REL 257
Gods and Demons in East Asian Religion
Last Offered Fall 2007
Division II
This course is not offered in the current catalog

Class Details

Scholars usually distinguish between three different religious traditions in East Asia: Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism (with Shinto standing in for Daoism in the Japanese case). Yet, this tradition-based approach ignores the rich landscape of East Asian religion, which encompasses another world of gods and demons only loosely connected with established institutions. Even today, at popular sites all over China, Taiwan, Japan and Korea, people offer incense to a heterogeneous collection of supernatural entities-sometimes called gods, goddesses, demons, immortals, ancestors or even buddhas. The “same” entity can be simultaneously a beneficent god to one group and a malevolent demon to another. Rather than being static, this rich tapestry is constantly in evolution, elevating historical heroes (or philosophers) to godhood, while other once popular deities are demoted and dismissed as monsters. This course will address this stratum of “popular” religion in East Asia. Focusing on contemporary scholarship on China and Japan, we will take a multi-disciplinary approach to this material to provide a very different picture of East Asian religion as a lived tradition.
The Class: Format: seminar
Limit: 19
Expected: 19
Class#: 1389
Grading: yes pass/fail option, yes fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: active participation, class presentations, one 15-page research paper
Prerequisites: none
Enrollment Preferences: Religion and Asian Studies majors
Distributions: Division II
Attributes: ASST Interdepartmental Electives
INST East Asian Studies Electives
REL East Asian Tradition Courses

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Updated 7:31 am

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