SOAS China Institute Monday Forums
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Monday 15 January 2018, 5pm-6.30pm
China: Religion, Faith, and Politics
Speaker: Ian Johnson
Room G3, Main college building, SOAS, University of London, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H OXG
Abstract
Following a century of violent anti-religious campaigns, China is now filled with new temples, churches and mosques--as well as cults, sects and politicians trying to harness religion for their own ends. Driving this explosion of faith is uncertainty--over what it means to be Chinese, and how to live an ethical life in a country that discarded traditional morality a century ago and is still searching for new guideposts.
Ian Johnson has spent six years researching this movement through five case studies: an underground Protestant church in Chengdu, Buddhist pilgrims in Beijing, Daoist priests in rural Shanxi, meditation groups in caves in the country's south, and propagandists fashioning the government's remarkable embrace of traditional values. Along the way, he learned esoteric meditation techniques, befriended a nonagenarian Confucian sage, reread the Bible, and joined a martial arts pilgrimage group.
These experiences are distilled into a cycle of festivals, births, deaths, detentions, and struggle--a great awakening of faith that is shaping the soul of the world's newest superpower.
Biography
Ian Johnson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer focusing on society, religion, and history. He works out of Beijing, where he also teaches University classes on Chinese religion and society.
Johnson has spent twenty years in China, first as a student, later as a newspaper correspondent, and now as a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and The New York Times. He also serves as an advising editor for the Journal of Asian Studies, and advises the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies, and New York University's Center for Religion and Media.
Further details:
https://www.soas.ac.uk/china-institute/events/seminars/15jan2018-china-religion-faith-and-politics.html
Forthcoming forums:
29 January 2018
Eating and Drinking with Strangers: Hospitality in Rural North China
Dr Mikkel Bunkenborg (University of Copenhagen)
05 February 2018
Educating Nurhaci's descendants: Manchu language training in Qing China
Dr Lars Laamann (SOAS, University of London)
26 February 2018
Reading as creative and social practice: Popular entertainment literature during the Cultural Revolution
Dr Lena Henningsen (University of Freiburg)
08 March 2018
New Sources on Late Imperial Religion: Revelation, Morality and Salvation
Prof. Vincent Goossaert (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes)
12 March 2018
"China Watching" during the GPCR
John Gittings (SOAS, University of London)
30 April 2018
Socialist Feeling
Prof. Stephanie Hemelryk Donald (University of Lincoln & UNSW)
SCI Monday Forums: https://www.soas.ac.uk/china-institute/events/seminars/
Kind regards,
Li-Sa Whittington
Executive Officer, SOAS China Institute
SOAS, University of London
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG
Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4823 Email: [log in to unmask]
Web: www.soas.ac.uk/china-institute/
Office Hours: Monday, Wednesday and Thursday (0930-1600)
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