SemesterSpring Semester, 2018
DepartmentMA Program of Institute of Religious Studies, First Year MA Program of Institute of Religious Studies, Second Year
Course NameChinese Traditional Popular Culture
InstructorLIN CHING-CHIH
Credit3.0
Course TypeElective
Prerequisite
Course Objective
Course Description
Course Schedule




































































































































































Week



Date



Topic



Activity



1



3/1



Introduction and New Year



Spring Couplets, Calligraphy, Zodiac



Discovery Documentary: Chinese New Year in Taiwan



2



3/8



Annual Calendar and Festivals



Almanacs



Caltonhill, Mark. Private Prayers and Public Parades: Exploring the Religious Life of Taipei. Taipei: Department of Information, Taipei City Government, 2002. Ch. 3



Extended Reading:



Naquin, Susan. “The Annual Festivals of Peking,” 民間信仰與中國文化國際研討會論文集 [Proceedings of Conference on Popular Religion and Chinese Culture], 853-881.



3



3/15



Rites of Passage: Birth, Coming of Age, Wedding, Death



Film & Documentary



Hsueh, Regina, and Wen-Bin Wu. Chinese Traditions and Festivals." Albuquerque, NM: BIGI International USA Inc., 1998. Ch. 3, 11, 13.



Caltonhill, Mark. Private Prayers and Public Parades: Exploring the Religious Life of Taipei. Taipei: Department of Information, Taipei City Government, 2002. Ch. 2



Extended Reading:



Watson, James L. "The Structure of Chinese Funerary Rites: Elementary Forms, Ritual Sequence, and the Primacy of Performance." In Death Ritual in Late Imperial China, edited by James L. Watson and Evelyn S. Rawski, 3-19. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.



4



3/22



Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors



Film & Documentary



Clart, Philip. “Chinese Popular Religion,” in The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Chinese Religions, edited by Randall Nadeau. Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2012. Ch. 10



TAM Wai Lun, “Communal Worship and Festivals in Chinese Villages,” in Chinese Religious Life, pp. 30-49.



Extended Reading:



Wolf, Arthur. "Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors." In Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974), edited by Arthur Wolf, 131-82.



5



3/29



Ancestral Worship & Filial Piety



For Tomb-Sweeping Festival



Yao, Xinzhong, and Yanxia Zhao. "Religion in Family Contexts,” in Chinese Religion: A Contextual Approach (London: Continuum, 2010), pp. 103-122.



Ho, Puay-Peng, “Ancestral Halls: Family, Lineage, and Ritual,” in Ronald Knapp and Kai-yin Lo eds., ouhHouse, Home, Family: Living and Being Chinese, 295-324. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005.



6



4/5



No Class: Spring Break



Tomb-Sweeping Festival



7



4/12



Tea & Wine



Tea Ceremony



Hsueh, Regina, and Wen-Bin Wu. Chinese Traditions and Festivals." Albuquerque, NM: BIGI International USA Inc., 1998. Ch. 4



Wertz, Richard. “Tea Culture,” The Cultural Heritage of China: Food & Drink, http://www.ibiblio.org/chineseculture/contents/food/p-food-c03s03.html



Extended Reading:



Benn, James. Tea in China: A Religious and Cultural History. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2015.



8



4/19



Popular Operas & Music: Glove Puppetry, Ritual Opera



Baosheng Cultural Festival 保生文化祭



Johnson, David G. "Actions Speak Louder Than Words: The Cultural Significance of Chinese Ritual Opera." In Ritual Opera, Operatic Ritual: "Mu-Lien Rescues His Mother" in Chinese Popular Culture, edited by David G. Johnson, 1-43. Berkeley: The Chinese Popular Culture Project, 1989.



Higgins, Kathleen. “Chinese Music and the Family,” in Howard Giskin and Bettye Walsh eds., An Introduction to Chinese Culture through the Family, 107-122. Albany: SUNY Press, 2001.



9



4/26



Spirit-Medium, Religious Healing, Divination



Film & Documentary



Adam Chau, “Modalities of Doing Religion,” in Chinese Religious Life, pp.67-84.



Marshall, Alison. “Shamanism in Contemporary Taiwan,” in Chinese Religions in Contemporary Societies, edited by James Miller. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, Inc., 2006. Ch. 6



10



5/3



Architecture & Fengshui (geomancy)



Film & Documentary



Robert Weller, “Chinese Cosmology and the Environment,” in Chinese Religious Life, pp. 124-138.



Ronald Knapp and Kai-yin Lo eds., ouhHouse, Home, Family: Living and Being Chinese. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005. Ch. 1, 2, 5, 9.



11



5/10



Temple Festival



Procession of Zhongshun Temple 忠順廟遶境



Flath, James. "Temple Fairs and the Republican State in North China." Twentieth Century China 30, no. 1 (2004): 39-63.



Overmyer, Daniel L. 2002 “Gods, Saints, Shamans and Processions: Comparative Religion from the Bottom Up.” Criterion 41.3: 2-9, 34.



Extended Reading:



Johnson, David G. Spectacle and Sacrifice: The Ritual Foundations of Village Life in North China.  Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2009.



12



5/17



Crafts: Papercut, Needlework…



 



Caltonhill, Mark. Private Prayers and Public Parades: Exploring the Religious Life of Taipei. Taipei: Department of Information, Taipei City Government, 2002. Ch. 4



Tsien, Tsuen-hsuin. “Chinese Invention of Paper and Printing,” in Collected Writings on China’s Culture, 145-162. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 2011.



13



5/24



Nianhua (woodblock print): Symbolism & Exorcism



Nianhua Exhibition



Flath, James. "Reading the Text of the Home: Domestic Ritual Configuration through Print,” in Ronald Knapp and Kai-yin Lo eds., ouhHouse, Home, Family: Living and Being Chinese, 325-348. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005.



薄松年, Po Sung-nien, and David G. Johnson. Domesticated Deities and Auspicious Emblems: The Iconography of Everyday Life in Village China. Publications of the Chinese Popular Culture Project. Edited by David G. Johnson Vol. 2, Berkeley: Chinese Popular Culture Project, UC Berkeley, 1992.



14



5/31



Children’s Toys and Education



Toys & Games



Shi Zhongwen and Chen Qiaosheng. China’s Culture. Singapore: Cengage Learning Asia Pte Ltd., 2011. Ch. 8.



TBA



15



6/7



Food & Dragon Boat Festival: Rice Dumpling, Demon-Catcher Zhong Kui 鍾馗



Rice Dumpling



Hsueh, Regina, and Wen-Bin Wu. Chinese Traditions and Festivals." Albuquerque, NM: BIGI International USA Inc., 1998. Ch 10.



Chang, K.C. Food in Chinese Culture: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971. Ch. 7 & 8.



16



6/14



Gender in Popular Culture: Women’s status, pornography…



 



C. Julia Huang, Elena Valussi, and David A. Palmer. “Gender and Sexuality,” in Chinese Religious Life, pp. 107-123.



Grant, Beata. “Gender,” in The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Chinese Religions, edited by Randall Nadeau. Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2012. Ch. 18.



17



6/21



Final Report



 



18



6/28



Final Report



 




Teaching Methods
Teaching Assistant

N/A


Requirement/Grading

 



Participation: In order to have a productive and enjoyable discussion, active participation is absolutely crucial. You will hopefully learn more from each other than from me. Towards this end, in addition to doing the readings, everyone should come to the section with questions and comments in mind either about the lecture or readings.



Also, at the beginning of each section, I will ask for two students to summarize the key concepts they learned from the last week's class. The schedule will be assigned in the first week, so you can prepare ahead of time. Summaries should be no longer than 5 minutes.



Attendance: Discussants are expected to attend the class for which they are enrolled punctually every week. This means arriving no later than 10 minutes after the scheduled start time. Students who are more than 20 minutes late will have half of that day's attendance points deducted. Students needing special accommodation due to a medical condition or an unavoidable absence should speak to me privately in a timely fashion, preferably one or two weeks prior. 



Readings: Students are expected to have the week's readings  done by the time of the class.



Assignments: Ten brief (450-word) responses to the assigned readings throughout the term. Please send email to me by Wednesday 14:00 pm . In addition, discussants should come to every class with at least one question in mind regarding the reading and/or the week's topic. I will occasionally call on discussants to share their queries with the rest of the class.



Plagiarism Policy: All assignments you turn in as your own must indeed be your own intellectual and creative work. If you use someone else’s writing or ideas, you must acknowledge your source and credit the source with the appropriate citation. If you are not sure how to cite a source correctly, please ask me about it. It is an essential skill.



You are required to READ these guidelines before writing assignments:



H. Ramsey Fowler, “Avoiding Plagiarism,” http://www.claremontmckenna.edu/registrar/acpolicy/2010-2011/Plagiarism.php



“Using Sources,” http://www.hamilton.edu/writing/sources.html



Grading Policy



Attendance: ………………………………………………………………15%



Response Papers: ……………………………………………….........40%



Class Participation: ……………………………………………………15% 



Oral Presentations (Summarization): …………………………30%



 



Grade Disputes:



You may dispute grades by writing out clearly each item you wish to dispute from your test or paper. Please submit it prior to meeting with me, so I can review the dispute and consider its merits carefully. Please be aware that the revised grade may be lower or higher than the disputed grade.


Textbook & Reference

Reference



Caltonhill, Mark. Private Prayers and Public Parades: Exploring the Religious Life of Taipei. Taipei: Department of Information, Taipei City Government, 2002.



Giskin, Howard and Bettye Walsh eds. An Introduction to Chinese Culture through the Family. Albany: SUNY Press, 2001.



Hsueh, Regina, and Wen-Bin Wu. Chinese Traditions and Festivals." Albuquerque, NM: BIGI International USA Inc., 1998.



Knapp, Ronald and Kai-yin Lo eds. ouhHouse, Home, Family: Living and Being Chinese. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005.



Lopez, Donald S., Jr. Religions of China in Practice. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.



Nadeau, Randall. The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Chinese Religions, edited by Randall Nadeau. Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2012.



Palmer, David A., Glenn Shive, and Philip L. Wickeri, eds. Chinese Religious Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.



Shi Zhongwen and Cheng Qiaosheng. China’s Culture. Singapore: Cengage Learning Asia Pte Ltd., 2011.



Yao, Xinzhong, and Yanxia Zhao. Chinese Religion: A Contextual Approach. London: Continuum, 2010.



 


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