We are honoured to have James Miller, currently a visiting professor at Fudan University, present our January lecture. This talk examines how religious Daoists have viewed the natural world, and how this viewpoint has shaped their interactions with nature in terms of philosophy, ethics and practice. It will focus on China's sacred geography, the various mountains and grottos in which Daoists have historically engaged in meditation and self-cultivation, and the relationship between the inner landscape of the body and the surrounding environment.
James Miller was born in Lancashire, England and studied Chinese and Theology at Durham and Cambridge Universities before moving to North America. There he completed a PhD on Chinese Religions at BostonUniversity and is now Associate Professor of Chinese Religions at Queen's University, Canada. He is currently in Shanghai doing sabbatical research on religion, nature and modernization as a visiting research professor in the department of sociology at FudanUniversity. He has published Daoism and Ecology (co-edited with Norman Girardot and Liu Xiaogan: Harvard University Press 2001), Daoism: A Short Introduction (Oneworld 2003), and most recently an edited volume surveying Chinese religious traditions at home and abroad, called Chinese Religions in Contemporary Societies.
Appropriately, our venue for this event was recently awarded the LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council—the first space in China to achieve this commendation for environmental sustainability.
DATE: Tuesday, January 8th, 2008
TIME: 7.00 p.m.
Tel: 6340 3868
There will be a Rmb 30 charge for RAS members and Rmb 50 charge for non-members.
Please RSVP by January 5th: Lindsay.shen@royalasiaticsociety.org.cn