AAR> Daoist Studies Sessions at #SBLAAR18 (including a fair amount of Buddhism)

A. Charles Muller Discussion

Dear colleagues and friends,

The Daoist Studies Unit proudly announces the following panels at this year’s American Academy of Religion conference in Denver from November 17th to 20th.

Make sure to mark these exciting panels in your calendar. We hope to see you in Denver. 

Best regards,

Elena Vallussi and Jessey Choo

 

A17-111 

Co-sponsors with Confucian Traditions Unit

Scathing Screeds: Polemics as a Means of Defining One's Religion in Imperial China
Pauline Lee, Saint Louis University, Presiding

Saturday - 9:00 AM-11:30 AM
Convention Center-301 (Street Level)


Since the Warring States period (481-222 BCE), Chinese thinkers have maintained a tradition of writing polemics against their intellectual rivals. During the imperial period (221 BCE to 1911 CE), religious leaders often employed polemical writings to attack other rival traditions. The intended audience of these polemical works was usually the court. Through these treatises, religious leaders hoped to persuade the emperor to exclusively patronize their own tradition, while excluding their rivals. Past works on medieval Chinese polemical literature tell us much about how literati either attacked other religions, or defended their own. Our panel, though, approaches this literature from a different angle: we look at how polemicists used their criticisms of other religions to define their own tradition. In other words, we employ these works of religious propaganda as windows into the beliefs and self-imaginings of their authors.

David Bratt, University of California, Berkeley
That Practice of Theirs, This Way of Ours: Polemic as Self-Definition in The Scripture of Great Peace

Keith Knapp, The Citadel
Why Buddhism Stinks: Defining Confucianism through Polemical Attacks

Thomas Jülch, Ghent University
Comparative Perspectives on Anti-Daoist Writing in Medieval Chinese Buddhist Apologetic Literature

Albert Welter, University of Arizona
A Buddhist Ru at Song Emperor Taizong’s Court: Zanning’s Arguments for the Inclusion of Buddhism in Chinese Wen (Literary Culture)

Mark Halperin, University of California, Davis
Parting of the Ways: A Twelfth-Century Confucian Looks at the Taoists

 

A17-312
Stones along the Path: Explorations in Daoist Epigraphy

Gil Raz, Dartmouth College, Presiding

Saturday - 3:30 PM-5:00 PM
Convention Center-505 (Street Level)


Research into the history of Daoism remains dominated by textual studies, focusing on the Daoist Canon and other textual materials. Our understanding of the history of Daoism, as a result, continues to be dominated by the perspectives of these texts that are often prescriptive. Subsequently, many studies of Daoism have neglected the actual lives of Daoist communities and individuals. The papers in this panel attempt to move beyond canonical texts in order to shed light on the lived reality of religious life. The presenters delve into the vast archaeological, epigraphic, and material resources that have been largely been neglected in previous scholarship. Using these rich and varied sources, the presenters on this panel offer four cases of Daoist epigraphic sources that reveal new insights, new methodologies and approaches to explore ways in which Daoists lived and died.

Beverley Zhang, Arizona State University
Beyond Death: The Daoist Epitaph of Xue Yuanqing
薛遠卿 (d. 646)


Huaiyu Chen, Arizona State University
Buddhist and Daoist Stone Lanterns in Tang China: A Comparative Perspective


Jonathan Pettit, University of Hawaii
Carving Out a Dao: Epigraphy and Temple Construction in Medieval Daoism


Jennifer Bussio, Brigham Young University
What Makes a Patriarch? An Examination of the Hagiography of the Twelfth Zhen Dadao Patriarch, Zhang Qingzhi
張清志 (d.1327/28)

 

A17-411
Co-sponsors with Indian and Chinese Religions Compared Unit, Tantric Studies Unit, Yoga in Theory and Practice Unit, and Yogācāra Studies Unit
Yoga in India and China
Dan Lusthaus, Harvard University, Presiding


Saturday - 5:30 PM-7:00 PM
Hyatt Regency-Centennial G (Third Level)


The goal of this session is to begin an informed exchanged of information between scholars working on Indian yogic traditions and those working on comparable practices in China. The term “yoga” is intended in a broad sense, to include bodily disciplines, hygienic regimens, inner alchemy, breathing techniques, body maps, pursuit of physical immortality, etc. Topics to be covered include the classical yoga of Patañjali, the early Indian Buddhist Yogācāra tradition, bodily cultivation in the Daoist canon, and the origins of modern postural yoga. The papers will be followed by a discussion opening up to comparative reflection.

Gerald J. Larson, University of California, Santa Barbara
The Unique "Dualism" of Classical Yoga Theory and Its Equally Unique Notion of the Pluralizing (or Quantizing) of Consciousness


Karen O'Brien-Kop, SOAS University of London
The "Other" Yogaśāstra: Reconfiguring the Category of Classical Yoga


Dominic Steavu-Balint, University of California, Santa Barbara
Brahmano-Daoist European Yoga? Tracing the Peculiarly Global History of a Medieval Chinese Bodily Discipline

 

A18-106
Co-sponsors with Chinese Religions Unit
Vision and Visualization in Art, Alchemy, and Ritual: Exploring Daoist Modes of Perception
James A. Benn, McMaster University, Presiding


Sunday - 9:00 AM-11:30 AM
Convention Center-111 (Street Level)


This panel is about ways of seeing in Daoism. As a response to recent studies in the field of Daoist visual culture that have focused primarily on material objects, its panelists collectively argue that we stand to gain from a shift towards Daoist modes of perception, that is, the range of ways Daoists have traditionally engaged with the world. Aside from shedding light on how we understand visual materials, a move towards perception furthermore allows us to better grasp the immaterial reality of the Daoist adept. It is precisely this space between material (external) and immaterial (internal) worlds in Daoism that this panel examines. Through an exploration of materials from the middle and late imperial periods, including alchemical body charts, landscape paintings, liturgical manuals, and visual representations of the Daoist pantheon, the panel shows how to reconstruct traditional ways of seeing, and highlights the analytical benefits of this approach.

Anna Hennessey, Institute of Buddhist Studies
Alchemical Representation and the Externalization of Internal Alchemy in Song Daoism


Mark Meulenbeld, Hong Kong Polytechnic University
The Interiority of Landscape: Images towards Transcendence in 17th Century Chinese Painting


Aaron Reich, Saint Joseph's University
Summoning the Troupes of Generals: The Interwoven Worlds of Late Imperial Thunder Ritual


Noelle Giuffrida, Case Western Reserve University
Performing Zhenwu: Material and Immaterial Dimensions of Daoist Experience in an Early Ming Album


Responding:
Natasha Heller, University of Virginia

 

A19-313
Excavated Manuscripts and Religious Thought in Ancient China
Tobias Zuern
, Washington University, St. Louis, Presiding

Monday - 3:30 PM-5:00 PM
Hyatt Regency-Capitol 5 (Fourth Level)

Up until the end of the twentieth century, the scholarly view of Warring States China (475-221 BCE) was filtered through the lens of the Han dynasty (206 BCE- 9 CE) representation of this tumultuous period in Chinese history. However, in the last twenty-five years or so, several manuscripts discovered in ancient Chinese tombs have shed new light on how Warring States thinkers viewed the world. In this panel, we examine texts from collections such as the Guodian Chu bamboo slips, the Shanghai Museum bamboo slips, and the Tsinghua University bamboo slips. Examining these texts allows us an unprecedented view of how religious beliefs influenced and in turn were influenced by societal, political, and cultural changes in early China. In summary, this panel aims to discuss Warring States religious ideas and how these evolved into their Han Dynasty counterparts in light of recently discovered excavated manuscripts.


Roy Porat, Harvard University
Traces of Darkness in the Daoist Tradition: The Case of the Guodian Laozi


Adrien Stoloff, Brown University
The Roots of Negative Terminology in Classical Daoism: The Prioritization of Wu 
in the Hengxian and the Guodian Laozi


Samuel Goldstein, Brown University
Yin Gao Zong Wen Yu San Shou: A Case Study for the Problem of Classification of Warring States Excavated Texts


Responding:
Kuan-yun Huang, City University of Hong Kong

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