Fall 2006

ANS 340 • 6-Religion and Rebellion in Modern East Asia-W

Course Description

This reading and discussion based course will focus on religious movements in the 19th and 20th centuries that challenged state and/or society in China, Japan and Korea. We will examine both specific religious movements and general trends, such as modern millenarianism, shamanism and ascetic practice. We will focus on critical analytical themes for each of the movements, including pre-existing indigenous understandings of the intersection of religion and politics, motivations of adherents, new movements' roots in established institutions and orthodox practices, state repression of new religious movements, relationships between the emergence of new religions and imperialism/colonialism, and the status of religious minorities. We will read a wide variety of primary and secondary source materials including religious texts, interviews, memoirs and autobiography, newspapers and magazines, and theo-political tracts.

Grading Policy

Class attendance and participation 35% Research Paper Related Presentation and Assignments 20% Final Research Paper 45%

Texts

Spence, Jonathan. God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan Ooms, Emily Grozos. Women and Millenarian Protest in Meiji Japan: Deguchi Nao and Omotokyo Cohen, Paul. History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience and Myth Gyatso, Tenzin (The Fourteenth Dalai Lama.) My Land and My People: The Original Autobiography of His Holiness The Dalai Lama of Tibet Reader, Ian, Religious Violence in Contemporary Japan: The Case of Aum Shinrikyo Course reader

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