering or adversity and pursuing pro-social activities, such as running for charitable causes, participants used mindfulness through running to develop a broader perspective on life and attain wellbeing. The findings indicate that the Taoist concept of wu-wei can be applied in positive psychology when manifested as a key facet of running as a positive psychology intervention suggesting its relevance to the wellbeing literature. This study highlights the importance of embracing cross-cultural approaches to wellbeing by looking at non-Western perspectives and their application to the global population.
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