The Formation of Regional Religious Systems in Greater China

The Formation of Regional Religious Systems in Greater China
Author: Jiang Wu
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2022-04-21
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1000568393

The rise of Spatial Humanities has spurred a digital revolution in the field of Chinese studies, especially in the study of religion. Based on years of data compilation and analysis of religious sites, this book explores the formation of Regional Religious Systems (RRS) in Greater China in unprecedented scope and depth. It addresses quantitatively the enduring historical and contemporary issues of China’s deep-rooted regionalism and spatially variegated cultural and religious landscape. A range of topics are explored: theoretical discussions of the concept of RRS; case studies of regional and local religious institutions; the formation of local cults and pilgrimage network; and the spread of religious networks to overseas Chinese communities and the Bon religion in Tibet. The book also considers long-standing challenges of researching with spatial data for humanities and social science research, such as data collection, integration, spatial analysis, and map creation. This book will be of interest to students and scholars in Religious Studies, Cultural Studies, Chinese Studies, Digital Humanities, Human Geography and Sociology.

The Formation of Regional Religious Systems in Greater China

The Formation of Regional Religious Systems in Greater China
Author: Jiang Wu
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2022-04-21
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1000568350

The rise of Spatial Humanities has spurred a digital revolution in the field of Chinese studies, especially in the study of religion. Based on years of data compilation and analysis of religious sites, this book explores the formation of Regional Religious Systems (RRS) in Greater China in unprecedented scope and depth. It addresses quantitatively the enduring historical and contemporary issues of China’s deep-rooted regionalism and spatially variegated cultural and religious landscape. A range of topics are explored: theoretical discussions of the concept of RRS; case studies of regional and local religious institutions; the formation of local cults and pilgrimage network; and the spread of religious networks to overseas Chinese communities and the Bon religion in Tibet. The book also considers long-standing challenges of researching with spatial data for humanities and social science research, such as data collection, integration, spatial analysis, and map creation. This book will be of interest to students and scholars in Religious Studies, Cultural Studies, Chinese Studies, Digital Humanities, Human Geography and Sociology.

A Tale of Two Stūpas

A Tale of Two Stūpas
Author: Albert Welter
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2022-11-04
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 0197606636

Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province, and the surrounding environs have one of the richest Buddhist cultures in China. In A Tale of Two Stupas, Albert Welter tells the story of Hangzhou Buddhism through the conceptions, erections, and resurrections of Yongming Stupa, dedicated to the memory of one of Hangzhou's leading Buddhist figures, and Leifeng Pagoda, built to house stupa relics of the historical Buddha. Welter delves into the intricacies of these two sites and pays particular attention to their origins and rebirths. These sites have suffered devastation and endured long periods of neglect, yet both have been resurrected and re-resurrected during their histories and have resumed meaningful places in the contemporary Hangzhou landscape, a mark of their power and endurance. A Tale of Two Stupas adopts a site-specific, regional approach in order to show how the dynamics of initial conception, resurrection, and re-resurrection work, and what that might tell us about the nature of Hangzhou and Chinese Buddhism.

Staging Tianxia

Staging Tianxia
Author: Lanlan Kuang
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2024-09-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0253070929

Staging Tianxia explores the ancient Chinese vision of world order known as tianxia (all under heaven) by focusing on the historical, performative, and rhetorical processes of expressive arts and cultural heritages that inform a vision of China as a historically multiethnic and cosmopolitan nation. Author Lanlan Kuang unites multimedia ethnographic research and theoretical insights from ethnomusicology, philosophy, religious studies, performance studies, and cognitive science, with a focus on Dunhuang bihua yuewu, a modern interpretation inserted into the Chinese classical dance and theatrical arts tradition. Staging Tianxia thus aims to redefine Silk Road studies and Dunhuangology, a transdisciplinary field dedicated to studying the texts and art of Dunhuang, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that connected China via the Silk Road with Central Asia, South Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Staging Tianxia is a careful ethnographic study that looks at the importance of performance tradition and poetics in the arts and aesthetic theory of China.

"Take the Vinaya as Your Master"

Author: Ester Bianchi
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 415
Release: 2023-04-24
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004536876

This volume explores the role played by monastic discipline in the emergence and evolution of modern Chinese Buddhism. A central feature of the Buddhist tradition, monastic discipline has received growing attention in the contemporary Buddhist world, but little from scholars. Adopting a diachronic perspective and a multidisciplinary approach, contributions by leading scholars investigate relevant Vinaya-related practices in twentieth and twenty-first centuries China and Taiwan, including issues of monastic identity and authenticity, updated ordination procedures, recent variations of Mahāyāna precepts and rules, and original perspectives on body movement and related sport activities. The restoration and renewal of Vinaya practices and standards within Chinese Buddhist practices shed new light on the response of Buddhist leaders and communities to the challenges of modernity. Contributors are: Ester Bianchi, Raoul Birnbaum, Daniela Campo, Tzu-Lung Chiu, Ann Heirman, Zhe Ji, Yu-chen Li, Pei-ying Lin, and Jiang Wu.

Modelling the City

Modelling the City
Author: Wiesława Duży
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2024-06-26
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1040033679

Modelling the City focuses on European towns and cities, analysing the opportunities and limitations of modelling of urban space. This book examines how urban space from the past is discovered, explained and presented. It discusses the multitude of historical sources mediating the past urban space, and the structural, technical, and epistemological issues raised around building a domain ontology, including continuity, and change within urban forms and functions. Presentation of a formal domain ontology in spatial humanities makes this book unique and worth reading. It is strongly recommended to readers interested in the linked open data approach to research, data standards in Digital Humanities, urban planning, and old maps.

Cinematic Cartography

Cinematic Cartography
Author: Chris Lukinbeal
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 207
Release: 2024-08-20
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1040116582

This book uniquely bridges the conceptual gap between the history of geographic, cartographic thought, and film theory with the technological and cultural shifts that shaped the emergence of cameras and cinema. Adorned with illustrative figures, examples, and case studies throughout, the book explores how cinema lends itself to cartography and, in turn, how cartography relates to both the individual and collective experience of cinema. By using cartography to understand space and scale in film, the book moves away from textual analysis or representation analysis to focus on the locational attribution of the sites where the cinematic landscape is being produced. It contends that viewers of moving images are active players in a complex network of cultural and mental geographies. This volume is essential reading for students, scholars, and academics of cinematography, human, cultural, and social geography, cartography, and media studies, as well as those interested in these areas more generally.

Chinese Religiosities

Chinese Religiosities
Author: Mayfair Mei-hui Yang
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 472
Release: 2008-11-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520098641

"Extraordinarily timely and useful. As China emerges as an economic and political world power that seems to have done away with religion, in fact it is witnessing a religious revival. The thoughtful essays in this book show both the historical conflicts between state authorities and religious movements and the contemporary encounters that are shaping China's future. I am aware of no other book that covers so much ground and can be used so well as an introduction to this important field." —Peter van der Veer, University of Utrecht

Chinese History in Geographical Perspective

Chinese History in Geographical Perspective
Author: Jeff Kyong-McClain
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2013
Genre: History
ISBN: 0739172301

This volume treats "China" first and foremost as an evolving and imagined geographical entity. The contributors explore China's last five hundred years of history using geography as a lens through which to approach such issues as sports, ethnography, cartography, religion, elite and popular culture, transnational networking, urban planning, and politics.

Religions in Global Society

Religions in Global Society
Author: Peter Beyer
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2013-01-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1134162782

Peter Beyer, a distinguished sociologist of religion, presents a way of understanding religion in a contemporary global society - by analyzing it as a dimension of the historical process of globalization. Introducing theories of globalization and showing how they can be applied to world religions, Beyer reveals the nature of the contested category of ‘religion’: what it means, what it includes and what it implies in the world today. Written with exceptional clarity and illustrated with lively and diverse examples ranging from Islam and Hinduism to African traditional religions and new age spirituality, this is a fascinating overview of how religion has developed in a globalized society. It is recommended reading for students taking courses on sociology of religion, religion and globalization, and religion and modernity.