Gods, Humans, and Rulers: Religion and Empire in Early China

In early China, religion and empire were intimately inter-related. This talk will attempt to shed light on some of the complexities of religious practice in early China and to explore how the development of empire both relied upon and challenged those practices.  I will draw comparisons with developments in the rest of Eurasia during the imperial period as well.

We still plan to hold this lecture. If you registered and are no longer able to attend, or would like to register, please email isaw@nyu.edu.

Admission to the lecture hall will not be allowed once the lecture begins.

Michael Puett is the Walter C. Klein Professor of Chinese History in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations and chair of the Committee on the Study of Religion at Harvard University. He is the author of The Ambivalence of Creation: Debates Concerning Innovation and Artifice in Early China and To Become a God: Cosmology, Sacrifice, and Self-Divinization in Early China, as well as the co-author, with Adam Seligman, Robert Weller, and Bennett Simon, of Ritual and its Consequences: An Essay on the Limits of Sincerity.

There will be a reception folowing the event.

This is a public event.

To RSVP, please email isaw@nyu.edu.