History 219 - COLQ:RACE,RLGN,NATION/MOD.E.AS

As their nations struggled to find their places in a new world order dominated by the West, East Asians saw the variety, visibility and impacts of religion explode in their everyday lives. From European Jesuits in China to American Protestants in Japan to Japanese Buddhists in Korea to the place of religion in racial and national identity formation and state building, religion has been a powerful factor in modern East Asia over the past five centuries. To understand these developments, we read from a broad range of sources that illustrate East Asian religious heterogeneity and its intellectual, sociocultural and political repercussions. (E)