"Theatre of Enlightenment: Chinese Buddhists on Playacting and Spectatorship"

The Numata Chair in Buddhist Studies and the Department of Classics and Religion at the University of Calgary present

"Theatre of Enlightenment: Chinese Buddhists on Playacting and Spectatorship"

By Dr. Mengxiao Wang, University of Southern California, Dornsife School of Religion

March 21, 2025, 3:00 – 5:00pm (MT)

Social Sciences 541 University of Calgary

Hybrid: Recorded lecture and live-streaming Q&A

Join this event online: https://ucalgary.zoom.us/j/97024833776#success

Passcode: 444355

About the Speaker:

Dr. Mengxiao Wang is an assistant professor of Chinese literature in the Department of East Asian literatures and cultures at the University of Southern California. She specializes in premodern Chinese literature and culture, focusing on the interplay between literary production and religious practice. She is now working on her first book project, titled Performing Enlightenment: Buddhism and Theater in Early Modern China. She has also published articles on topics such as the Three Teachings in the late Ming, Pure Land Buddhism, Qing Court theatre, print culture and Daoist art.

About the talk:

In late Ming and early Qing China (16th-17th centuries), a surging interest in theatre coincided with a major renewal of Buddhism. Despite the contradiction between religious discipline and worldly pursuits, monastics and the laity widely participated in viewing, discussing, and writing plays. Drawing on clerical sermons and dramatic works, I argue that Chinese Buddhists reconciled the tension between religion and entertainment by reinventing theatre as a creative form of devotional enterprise, and as a result, playwriting, onstage performance, and theatrical spectating all became viable avenues to spiritual enlightenment.

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