HIST 2209 - [Daoist Traditions]

(crosslisted) ASIAN 2289, CAPS 2209, RELST 2209
(GHB) (HA-AS, ALC-AS, HST-AS)

Spring. Not offered: 2021-2022. Next offered: 2022-2023. 4 credits. Letter grades only.

T. Hinrichs.

In this course we will examine the modes of philosophical and spiritual inquiry, varieties of spiritual/bodily cultivation and practice, and religious organizations and movements in China that we know as Daoist (or “Taoist”). We will examine the ways in which Daoism was used variously to contest or legitimate imperial political power, and how the procedures and ideologies of the imperial state in turn informed Daoist theory and practice. Throughout, we will examine the ways in which standard modern western dichotomies, such as sacred/secular, spiritual/physical, and mind/body, break down when we try to apply them to the study of Daoism. Course will focus on the period from the fourth century B.C.E. to the thirteenth century C.E. (HPE, HAN)