Integrative Studies: English 101 & Introduction to World Religions &

1. ASDP Infusing Institute 2013Kathleen Byrd, EnglishSouth Puget Sound Community CollegeOlympia, WA. Integrative Studies: English 101 & Introduction to World Religions & Women in Literature: Diversity

2. Integrative Studies: English 101 &Introduction to World ReligionsCourse Structure • Quarterly, 10 credits: 5 cr. English 101; 5 cr. Hum 121 • Integrated Curriculum • 10 weeks – 7 traditions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, Judaism, Christianity, & Islam. • Required visits to 3 different religious services. • Typical Week: Reading assignment from Huston Smith’s The World’s Religions; lecture; workshops in reading and interpreting texts and images; writing workshops; guest lecture from a practitioner of each tradition; review.

3. Integrative Studies: World Religions and English 101:Texts, Contexts& Conversations • Buddhism • Sutra reading • 10 Bulls Confucianism • Analects of Confucius • Meng Tzu (Mencius) • Daoism • Lao Tzu Dao De Ching • Chuang Tzu

4. Themes and concepts for integration • Texts as conversations • The problem of religious “isms” • Religions as repertoires • Syncretic religiosities in China and Japan • World Views: • Non-dualistic • Enlightenment is relational • Harmony in social and natural world • Emptiness and impermanence • The Way

5. Synthesis EssayAssignment: Finding the Way • Synthesize: Using texts, images, and concepts from the three traditions, explain your understanding of an “Eastern” religious worldview. • Apply: Use this synthesized world view to examine a personal or social issue that interests you: How can a different worldview cast light on the problem?

6. Resources • Asian Texts – Asian Contexts: Encounters with Asian Philosophies and Religions. Ed. David Jones and E.R. Klein. Ed. State University of New York. 2010. • Ames, Roger and David Hall. Dao De Jing: A Philosophical Translation. Random House. 2003. • Chuang Tzu. Basic Writings. Trans. Burton Watson. Columbia University Press. 1964 • Hershock, Peter. Chan Buddhism: Dimensions of Asian Spirituality. University of Hawaii Press. 2005. • Lao Tsu. Tao TeChing. Trans. Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English. Vintage. 2011 • Rahula, Walpola. What the Buddha Taught. Grove Press, NY. 1974. • Robinet, Isabelle. Taoism: The Growth of a Religion. Stanford University Press. 1997 • Tzu, Lao & Phillip Ivanhoe. The Daodejing of Laozi. Hacket. 2003 • Watson, Burton. Trans. The Analects of Confucius. Columbia University Press. 2009.

7. Women in Literature: Diversity • We think back through our mothers if we are women. Virginia Woolf 1882-1941 I tried to make my mind large, as the universe is large, so that there is room for paradoxes. Maxine Hong Kingston, b. 1940

8. Exploring the “Chinese feminine” in Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts

9. Who are Kingston’s mothers? • Her “no-named” aunt who lives in the realm of hungry ghosts • Her mother, trained as a doctor in China, who “talks story” • Fa Mu Lan, a legendary woman warrior (anonymous 5 CE) • Ts’ai Yen (CaiWenji) a Han Dynasty poetess (175 CE)

10. Cultural Contexts • The Analects of Confucius • Yin and Yang • Foot binding • Recent Scholarship: Dorothy Ko’sTeachers of the Inner Chamber: Women and Culture in 17th Century China. Stanford University Press. 1994. (Hu Ying presentation) • Eileen Chang – “instead of the “old” and the “new” is the timeless. The modern woman channels an ancient woman and becomes empowered.” (Yun Pengpresentation)

11. My mother said I would grow up a wife and a slave, but she taught me the song of warrior woman, Fa Mu Lan. I would have to grow up a warrior woman. (Kingston, Woman Warrior 20) Qiu Jin 1875-1907 Traveling together for twelve years They didn't know Mu-lan was a girl. "The he-hare's feet go hop and skip, The she-hare's eyes are muddled and fuddled. Two hares running side by side close to the ground, How can they tell if I am he or she?“ (Ode of Fa Mu Lan)

12. . Ts’ai Yen (CaiWenji, 175 CE) Han Dynasty calligrapher and poet Eileen Chang (Zhang Ying) 1920-1955 After twelve years among the Southern Hsiung-nu, Ts’ai Yen was ransomed and married to Tung Sau so that her father would have Han descendants. She brought her songs back from the savage lands, and one of the three that has been passed down to us is “Eighteen Stanzas for a Barbarian Reed Pipe,” a song that Chinese sing to their own instruments. It translated well. (Kingston, A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe)

13. Resources • Dale, Corrine H. Chinese Aesthetics and Literature: A Reader. State University of New York. 2004. • Faurot, Jeannette L. Asian Pacific Folktales and Legends. Simon and Schuster. New York. 1995 • Frankel, Han. The Flowering Plum and The Palace Lady: Interpretations of Chinese Poetry. Yale University Press. 1976. • Kim, Elaine H. Asian American Literature: An Introduction to the writings and the social contexts. • Kingston, Maxine Hong. I Love a Broad Margin to My Life. Knopf. 2011. • Lan, Dong. Mulan’s legend and legacy in China and the United States. Temple University Press. 2011. • Sze, Arthur, Ed. Chinese Writers on Writing. Trinity University Press. 2010

14. One does less and less until one does nothing Lao Tzu