HIS 2237 - Immortals, Ancestors & Demons

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A monkey named Wukong (aka Goku in Dragon Ball and Monkey King in Forbidden Kingdom) accompanies the monk Tripitaka on a journey to retrieve Buddhist sutras from India to China. 15 He is able to lift his 17, 000-pound iron cudgel with ease and to travel 34, 000 miles in one somersault. He knows 72 transformations into various shapes of animals and objects, even a clone of himself. He even knows various spells to command wind, to divide water, to conjure vprotective circles against spider spirts, and to freeze humans. Students, using a 16th-century novel Journey to the West, explore (1) the development of popular beliefs (in immortals, oxen demons, hungry ghosts, kitchen god, silkworm goddess, goddess of mercy, spider sprits, ancestors); (2) the boundaries between the seen and unseen realms of divine worlds; (3) a changing society entwined in what have formed/become the history of China. Focusing on Chinese religiosity within its own historical contexts, we examine and explore the knowledge and categorization of “religions” in the field of Chinese studies.
McDaniel Plan: International Nonwestern; Social, Cultural, and Historical Understanding