Reading the Analects for Our Time

September 30, 2026

Erin Cline’s The Analects: A Contemporary Translation (2026) joins a new generation of translations of classics by women, including Emily Wilson’s translation of the Odyssey (2018)—the first of this epic poem by a woman. In Wilson’s review of Christopher Nolan’s recent blockbuster movie, she writes that the film “lacks many of the elements that make the poem great. It has nothing convincing to say about time, memory, history, war, or about the relationship between one warrior’s glorious return and the lives of his family, adversaries, comrades, friends, and neighbors. It lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth.”

This Berkley Forum takes Wilson’s words about the Odyssey as its starting place. Like the Odyssey, the Confucian Analects is a foundational text, towering over other texts when it comes to cultural influence. Indeed, Cline argues that it is the most influential text in human history if we measure influence by the number of people who have lived their lives according to a particular text’s teachings. What does the Analects have to say that is convincing about time, memory, history, war, ritual, or the relationship between family members, adversaries, comrades, friends, and neighbors? Where do we most clearly see its psychological, emotional, political, and ethical depth?