Religion and the Body in China (316-0-20)
Instructors
Kevin Delaney Buckelew
Meeting Info
Parkes Hall 215: Mon, Wed 3:30PM - 4:50PM
Overview of class
The fragility of the human body, its susceptibility to illness and death, provoked a wide array of responses among religious practitioners in pre-modern China. Some pursued supernatural longevity and even immortality through various regimes of self-cultivation. Others, by contrast, renounced the body in part or whole through dramatic acts of self-immolation. Even in death, however, many aspired to rebirth in heavenly realms where bodies do not grow old and die, but rather live forever in bliss. This course examines these various attempts to overcome death in Chinese religion—including Buddhism, Daoism, and traditions that fall between these large categories—seeking to understand how the mortality of the body was used to authorize particular modes of embodied living. In the process, we will explore how these modes of religious life shaped attitudes toward food, medicine, gender, sexuality, and family.
Counts towards Religion, Health and Medicine (RHM) and Religion, Sexuality and Gender (RSG) major concentrations.
The course counts towards Religion, Health and Medicine (RHM) and Religion, Sexuality and Gender (RSG) religious studies major concentrations.
Learning Objectives
- Acquire familiarity with a diverse cross-section of Chinese religious traditions through thematic focus on the body.
- Gain critical distance from Western presuppositions about the body by exploring other ways of understanding bodies and embodiment.
- Develop methods for analyzing primary sources, as well as for engaging with secondary scholarship.
- Build skill in critically and constructively analyzing complex subjects through reading, writing, discussing, undertaking research, and formulating original arguments
Teaching Method
Class Materials (Required)
Readings will be uploaded to Canvas as PDFs
Class Attributes
Advanced Expression
Ethical and Evaluative Thinking Foundational Disci
Ethics & Values Distro Area