Generals, Pigs, and Immortals: Views and Uses of History in Chinese Morality Books

TitleGenerals, Pigs, and Immortals: Views and Uses of History in Chinese Morality Books
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2005
AuthorsPhilip Clart
JournalJournal of Ritual Studies
Volume19
Issue1
Pagination99-113
ISSN08901112
Abstract

Based on notions of history as cultural memory, this article examines the religious literature composed in spirit-writing séances as an attempt to create a past within the present, thereby bridging the cultural ruptures caused by modernity. Figures of memory constituting a normative past are brought into the present not just through narration, but through their actualization in the context of the séance(1).

Short TitleGenerals, Pigs, and Immortals