Chinese Religions Seminar

Friday, February 13, 2009 12:15
Chinese Religions Seminar
The Case of a Flying Palanquin: Crowds, Complicity, and
Sincerity in Taiwanese Religious Practice
DJ Hatfield, Assistant Professor in Liberal Arts, Berklee College of Music

About the talk: Spectacular crowds are common features of Chinese religious practice. Although noisy-hot (naojiat) crowds often figure in ethnographic descriptions of Taiwan, far less analytic attention has been given to the relationship between naojiat and subjectivity. In this talk, Professor Hatfield examined naojiat as a medium in which ethical dilemmas of self-possession, sincerity, and value come into focus.

About the speaker: DJ Hatfield is Assistant Professor in Liberal Arts/Music and Society at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. His current research looks at popular culture and the experience of revisionist histories on Taiwan after martial law. He is also the author of several articles on Chinese religious practice and the forthcoming book, Taiwanese Pilgrimage to China: Ritual, Complicity, and Community (Palgrave).

Friday, May 8, 2009 12:15 pm
Chinese Religions Seminar
Condoms, Community, and Karmic Congee: Faith-based Social Service in Contemporary China
Susan McCarthy, Associate Professor of Political Science, Providence College

About the Talk: Religious resurgence in China has occurred in tandem with the rise of non-state civic associations. In this talk, Professor McCarthy explored the confluence of these trends through an examination of two faith-based organizations, a lay Buddhist charitable foundation and a Chinese Catholic NGO. Both groups offer a range of social services, such as disaster relief, AIDS counseling, poverty alleviation, old-age care, and so on. Professor McCarthy examined how religious beliefs, institutions, motivations, and community influence these groups’ charitable endeavors and promote civic engagement.

In exploring what religion can do for civil society, she also considered what civil society can do for religion. In serving the needy, faith-based charity also addresses uniquely spiritual concerns. The two groups examined are not legally considered religious sites (宗教场所). Yet they provide adherents means and venues for public, communal religious expression beyond those demarcated by the state. In doing so, they enlarge the space in which faith can be lived and expressed.

About the Speaker: Susan K. McCarthy is Associate Professor of Political Science at Providence College. She received her PhD in political science from the University of California at Berkeley. Her research explores the politics of cultural revival among Chinese minorities, ethnicity and nationalism, state-minority relations, and religion and civil society in China. She is the author of Communist Multiculturalism: Ethnic Revival in Southwest China (University of Washington, 2009).

back >>