Advanced Study of Confucianism
This course offers a critical overview about the history of Confucianism in China and Indonesia, which received strong influences from the European’s framework in Comparative Religious Studies and Sinology. Instead of static and pure entity, it introduces Confucian theological concepts and values as transformative and negotiated as it is commonly happened in other religions. The class will revisit Christianity and Western modern concepts of religion and their influences toward Confucianism as a non-Western (religious) tradition. In the modern era, we focus on the roles of themodern states in governing religion and citizenship, the struggles of the Confucian believers to adjust their theology. While Confucianism has been existed for more than two thousand years, we will learn its implementation in modern life, such as in education, capitalism, gender, and ecological issues.