Religion and Revolution in Modern China

This course explores the negotiation of religion and revolutionary politics in modern China through literature, art, media, and cultural production. Through the course, students will investigate the meaning of “ religion” and its counterparts, such as secularism and superstition, and its relationship to conceptions of modernity in its colonial and anti-colonial registers. The course will tackle the problems religion posed to revolutionary movements while exploring how religion remained an important part of revolutionary culture in China and beyond. Finally, the class addresses the tensions between the religious and the modern in a post-revolutionary moment. The course requires deep engagement with literary, artistic, and cultural materials, such as novels, poetry and films. The course will also introduce political and theoretical writings, both by thinkers in China and other parts of the world. By treating the transformation of China in the twentieth century as an event of global significance, we will examine the implications of these negotiations for our understanding of revolutionary politics worldwide.