Reading Group

Spring 2007:
Approaches to Asian Religions 

Required Reading:

Daniel Pals, Eight Theories of Religion
Ivan Strenski, Thinking about Religion
Lothar Von Falkenhausen, Chinese Society in the Age of Confucius
Robert Weller, Resistance, Chaos and Control in China: Taiping Rebels, Taiwanese Ghosts, and Tiananmen.

Participating in the Reading Group may be done on two levels. First, you may audit the reading group. The minimal work for this is attending the meetings and doing the reading for all the meetings but weeks 10 and 11.  On those weeks, you are only required to read one of the articles and make
an oral presentation on the viewpoint of the author. Second, you may register for an independent study with me. If you do that, you should attend all the meetings, do oral reports on particular readings on weeks 10 and 11, and finally write a comprehensive syllabus for an undergraduate course on The Study of Religions of Asia/The Study of Religions of China, or The Study of Religion.

Week 1:

Daniel Pals, “Frazer and Tylor” in Eight Theories of Religion.

E. B. Tylor, “Religion in Primitive Culture” in Michael Lambeck, A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion ( Malden: Blackwell, 2002), pp. 21-33.

J. Samuel Preus, “Evolutionary Anthropology: Edward Burnett Tylor” in Explaining Religion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), pp. 121-156.

Week 2:

Ivan Strenski, Thinking about Religion, 1-160

Week 3:

Daniel Pals, “E. E. Evans- Pritchard” in Eight Theories of Religion

Bronislaw Malinowski, “Magic, Science and Religion,” in Magic, Science and Religion (Boston: Beacon, 1948), pp. 17-41.

Claude Lévi-Strauss, “The Sorcerer and His Magic” in Structural Anthropology. (New York: Anchor Books, 1963), pp. 161-180.

Edmund Leach, “Oysters, Smoked Salmon, and Stilton Cheese” in Claude Lévi-Strauss (New York: VIking, 1970), pp.15-32.

Week 4:

Ivan Strenski, Thinking about Religion, 161-338.

Week 5:

Timothy Fitzgerald, “Problems of the Category ‘Religion’ in Japan,” in The Ideology of Religious Studies ( New York: Oxford, 2003), pp. 159-180.

Frits Staal. “There is No Religion There,” in: Stone, Jon R. (ed.), The Craft of Religious Studies, MacMillan Press Ltd/St. Martin’s Press Inc: London and New York, 52-75.

Tomoko Masuzawa, “Buddhism as a World Religion” in The Invention of World Religions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), pp. 121-146.

Week 6:

Victor Turner, “Divination as a Phase in a Social Process” In Lessa and Voget, Reader in Comparative Religion: An Anthropological Approach, 4 th ed. ( New York: Harper & Row, 1979) , pp. 373- 376.

Omar Khayyam Moore, “Divination--A New Perspective” In Lessa and Voget, eds. Reader in Comparative Religion: An Anthropological Approach, 4 th ed. ( New York: Harper & Row, 1979), pp 376 – 379.

Meyer Fortes. “Fate in Relation to the Social Structure” in Michael Lambeck, ed. A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion. ( Malden: Blackwell, 2002), pp. 376-382.

Barbara Tedlock, “Divination as a Way of Knowing: Embodiment, Visualization, Narrative and Interpretation,” Folklore 112.2 (Oct. 2001), 189-197. JSTOR

Week 7:

Daniel Pals, “Sigmund Freud” and “Emile Durkheim” in Eight Theories of Religion

Robert N. Bellah, “Civil Religion in America” in R. Richey and D. Jones, eds. American Civil Religion (Harper Forum Books, 1974), pp. 21-44.

W. Lloyd Warner, “An American Sacred Ceremony” in R. Richey and D. Jones, eds. American Civil Religion (Harper Forum Books, 1974), pp. 89-111.

John Lechte, “Jacques Lacan” in Fifty Key Contemporary Thinkers (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 66-71.

Week 8:

Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss (trans. Halls). “Definition and Unity of the Sacrificial System” in Sacrifice: Its Nature and Function, ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964 ), pp. 9-18.

Jill Robbins. “Sacrifice” in Critical Terms for Religious Studies, Mark C. Taylor, ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 285-297.

Mary Douglas, “Land Animals: Pure and Impure” in Michael Lambeck, ed. A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion. ( Malden: Blackwell, 2002), pp. 194-209.

Richard Sorabji. “Religious Sacrifice and meat-eating” in Animal Minds and Human Morals. (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1993), pp. 170-194.

Week 9:

Daniel Pals, “Max Weber” in Eight Theories of Religion

H. H. Rowley. “The Nature of Prophecy” in Prophecy and Religion in Ancient China and Israel. ( London: University of London, 1956), pp. 1-26.

George Kennedy, “Review of Prophecy and Religion in Ancient China and Israel.” Journal of Biblical Literature 76.1 (March 1957), p. 81. JSTOR

Kidder Smith, Jr. “Zhouyi Interpretations From Accounts in the Zuozhuan,” HJAS 49.2 (Dec. 1989): 421-463. JSTOR

Week 10:

Lothar Von Falkenhausen, Chinese Society in the Age of Confucius

Week 11:
-This week you need only find and present one of the following texts:

M. S. Culbertson, from Darkness in the flowery land; or, Religious notions and popular superstitions in north China (New York: Scribner’s, 1857), pp. 189-217.

Justus Doolittle, “Fortune-Telling” in The Social Life of the Chinese ( London: S. Low, son, and Marston, 1868), pp. 574-584.

Rev. Hampden C. De Bose. “Ancestral Idolatry” and “The Confucian Sacrifices” in The Dragon, Image, and Demon; or, The three religions of China; Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, giving an account of the mythology, idolatry, and demonolatry of the Chinese. (New York: Armstrong & Son, 1887), pp. 77-88 and 115-125.

Joseph Edkins, “How Religious Ideas Spread in Ancient Times” in The Early Spread of Religious Ideas Especially in the Far East. (Oxford: Religious Tract Society, 1893), pp. 43-68.

Ann Anagnost, “Politics and Magic in Contemporary China” Modern China13.1 (Jan. 1987), pp. 40-61. JSTOR

Week 12:
-This week you need only find and present one of the following texts:

David K. Jordan, “Divination” and “Structure and Change” in Gods, ghosts, and ancestors: The folk religion of a Taiwanese village (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1972), pp. 60-86 and 172-177.

David K. Jordan and Daniel L. Overmyer, The Flying Phoenix: Aspects of Chinese sectarianism in Taiwan. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. xi-xix, 3-15, 267-288.

P. Steven Sangren. “Efficacy, Legitimacy, and the Structure of Value” in History and Magical Power in a Chiniese Community. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987), pp. 127-237.

Stephan Feuchtwang, “A Chinese Religion Exists” in An Old State in New Setting: Studies in the Social Anthropology of China in Memory of Maurice Freedman, Hugh D. R. Baker and Stephan Feuchtwang, eds. (Oxford: JASO, 1991), pp. 139-161.

James Watson, “Walking the Dragon: Visions of the Chinese Imperial State in Local Myth” in An Old State in New Setting: Studies in the Social Anthropology of China in Memory of Maurice Freedman, Hugh D. R. Baker and Stephan Feuchtwang, eds. (Oxford: JASO, 1991), pp. 162-177.

 Arthur P. Wolf, “Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors” in Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
1974), pp. 131-182.

 

Week 13:

Robert Weller, Resistance, Chaos and Control in China: Taiping Rebels, Taiwanese Ghosts, and Tiananmen