Events

CHAIRPERSON

Dr Wu Keping, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

ABSTRACT

In historical studies of China, religion has rarely received the central attention that it deserves. Even historians who attempt to put religion center stage do not necessarily recognize its pervasive presence. They fail to see how deeply it is intertwined with such aspects of culture as society, politics, and economy, which they take to be predominantly secular. That is, in their work “religion” still remains a special category which is experienced or conceived as a separate sphere.

In this talk I argue that religious ritual is of paramount importance in that it opens up venues for relating the past to the society that has lived it. It connects objects to histories, and the epistemologies of which they give material evidence. In the particular context of Central Hunan (PRC), ritual connects the household altar to the local history that has produced it. I examine several aspects of such altars, and show how they embody narratives of local history. The method of positing ritual as a major hermeneutical tool for local history can render explicit in coherent narrative form what is otherwise only implicit in material culture, or incompletely referenced in fragmentary texts.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Mark Meulenbeld holds a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of EALL at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he teaches Chinese religion. This summer he is Visiting Senior Research Fellow at ARI. His research, based on extensive fieldwork in Hunan and Taiwan, focuses on Daoism’s importance in the fabric of Chinese society. His first book, entitled Ritual Warfare, Temple Networks, and the Birth of a Chinese Novel, 1200-1600, is currently in production at the University of Hawai’i Press (2014).

REGISTRATION

Admission is free. We would greatly appreciate if you RSVP Mr Jonathan Lee via email: jonathan.lee@nus.edu.sg