American Academy of Religion Daoist Studies Group, November 2009
Saturday, November 7, 1:00 pm-3:30 pm
PDC-513C;
Robin Yates, McGill University, Presiding
Theme: What’s a Nice Ru Like You Doing in a Place Like This? Confucian Thought and the Putative Daoist Philosophy of the Huainanzi
In the past quarter century there has been an explosion of interest in the Huainanzi, a philosophical compendium on cosmology, government, and self-cultivation (139 BCE). Often mischaracterized as an unoriginal pastiche of Warring States thought, the Huainanzi has come to be appreciated for its unique and sophisticated intellectual synthesis. One of the most persistent issues in the attempt to understand its role in the history of ideas in China is how to classify it. Placed in the “eclectic” (zajia) category by the Han bibliographers, regarded as canonical by many in the Daoist tradition, the Huainanzi remains a classificatory enigma to even the scholars on this panel, who have just published its first complete English translation. We will examine one of the key issues in the classification of this work: how can it be considered “Daoist” if it contains a deep appreciation of the Ruist or “Confucian” tradition?
Panelists:
Judson Murray, Wright State University
John Major, New York, NY
Sarah Queen, Connecticut College
Andrew Meyer, Brooklyn College
Harold D. Roth, Brown University
Responding: Sarah Allan, Dartmouth College
Sunday, November 8, 9:00 am-11:30 am
Louis Komjathy, University of San Diego, Presiding
Theme: Seeking Daoist Self-Cultivation Lineages in Traditions of Inner Alchemy
This panel will examine various facets of inner alchemy (neidan) in relation to Daoist self-cultivation lineages in China since the eleventh century CE. It will consider specific examples of inner alchemical teachings from the last millennium to focus on three sets of relationships: 1) The specific ways that practitioners created particular repertoires of practice out of the full array of available self-cultivation practices; 2) The range of ways that adepts used the lineage model to create spiritual authority; and 3) How promoters of inner alchemy articulated their relationship to Daoism. In short, the panel will use concrete examples of inner alchemy to interrogate in what precise ways they were modes of self-cultivation, organized by lineage models and related to Daoist traditions.
Lowell Skar, University of Michigan, Dearborn
Toward a Cultural Geography of Inner Alchemy: Tracing Thirteenth Century Traditions in Fujian
Paul Crowe, Simon Fraser University
Where is Lineage in the Qingan Yingchan Zi Yulu?
Clarke Hudson, University of Virginia
Identifying Sexual–Alchemical Writings in the Ming Daoist Canon
Daniel Burton-Rose, Princeton University
"Side Doors and Inferior Arts": Inner Alchemical Denunciations of Heterodoxy
Responding: David Ownby, Université de Montréal
Business Meeting:
Louis Komjathy, University of San Diego
Gil Raz, Dartmouth College
Sunday, November 8, 5:00 pm-6:30 pm
PDC-514A;
Miriam Levering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Presiding
Theme: Daoism in Korea
Korean Daoism is one of the unexplored areas in Korean religions and Daoist studies in the West. This panel offers discussions of Daoist rituals and the practice of internal alchemy during the Choson dynasty (1392–1910), as well as the modern transformation of Daoist practice in contemporary Korea and overseas.
Se-Woong Koo, Stanford University
Reaching for the Sky: The Daoist Rite of Ch’oje and Early Chosŏn Political Order
John I. Goulde, Sweet Briar College
Chosŏn Period Internal Alchemy Techniques: Where Did They Come From?
Don Baker, University of British Columbia
Tan’gun, Dahn World, and the Revival of Internal Alchemy in Contemporary Korea
Responding: Thomas Michael, Boston University
