Distinguished Lectures in Humanities: Chinese Gods as Persons and Subjects

Abstract

This presentation examines processes of subjectification whereby Chinese gods affirm unique personas and engage humans and each other in intersubjective interactions. In so doing, it develops relational approaches to study divine-human sociability. The vast array of ritual techniques developed over the longue durée in China to allow the gods to “talk back” to humans and create bonds have allowed these gods to affirm themselves as persons and subjects – even though there was also resistance against such developments. This lecture will propose an overview of the ritual techniques available for such personification and subjectification processes and their historical development in the Chinese world. It will then explore some of the theoretical and comparative dimensions of such processes and their consequences for our understanding of subjectivity.

About the speaker

Vincent GOOSSAERT (PhD, EPHE, Paris, 1997) is a co-editor of T’oung Pao, a leading journal in sinology established in 1890. His research focuses on the social history of Chinese religion in late imperial and modern times, especially Daoism, religious professions, socio-religious regulations, productions of moral norms, and human-divine sociability. His most recent books are Making the Gods Speak: The Ritual Production of Revelation in Chinese History (Harvard University Asia Center, 2022) and Heavenly Masters: Two Thousand Years of the Daoist State (University of Hawai’i Press & Chinese University Press, 2021).