Spirituality, Healthcare And Social Movements In East Asia: A Transnational Perspective

Call for Papers (Deadline: September 12, 2021)

The East Asian Network for the Academic Study of Esotericism (EANASE) invites you to consider sending a proposal for an online conference to be held on Zoom every Saturday of November 2021. EANASE’s first conference aims to offer the chance to reflect on the intertwined relationship between spirituality, healthcare and social movements in East Asia from a trans-national/local/cultural perspective. As a time of unprecedented changes and accelerated global interactions, the focus of the conference lies on the period between the nineteenth and the twentieth-first centuries. The emergence of new religious movements like Theosophy, Falungong and Taireido, or the worldwide popularisation of, for instance, acupuncture, reiki and hypnosis, challenge reductionist binary views of East/West, tradition/modernity, science/religion. Likewise, the recent dissemination of New Age practices across East Asia or the ongoing study of Buddhist meditation by American and European psychiatrists seem to reflect broader concerns that, for the past two centuries or so, have ignored national and cultural borders – and whose wider social implications are now more visible than ever.

For more information on the conference and on potential themes, please visit the dedicated website and please consider sending us a paper proposal by 12 September 2021.