October 2020 Kim-Renaud East Asian Humanities Lecture

Fri, 23 October, 2020 8:00pm

Becoming Guanyin: Artistic Devotion of Buddhist Women in Late Imperial China

Time: Friday, October 23rd, 2020, 4:00PM-5:30PM via WebEx

Speaker: Yuhang Li, Associate Professor of Asian Studies, University of Wiconsin, Madison

Discussant: Xiaofei Kang, Associate Professor of Religion, George Washington University

RSVP 

Abstract: The goddess Guanyin began in India as the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, originally a male deity. He gradually became indigenized as a female deity in China over the span of nearly a millennium. By the Ming (1358–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) periods, Guanyin had become the most popular female deity in China. In Becoming Guanyin, Yuhang Li examines how lay Buddhist women in late imperial China forged a connection with the subject of their devotion, arguing that women used their own bodies to echo that of Guanyin.  Li focuses on the power of material things to enable women to access religious experience and transcendence. In particular, she examines how secular Buddhist women expressed mimetic devotion and pursued religious salvation through creative depictions of Guanyin in different media such as painting and embroidery and through bodily portrayals of the deity using jewelry and dance. These material displays expressed a worldview that differed from yet fit within the Confucian patriarchal system.

The event is open to the public. Registered guests will receive confirmation email with details for joining Webex 24 hours prior the event.
 

This event is co-sponsored by the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures and the East Asia National Resource Center

 


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