Female Divinities in China

Catalog description

This course examines the fundamental role of powerful goddesses in Chinese religion. It covers the entire range of imperial history and down to the present. It will look at, among other questions, what roles goddesses played in the spirit world, how this is related to the roles of human women, and why a civilization that excluded women from the public sphere granted them a dominant place, in the religious sphere. It is based entirely on readings in English.