Lecture: Making Transcendents in Early Medieval China

For anyone hanging around Charlottesville this week:

Lecture by Robert Campany, School of Religion, USC

3:00 pm, New Cabell Hall 222, Friday, Sept. 26

Making Transcendents in Early Medieval China

Transcendents or immortals (xian) and those seeking this godlike status in early medieval China are usually pictured as solitary, hermit-like mountain-dwellers. In tomb art of the period they are invariably shown flying through the heavens or attending at celestial courts. This lecture will present a very different picture of these fascinating figures, restoring them to the many kinds of social contexts in which they operated and pointing out the essential role of the other people whose responses to them were what conferred the status of transcendence. Making transcendents, it will be argued, was a collective process, in many senses.

East Asia Center lecture series. Refreshments served.