HIST 6931 - [Vitality and Power in China]

Spring. 4 credits.

Next offered 2014-2015. Co-meets with ASIAN 4429/BSOC 4911/CAPS 4931/HIST 4931/RELST 4931/STS 4911.

T. J. Hinrichs.

Chinese discourses have long linked the circulation of cosmic energies, political power, and bodily vitalities. In these models political order, spiritual cultivation, and health are achieved and enhanced through harmonizing these flows across the levels of Heaven-and-Earth, state, and humankind. It is when these movements are blocked or out of synchrony that we find disordered climates, societies, and illness. In this course, we will examine the historical emergence and development of these models of politically resonant persons and bodily centered polities, reading across primary texts in translation from these otherwise often separated fields. For alternate frameworks of analysis as well as for comparative perspectives, we will also examine theories of power and embodiment from other cultures, including recent scholarship in anthropology and critical theory.