Graduate

This course will explore the processes that led to the present situation of Japanese religions both within and outside of Japan. It focuses on the encounter and exchanges between Japanese and non-Japanese actors in order to question overly simplified models of globalization and modernization from the point of view of a global history of religions. We will first consider the formation of the concept of “religion” itself in the second half of the nineteenth century in both Europe and Japan. Building on these considerations, we will consider a selection of  primary sources to trace the main developments of Japanese religious traditions and institutions into the present. Particular attention will be paid to both the inculturation of “foreign” religious traditions in Japan and the spread of “Japanese” religious traditions outside of Japan. If possible, the course will also incorporate field trips to Japanese religious groups in the Chicago area.

The goal of this course is to read and explore primary sources (in classical Chinese) in Daoist philosophical thought written after the founding documents of the classical period (i.e., the Daodejing and Zhuangzi). Texts to be read will most likely be selected from such sources as the Liezi 列子，the Yinfujing 陰符經，and the Guanyinzi 關尹子 （文始真經).

Philosophical activity across cultures and times has been closely associated with the management of affective states. One common goal is to minimize negative emotions by changing how events are interpreted and appraised. This course will focus on three strategies that appear across different traditions. The first argues that events are outside of our control, in some cases appealing to fate but in other cases appealing to chance. The second strategy is a skeptical approach that attacks our ability to judge any event as bad or good. The third strategy undermines the ontological status of the kinds of things we become attached to, either by rejecting the ultimate reality of individual substances or arguing that diverse things form a single whole. All of these strategies appear prominently in the classical Chinese text the Zhuangzi. The core of this course will consist of a close reading of parts of the Zhuangzi, considering these strategies as they intersect with and shed light on its various philosophies. We will also read in a comparative context. The other traditions used will be guided by student interest, but the most likely choices would be Stoicism and Epicureanism (for the first strategy), Sextus Empiricus (for the second), and arguments appearing South Asian Buddhist philosophies (for the third). Aside from better understanding the Zhuangzi, the goal of the course is to consider how similar strategies function in significantly different cultural contexts.

A distinctive feature of Tibetan religion is its tradition of ‘Treasure discovery’ (gter ma), in which prophesied individuals reveal hidden treasures of sacred texts, sacred objects, and sundry other items, concealed in the landscape, the elements, or even the mind. Much of Tibet’s most influential religious literature is revealed in this way, so the Treasure traditions have attracted considerable academic interest. Why and how did this unique tradition arise? Early scholars tried to explain it predominantly as a device for religious innovation that drew on the pre-Buddhist burial cults of the ancient emperors, but neither of these propositions now remain entirely tenable. By contrast, many more salient features have so far remained under explored: gter ma’s dense intersections with the cosmologies of Tibet's non-elite indigenous ‘nameless’ religion; its cultural interconnectedness with the contemporaneous textual revelatory traditions of the non-dual Śaivism of Kashmir; the efforts of early gter ma apologists to present it as a continuation of the Indian traditions of nidhi, including the nidhiśāstra materials shared by Śaiva and Buddhist tantrists in India; the widespread adaptation of Mahāyāna narrative tropes of prophesied dharmabhāṇakas that characterised much early Tibetan tradition-building; and more. This course will present materials from a book in progress that rethinks the nature and origins of gter ma.

The 16th century Chinese iconoclast Li Zhi (Li Zhuowu) has been rightly celebrated as a pioneer of individualism, one of history’s great voices of social protest, an original mind powerfully arguing for genuine self-expression, and more. He was a Confucian official and erudite in the classics, yet in his sixties he takes the Buddhist tonsure, and late in life befriends the Jesuit Matteo Ricci. He sought refuge in a quiet monastery devoting his life to scholarship, yet invited constant scandal. His A Book to Burn “sold like hotcakes,” and attracted enough trouble that reportedly readers would surreptitiously hide their copies tucked up their sleeves, and was later banned by the state soon after his death. In this seminar, we will place Li both within the context of the history of “Confucian” thought, and within the literary, religious, and philosophical conversations of the late Ming. Using his writings as a productive case study, we will think about topics including “religion,” tradition and innovation, “spontaneity” and “authenticity,” and the relationship between “classics” and commentaries. Throughout, we will bring our discussions into comparative analysis, considering views of thinkers and traditions from other times and places. Chinese not required; for those interested, we will read select essays of Li’s in Chinese and students may choose translation as a final project.

Welcome to Buddhist Life in Pre-Modern East Asia. Like playing life simulation games The Sims andThe Game of Life, in this course you will learn about lives of Buddhist practitioners from different social backgrounds in pre-modern East Asia. Some overworlds we will cover are Dunhuang and Chang’an in Tang China, Kyoto and Nara in Kamakura Japan, the Khitan Empire and Goryeo Korea. For the final project, you will choose your virtual Buddhist, research your own expansion pack, and tell the story of their life (and death). This course is an introduction to Buddhism as a practiced religion in pre-modern East Asia, with a special focus on the experience of the practitioners. Students will take on the role to be royal patrons, cultural elites, traveling monks, or common people who did not necessarily self-identify as Buddhist. We will learn about various Buddhist practices through reading text and manuscripts, viewing Buddhist art and architecture and reconstructing rituals and religious exchanges among these places. All readings are in English and no previous knowledge of Buddhism is needed to participate.

How does our understanding of the past change when our understanding of what history is changes? This seminar examines how people in premodern China, Japan, and Korea interpreted and recorded their past prior to the twentieth century. From official histories, canonical texts and authors to iconoclastic genres and hermit scholars, we will examine the different forms that history took in different times and places while exploring the connections and similarities of different traditions of history writing. Topics to be touched upon include objectivity, morality, the role of politics, genre, narrative, and time.

Many historians have termed the rising attention to materials and materiality as a "material turn." In this course, we will explore how materials and materiality can shape and influence our understanding of history.

Japan's imperial expansion in East Asia in the late nineteenth and twentieth century have drafted influenced social, political, technological, and environmental relations between different areas in this region. In recent years, we have seen a growing number of scholarship that discusses the influences and process of Japan's imperial expansion in Asia. Besides focusing on the political and social influence of Japan's imperial domination, these scholarships also show new ways to research empire and imperialism through the lens of technology, material culture, immigration, and transnational history. With a focus on recent scholarship on Japanese imperialism and Japan's empire-building, this course will familiarize students with the current debates and discussions on this topic and facilitate students to generate their own research topic. In this course, alongside analyzing and dissecting the current scholarship and their analyses and perspectives on Japan's empire, students will have the chance to build up skills to write a research paper from analyzing primary documents to drafting annotated bibliographies, outlines, proposals, and the final paper.

This seminar will introduce students to the drama, fiction, poetry, and essays of the early Qing. Topics will include: reclusion and resistance, everyday theatricality, courtesans and gendered voice, trauma and memory, palace culture, ethnicity and the body, technologies of seeing and representation, and the economic imaginary.