Daoist Literature and History: An Introduction

FAIN: FS-50351-13

University of Colorado, Boulder (Boulder, CO 80303-1058)
Terry Frederick Kleeman (Project Director: March 2013 to September 2016)

A three-week seminar at the University of Colorado, Boulder, for sixteen college and university faculty to examine the Daoist religion and its impact on Chinese civilization and society.

This three-week Summer Seminar for College Teachers focuses on the scriptures and other documents of Daoism, China's indigenous organized religion. After a general introduction to Daoism, the history of its study, and bibliographic resources, we will concentrate on the intensive reading of primary sources, providing advanced language instruction and enhancing understanding of a key element of Chinese culture. Sources will be chosen from all periods of Daoist history and from a variety of genres, including liturgies, spirit revelations, ordination documents, inspired poetry, demonologies, hagiographies, epigraphy, and sacred geographies. Our goal is to familiarize seminar participants with the wide variety of Daoist literature, and to give them the basic skills to read and evaluate Daoist documents. It is hoped that this will expand Daoism's presence in the curriculum and foster new studies of Daoism's significance to all aspects of Chinese civilization and society.