Mengxiao Wang and image of her book cover, Performing Enlightenment. Banner for Performing Enlightenment: Buddhism and Theater in Early Modern China

Performing Enlightenment: Buddhism and Theater in Early Modern China

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Lecture Chinese Literature Theatre

Thu, Nov 12, 2026

3 PM – 4:30 PM PST (GMT-8)

Humanities Gateway 1030

University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, United States

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In late Ming and early Qing China, a major revival of Buddhism coincided with a growing fascination with theater. Mengxiao Wang’s (USC) recent book, Performing Enlightenment, examines how Chinese Buddhist monastics and laypeople actively engaged with and transformed the dramatic arts. The book explores the world of popular performance in early modern China, where storytellers and dramatists staged narratives of romantic attachment to communicate Buddhist soteriological teachings of renunciation, transforming affective experience into a vehicle for religious instruction.

Where

Humanities Gateway 1030

University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, United States

Hosted By

Illuminations: The Chancellor's Arts & Culture Initiative | Website | View More Events