Dear Colleagues:
 
Please note that Professor Stephen Eskildsen is the second speaker for the fall segment of our UC Foundation-supported Asia presentations. Eskildsen, UC Foundation Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religion, will speak tomorrow, Tuesday, September 27 from 2:00–3:00 in the Signal Mountain Room in the University Center. His presentation is entitled "Death, Immortality, and Spirit Liberation in Northern Song Dynasty Daoism." A description of his presentation is below. Please encourage interested students and staff to attend. It is also open to the public.
 
Cordially,
Lucien Ellington
UTC Asian Studies Committee
 
 
Professor Stephen Eskildsen
Tuesday, September 27, 2:00–3:00 
University Center Signal Mountain Room

Death, Immortality, and Spirit Liberation in Northern Song Dynasty Daoism

This presentation overviews a variety of stories from the Comprehensive Mirror of Realized Immortals through the Ages who Embody the Dao (Lishi zhenxian tidao tongjian). In doing so, it will attempt an overview of the attitudes that Northern Song Dynasty (960–1126) Daoists held in regard to death and immortality. It will argue that the Northern Song was a time when some Daoists still held tenaciously to the hope of physical immortality, but that this aspiration was beginning to be replaced by the pursuit of eternal life in a more subtle, rarified body that gains liberation from the mortal flesh and from the cycle of reincarnation.