A talk by Professor Anthony E. Clark for the Centre for the Study of World Christianity Research Seminars series. Tuesdays from 16:10 to 17:30 UK time in Rainy Hall, Old College and on Zoom.
From the sixteenth century, Jesuits have written and staged plays to serve their mission of conversion, and after the Society returned to China in 1842 missionaries turned again to this medium as a mechanism for conversion. The contours of this seminar presentation shall trace the evolution of the West’s imagination of China from the Jesuit valorizations of the early Qing (1644–1911) to the Jesuit mission in China during the late Qing that employed the dramatization of Boxer era Christian martyrs to ‘canonize China’ as an East Asian terra sancta (holy land) that was to be transformed into an entrepot of Christianity and Western cultural sensibilities.
For Zoom details, please email Alexander.Chow@ed.ac.uk.