ASNS2627 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Peter Van Der Veer, Sinology, Indology

• School: University of Sydney
• Department: Asian Studies
• Course: ASNS2627
• Professor: all

Document Summary

Week 10: indian and chinese religion and the conversion to modernity. Marxs concept of oriental despotism and the asiatic mode of production. Weber and the protestant ethic versus authoritarian chinese society and caste bound indian society. The great divergence-reading-why did china not go into industrialization with brit did. *peter van der veer, the modern spirit of asia, chapters 2-3, 35-89. The term spirituality vaguely alludes to german geist ( spirit ) and to mysticism. It is a modern western concept, like religion, magic, and secularity. The spiritual as a modern category emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century as part of the great transformation. Duara calls cognitive globalization, which produced unique national formations of spirituality within a global capitalist system. The modern categories of religion, secularism and spirituality were universalised in the age of imperialism and produced different effects in different societies.