Key Chinese Terms for the Study of Religion: An Experiment in De-Centering Disciplinary Discourse

Fall 2019 Grant Recipient

Natasha Heller (Religious Studies)

This institute seeks to reimagine the critical vocabulary of religious studies through the use of Chinese concepts, as a way of decentering and decolonizing the study of religion. Through a multifaceted exploration of seminal Chinese terms (such as jiao , shen, and fa ), how they were used in different contexts, and how they might provide new ways of understanding non-Chinese phenomena, this institute will model an approach to theorizing religion from an Asian perspective. It builds on a workshop held at the Polytechnic University of Hong Kong, and is co-sponsored by the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI) and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation (CCKF).