Food & Religion in China SP20 (CHIN-29902-01)

CHIN 29902. FOOD AND RELIGION IN CHINA The course will explore the role of food in Chinas religious traditions and the ways in which culinary arts, food, food sacrifice and eating are intertwined with religious discourse and practice in China. Food and eating unit or divide human society, the realm of ancestors, and the spirit world. Religious food culture is fertile ground for contesting voices and the development of spiritual alternatives. It is an important site for uncovering genealogies of material and discursive practices central to the production and maintenance of power at multiple scales; tensions between tradition and social and cultural change; and understandings of self, body, family, group, nation and other identities. [AH, C, R]