For those who missed AAS this year, or went to one of the other amazing sounding panels on Saturday morning that were scheduled at the same time as ours, here's a recording of my paper: Paper abstract: In Liu Xiang baojuan, a popular Qing religious performance text, when exemplary protagonist Liu Xiangnü is likened to…Read more Embodying Guanyin, Embodying yaojing
Chinese religion
The Complete Work In Search of the Origins of the Deities of the Three Schools《三教源流搜神大全》
Quickly, because I really should be writing. Thanks to following Shuge Library (@shugeorg) on Twitter, a group that hosts and shares high quality scans of Chinese works in the public domain, The Complete Work In Search of the Origins of the Deities of the Three Schools《三教源流搜神大全》came to my attention a few months ago. With over 120…Read more The Complete Work In Search of the Origins of the Deities of the Three Schools《三教源流搜神大全》
Audio recording of my paper presentation from the Association for Asian Studies Conference 2015
Click here for the paper abstract. Click here for the full panel abstract. For the sake of turning this into a movie for upload to Youtube, I included some of the images shown during my presentation. They aren't cued to the talk, however, so you needn't worry about following along. All images are also located…Read more Audio recording of my paper presentation from the Association for Asian Studies Conference 2015
Ten Thousand Treasures of 1895
Printed in 1895, the Newly Expanded Druggist's Ten Thousand Treasures Encyclopedia (新增懸壺萬寶全書) contains far more than medical advice. Even if you can't read a word of Chinese, the charming illustrations alone lead me to recommend that you take a couple minutes to browse through the work anyway. There's a lot more going on in it…Read more Ten Thousand Treasures of 1895
Maiden Huang 黃寶姑 (3)
(1: Tainan local women, Taiwan local religion) (2: Mother Gu Temple 辜婦媽廟) This post has been a very long time in coming because Huang Baogu's story is so rich with issues to discuss that it keeps threatening to turn itself into an article or a book chapter. Which, in fact, it may end up becoming…Read more Maiden Huang 黃寶姑 (3)
Contextualizing heterodox sects in China
Has anyone else been following this story? NY Times: 5 Sect Members Go on Trial in Killing at McDonald’s in China I first heard about this sect, Eastern Lightning or the Church of Almighty God, when I was in Taiwan last year. Since this murder in May earlier this year, they have been getting far…Read more Contextualizing heterodox sects in China
Lord of Thunder, Mother of Lightning
Maybe I've been working with low cost 19th century woodblock editions of books for too long, but the truth is that I love their illustrations, probably much more than virtuoso paintings from the same era. Here, again from the Illustrated Stories of Twenty Four Filial Women , 1872 edition, are the Lord of Thunder (雷公)…Read more Lord of Thunder, Mother of Lightning
Filial modern women buy our towels!
I've included pictures from Yu Zhi's Illustrated Stories of Twenty Four Filial Women here before. Those illustrations come from the 1872 woodblock print edition, available via Google Books*. The University of Chicago library also has two editions of the text, with illustrations purportedly redrawn by none other than Wu Youru, the famous Shanghai lithographic print…Read more Filial modern women buy our towels!
Tainan local women, Taiwan local religion (1)
One of wonders of Tainan is how no matter what alley you walk down, you'll run into a temple. One day, I cut down an alley about a block away from the City God Temple and came across a mysterious (to me) little temple. Dedicated to Gu Fuma (辜婦媽) - Mother Gu, statues of three…Read more Tainan local women, Taiwan local religion (1)
Divinity and Femininity
Last week, I received word from my department that a course I proposed, called "Divinity and Femininity: Women’s Religious Lives in Pre-modern China" has been accepted and I get to teach it next year. This is particularly exciting news! The course abstract: This course focuses on the religious lives of women in pre-modern China, beginning…Read more Divinity and Femininity
Far From Formosa 