The critical re-evaluation of traditional Chinese divinatory practices in the field of religious studies during the Republican Period, 1912-1949
Dr. Christian Meyer
Universität Leipzig, Institute of East Asian Studies
Research stay: October 2010 – September 2011
Reading Session:
- The phrase shendao shejiao 神道設教 – From the Yijing to modern discourses on religion and superstition, January 19, 2011
The critical re-evaluation of traditional Chinese divinatory practices in the field of religious studies during the Republican Period, 1912-1949
The project investigates the academic re-evaluation of divination in modern Chinese Religious Studies, a discipline which only emerged in China in the 1920s and led to the application of modern western taxonomies in the field. While most of the popular practices and concepts of divination were regarded as "superstitions" and became the subject of anti-superstition movements, this interest also sparked a new scholarly focus and initiated the first academic compilations of related materials.
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