The Supernatural in East Asian Culture

3 credits · Undergraduate

(3 hrs Lecture) This course introduces students to East Asian culture through depictions of supernatural phenomena. By transgressing the boundaries of life and death, human and animal, real and unreal, supernatural beings shed light on socio-culturally constructed boundaries, such as status and gender. Through the lens of traditional supernatural literature, a framework of social structures in traditional East Asia emerges to show how characters confront and transgress the bounds of normative behaviour. Topics may include gender, purity and contamination, Five Elements Theory, Buddhism, Daoism, Neo-Confucianism, popular religion, cultural taboos, and changing views toward the supernatural in the age of scientific inquiry. Cross-listed: REL-2740(3). Restrictions: Students may not hold credit for this course and REL-2740.