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Many Faces of Mulian
The story of Mulian rescuing his mother’s soul from hell has evolved as a narrative over several centuries in China, especially in the baojuan (precious scrolls) genre. This genre, a prosimetric narrative in vernacular language, first appeared around the fourteenth century and endures as a living tradition. In exploring the evolution of the Mulian story, Rostislav Berezkin illuminates changes in the literary and religious characteristics of the genre. He also examines material from other forms of Chinese literature and from modern performances of baojuan, tracing their transformation from tools of Buddhist proselytizing to sectarian propaganda to folk ritualized storytelling. Ultimately, he reveals the special features of baojuan as a type of performance literature that had its foundations in multiple literary traditions.
Religion in China and Its Modern Fate
Paul R. Katz has composed a fascinating account of the fate of Chinese religions during the modern era by assessing mutations of communal religious life, innovative forms of religious publishing, and the religious practices of modern Chinese elites traditionally considered models of secular modernity. The author offers a rare look at the monumental changes that have affected modern Chinese religions, from the first all-out assault on them during the 1898 reforms to the eve of the Communist takeover of the mainland. Tracing the ways in which the vast religious resources (texts, expertise, symbolic capital, material wealth, etc.) that circulated throughout Chinese society during the late imperial period were reconfigured during this later era, Katz sheds new light on modern Chinese religious life and the understudied nexus between religion and modern political culture. Religion in China and Its Modern Fate will appeal to a broad audience of religionists and historians of modern China.
The Immortal Maiden Equal to Heaven and Other Precious Scrolls from Western Gansu
Following thirty years of suppression as feudal superstition, Chinese popular religion has made a spectacular comeback since the 1980s. One aspect of this phenomenon has been the return of precious scrolls as ritual and entertainment in several regions of China, most notably the economically advanced Wu-dialect area and the poor countryside of Western Gansu. As these texts were performed once again, they have been collected, edited, and published as part of China's Intangible Cultural Heritage. These materials greatly broaden and deepen our knowledge of popular literature, ritual, and religion and open a new window into the values and customs of local society. The texts also offer unique ins...
The Prehistory of the Silk Road
In ancient and medieval times, the Silk Road was of great importance to the transport of peoples, goods, and ideas between the East and the West. A vast network of trade routes, it connected the diverse geographies and populations of China, the Eurasian Steppe, Central Asia, India, Western Asia, and Europe. Although its main use was for importing silk from China, traders moving in the opposite direction carried to China jewelry, glassware, and other exotic goods from the Mediterranean, jade from Khotan, and horses and furs from the nomads of the Steppe. In both directions, technology and ideologies were transmitted. The Silk Road brought together the achievements of the different peoples of ...
Religious Publishing and Print Culture in Modern China
Scholarly interest in print culture and in the study of religion in modern China has increased in recent years, propelled by maturing approaches to the study of cultural history and by a growing recognition that both were important elements of China's recent past. The influence of China in the contemporary world continues to expand, and with it has come an urgent need to understand the processes by which its modern history was made. Issues of religious freedom and of religion's influence on the public sphere continue to be contentious but important subjects of scholarly work, and the role of print and textual media has not dimmed with the advent of electronic communication. This book, Religi...
The Columbia Anthology of Chinese Folk and Popular Literature
In The Columbia Anthology of Chinese Folk and Popular Literature, two of the world's leading sinologists, Victor H. Mair and Mark Bender, capture the breadth of China's oral-based literary heritage. This collection presents works drawn from the large body of oral literature of many of China's recognized ethnic groups--including the Han, Yi, Miao, Tu, Daur, Tibetan, Uyghur, and Kazak--and the selections include a variety of genres. Chapters cover folk stories, songs, rituals, and drama, as well as epic traditions and professional storytelling, and feature both familiar and little-known texts, from the story of the woman warrior Hua Mulan to the love stories of urban storytellers in the Yangtz...
Heavenly Masters
The origins of modern Daoism can be traced to the Church of the Heavenly Master (Tianshidao), reputedly established by the formidable Zhang Daoling. In 142 CE, according to Daoist tradition, Zhang was visited by the Lord on High, who named him his vicar on Earth with the title Heavenly Master. The dispensation articulated an eschatological vision of saving initiates—the pure, those destined to become immortals—by enforcing a strict moral code. Under evolving forms, Tianshidao has remained central to Chinese society, and Daoist priests have upheld their spiritual allegiance to Zhang, their now divinized founder. This book tells the story of the longue durée evolution of the Heavenly Mast...
Literature for Little Bodhisattvas
In Literature for Little Bodhisattvas, Natasha Heller makes two key interventions: first, she argues that picturebooks are a new genre of Buddhist writing, and second, she calls attention to an emergent family Buddhism in Taiwan that fashions children as religious subjects through shared attention with adult readers. Surveying Taiwanese Buddhism from the ground up, Heller explores the changing family dynamics that have made children into a crucial audience for Buddhist education and the home a key site for Buddhist cultivation. By taking picturebooks seriously as part of the Buddhist textual tradition, Heller demonstrates their engagement with canonical sources alongside innovations for mode...
Enchanted Revolution
"The theoretical, methodological, and comparative frameworks for the discussion of religion, gender, and revolutionary propaganda in China. It then places this discussion in the historical context of wartime Communist headquarters of Yan'an, where the Party launched its first mass campaign against superstition in 1944-45. The campaign illustrates how Mao's mass-line principle compelled propaganda workers to engage with the rural culture in order to create new meanings from old knowledge"--
Music, Mind, and Language in Chinese Poetry and Performance
"Poetry puts intent into words; singing lengthens words"--this is one of the earliest Chinese comments on artistic expression. Poetic language extends the reach of a sentiment beyond the individual, and musicality extends the reach of poetic language, not only across a room, but across geography and generations. The "extended mind thesis" (EMT) views minds as extending beyond individual nervous systems to include material and social environments. Music, Mind, and Language in Chinese Poetry and Performance: The Voice Extended offers a comprehensive overview of the interwoven histories of traditional Chinese poetry and performing arts. It employs cognitive and quantitative methods such as EMT,...
