Human Nature and Religious Diversity: Does Religious Diversity Have a Common Anthropological Basis?
2025-03-18 14:30 - 15:45 (Asia/Hong_Kong) | Hybrid – Room 201, May Hall, HKU and via Zoom (registration required)
Register for IN-PERSON participation

Register for ONLINE participation

Human Nature and Religious Diversity:
Does Religious Diversity Have a Common Anthropological Basis?

Date/Time: March 18 (TUE), 2025, 14:30 – 15:45 (HK time)
Language: English
Venue: Hybrid @ ZOOM & Rm 201, May Hall, HKU (Registration is required.)
Register for In-person participation: https://hku.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eLPjW447lQn0Yse
Register for online participation: https://hku.zoom.us/meeting/register/6LJbU_-IQ0SfTSljgfZ4sA

ABSTRACTIn a world that is growing ever closer together, the question also arises as to whether the many different religions in the common world have a common anthropological basis. What connects the religions of the world with each other in the midst of all their diversity? Is there an anthropological theory of the pluralism of religions? And what would such a theory have to look like in which the different religions are conceptually linked?
The lecture explores this question by first (1) concentrating on the diversity of religions, which are an important part of cultures. After this praise of religious plurality, the lecture then shows (2) what a theory of religious pluralism cannot look like. Again using the example of religion, it is then explained (3) how religion and religious diversity are to be understood when they are considered from a human and thus anthropological point of view. A conception is then presented (4) by the German philosopher and theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, showing how religious diversity, the plurality of religions, can be understood conceptually on the basis of common anthropological insights.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERProf. Hans-Peter Grosshans is a distinguished German theologian and philosopher of religion, renowned for his expertise in hermeneutics, methodology and philosophy of science. Currently, he is professor (chair) for Systematic Theology at University of Münster, Germany. He also serves as Guest Professor (2024-2025) at the Institute of Sino-Christian Studies, Hong Kong.
After studying theology and philosophy at universities of Tübingen and Oxford, he did his doctorate under the supervision of Eberhard Jüngel at the Faculty of Protestant Theology at the University of Tübingen.
From 1990 to 2002 he taught at the Faculty of Protestant Theology at the University of Tübingen. He then held teaching positions at the theological faculties of the universities of Hamburg, Munich and Zürich before in 2008 he took over his present position as professor (chair) for Systematic Theology and director of the Institute for Ecumenical Theology at the Faculty of Protestant Theology of University of Münster. From 2016–2020 he was dean of his faculty. He is the present president of the German Society for Philosophy of Religion.

ORGANIZERSASIAR Research Cluster, HKIHSS, HKU;
CO-ORGANIZERSFaith and Global Engagement, HKIHSS, HKU;
Institute of Sino-Christian Studies, HK.

Register for IN-PERSON participation

Register for ONLINE participation

Joker: The Flip Side of Ancient Chinese Cosmology and Science in Hecun
2025-04-28 12:30 - 13:45 | Hybrid – Room 201, May Hall, HKU and via Zoom (registration required)
Register for IN-PERSON participation

Register for ONLINE participation

Joker: The Flip Side of Ancient Chinese Cosmology and Science in Hecun

Date: April 28 (Mon), 2025
Time: 12:30 – 13:45 (HK Time)
Language: English
Venue: Hybrid @ ZOOM & Rm 201, May Hall, HKU (Registration is required.)
Register for In-person participation: https://hku.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9yjCPquwFMkuajA
Register for online participation: https://hku.zoom.us/meeting/register/hqokJ73PQaS1-S8NBJaAEg

ABSTRACTDrawing on 16 months of fieldwork and historical material on Fu (符) rituals, this talk explores the distinctions between Fu activities and other local sacrificial practices that involve approaching spiritual powers with offerings, beseeching or begging for assistance. I pseudonymize my field village located in south-central China as Hecun. Through Fu rituals, Hecun villagers attempt to directly manipulate or even command the spiritual forces. Drawing on historical evidence, I propose that this fluctuating human-spiritual power dynamic can be traced to the transformation of ancient Chinese cosmology. I argue that in the pre-imperial courts there was a gradual technical transition from magical rituals to religious sacrifices. But in the local cosmology of present-day Hecun, both magic and sacrifice are evident. This combinatory cosmology has moved like a “capsule” through time, composing the deep-rooted characteristics of Chinese cosmology that have “sedimented”. I further suggest that the human-spiritual power dynamic reflects a well-established local understanding of how people experience the capricious environmental forces to which they are immediately exposed. This local understanding contrasts with the scientific outlook towards “nature” that underpins these state-led weather-water projects in Hecun. By interweaving relevant anthropological discussion around “nature” with analyses of local rituals, this talk provides a nuanced understanding of local cosmology and offers insight into the entanglement of magic, religion and science.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERNie Youping is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at CUHK. My research interests include landscape, cosmology, state governance, and rural China. My dissertation, A Geography of Uncertainty: Weather, Technology, and Cosmology in South-central China, explores the entanglement of state technocratic projects and local cosmology, i.e., local spiritual beliefs, in understanding and acting upon the concept of “uncertainty” associated with weather patterns in a Chinese village. This village is situated in the Dongting Lake basin, a region prone to extreme climate fluctuations between drought and flooding.

ORGANIZERASIAR Research Cluster, HKIHSS, HKU

Register for IN-PERSON participation

Register for ONLINE participation

The Revelatory Imagination: Thought Experiments and the Pluralist Turn
2025-05-15 15:00 - 16:30 | Hybrid – Room 201, May Hall, HKU and via Zoom (registration required)
Register NOW

The Revelatory Imagination:Thought Experiments and the Pluralist Turn

Date/Time: Thursday, May 15, 2025, 15:00 – 16:30 (HK time)
Language: English
Venue: Rm 201, May Hall, HKU & Via ZOOM (Registration is required.)

ABSTRACTThis talk explores the imagination as a mode of divine revelation and argues that thought experiments – commonly associated with the natural sciences – possess deep theological significance. Prof. Fehige proposes that revelation does not merely accommodate the imagination but advances through it. This claim forms part of a broader response to the pluralist turn in the history and philosophy of science, which calls on theology to reconsider its own epistemic frameworks. By re-framing thought experiments in pluralist terms, a constructive theology of revelation is offered that embraces epistemic diversity and affirms the cognitive significance of the imagination. This approach not only bridges disciplinary boundaries but also invites a renewed understanding of how theology might respond more faithfully to the complexities of a pluralist world.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERProfessor Yiftach Fehige holds Ph.D. degrees in both philosophy (2004) and theology (2011), and holds a B.Sc. In physics (1998). He has been a core faculty member at the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (IHPST) at the University of Toronto since 2007. His work primarily explores the evolving landscape of science and religion, particularly at the intersection of Eastern and Western perspectives, a featured in his edited volume Science and Religion: East and West (2016) and his latest monograph Thought Experiments, Science, and Theology (2023).

ORGANIZER
Faith and Global Engagement, HKIHSS, HKU;
CO-ORGANIZER
ASIAR Research Cluster, HKIHSS, HKU

Register NOW

How Daoism Became American: A Tale of Translation, Conservation, Immigration, Appropriation and Impersonation
2025-11-17 15:00 - 17:00 | Hybrid – Room 201, May Hall, HKU and via Zoom (registration required)
Register for IN-PERSON participation

Register for ONLINE participation

How Daoism Became American: A Tale of Translation, Conservation, Immigration, Appropriation and Impersonation

Date/Time: November 17, 2025, 15:00 – 17:00 (HK time)
Language: English
Venue: Rm 201, May Hall, HKU & Via ZOOM (Registration is required.)
Register for In-person and online participation: https://hku.zoom.us/meeting/register/MQ_Y4LmhRX6DcgkxNGRCNg

ABSTRACTDaoism is the indigenous organized religion of China, with a two-thousand-year history, an enormous canon of sacred texts, and a complicated liturgy. However, until fairly recently, Daoism was best known in the West, if at all, as a quaint and exotic philosophy of quietism and mysticism. This was how Daoism was depicted in most readily available sources of information, including anthologies of Chinese philosophy and world religion textbooks. According to modernist Chinese intellectuals of the 20th century, Daoism may have inspired a lot of Chinese art and poetry, but it was not a spiritual option for modern Chinese, and certainly not for North Americans. However, in the 1960s and 1970s, Daoism became a plausible spiritual path for Euro-Americans, not by becoming more like Chinese Daoism in either of its two current denominations in China (Quanzhen or Zhengyi), but rather by being completely taken out of its religious setting, and reconstituted as a series of modular, individual practices.
This interactive lecture will explore the various origins of Daoism in America, based on original research. It will argue that American Daoism is a definable and distinct religious tradition of North America. American Daoism was neither exported whole cloth from China nor simply invented by Euro-Americans. Rather it arose from collaboration between progressive elements in American society and elite, lettered Chinese immigrants, nostalgic for their own displaced childhoods. This lecture will ask the question “how much can a religious tradition change before it is no longer a tradition at all?” It will be of interest to anyone interested in how Asian culture is translated into Western context, and issues of appropriation and authenticity.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERElijah Siegler is a professor of Religious Studies at College of Charleston, a public university in South Carolina. He is the leading expert in the field of American Daoism, and has lectured and published widely on that field, including the award-winning book Dream Trippers: Global Daoism and Predicament of Modern Spirituality (University of Chicago Press, 2017, co-authored with David A. Palmer).

ORGANIZERASIAR Research Cluster, HKIHSS, HKU

Buddhist Manuscript Studies in Southeast Asia: The case of Luang Prabang, Laos
2026-01-16 15:00 - 16:30 | Rm 201, May Hall, The University of Hong Kong (Map), or Via Zoom
Professor Volker Grabowsky
Professor of Thai Studies and Head of the Southeast Asia Department at the Asia‑Africa‑Institute, University of Hamburg

ABSTRACT
This lecture explores Buddhist manuscript cultures in mainland Southeast Asia through the case of the old royal Lao capital of Luang Prabang, drawing on more than fifteen years of research conducted in collaboration with the Buddhist Archives of Luang Prabang. While over ninety percent of surviving Lao manuscripts are written on palm leaves using the religious Dhamma script, their material forms, uses, and social functions reveal a remarkably rich and diverse manuscript culture.​ The lecture introduces the broader Tai manuscript tradition, including its characteristic biscriptality, and situates Lao materials within regional scholarship. It then presents the results of extensive digitisation and cataloguing projects supported by international institutions, which together document more than 3,500 manuscripts from major monasteries in Luang Prabang.​ Particular attention is given to the structure and function of colophons as sources for understanding manuscript production, monastic education, and merit‑making practices. Colophons reveal the roles of scribes, sponsors, and donors, and illustrate how manuscripts sustained Buddhist learning and merit across generations.​ The lecture also examines modern transformations influenced by new writing tools, printing technologies, and changing material preferences. Despite these shifts, Lao Buddhist manuscript culture remains vibrant, reflecting both continuity and change within the Lao cultural landscape.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Volker Grabowsky is Professor of Thai Language and Culture (Thai Studies) and Head of the Southeast Asia Department at the Asia‑Africa‑Institute, University of Hamburg. A specialist in the history and culture of the Tai ethnic groups of mainland Southeast Asia and Southwest China, he previously held a professorship in Southeast Asian History at the University of Münster (1999–2009) and served as a DAAD visiting lecturer at the National University of Laos (1996–1999).​ He has published widely on Tai manuscript cultures, Buddhist literary traditions, and regional historiography. His works include major studies and translations of Tai Lü chronicles, such as the Chronicles of Chiang Khaeng (2008) and the Chronicles of Sipsòng Panna (2012).​ Since 2011, he has led several research projects on Tai manuscript cultures; his most recent edited volume is Manuscript Cultures and Epigraphy in the Tai World (2022).​
