Title: Disciplines of the Body

Speaker: Dr. Peter van der Veer, Director Emeritus, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen; and University Professor Emeritus, Utrecht University

Time: Friday, September 29, 2023, at 21:00-22:00 (Japan Standard Time)

Talk Abstract:

I will discuss the body as the object and the instrument of religious and secular disciplines in China. My discussion is partly inspired by theories of Granet and Mauss and partly by theories of the socialization (or nationalization) of the body. I will focus on the connections between ritual acts and techniques of the body. As such, I want to argue against an opposition between “meaning” and ‘practice’ as well as against the opposition of certain ‘inner states,’ such as sincerity, on the one hand, and ‘ritual’ on the other. My discussion will suggest that ritual practice implies the learning of certain symbolic and affective connections, and thus aims at producing specific attitudes, virtues, and competences. It further wants to examine the ethical implications of religious and secular ritual for the conduct of life (Lebensführung). Crucial to this examination is the concept of ‘discipline.’

Speaker Bio:

Peter van der Veer is Director Emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen as well as University Professor Emeritus at Utrecht University. He is an elected Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has worked on the comparative study of religion and nationalism in India and China. Among his publications are Gods on Earth (1988), Religious Nationalism (1994), Imperial Encounters (2001, The Modern Spirit of Asia (2013), and The Value of Comparison (2016)