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A Humanities Forum featuring Associate Professor of History Tom Wilson will be held on Monday, Oct. 29, at 4 p.m. in the Red Pit. He will discuss Liturgies of Confucian Sacrifice.

Wilson's paper will examine imperial Chinese sacrifice to the spirit of Confucius by (1) situating the formation of the liturgy of sacrifice in the context of disputes concerning placement of Confucius in the pantheon of gods; (2) scrutinizing these canonical sources to explain the meaning of various parts of the liturgy; and (3) comparing Confucian sacrifice with Vedic and Hebrew rites to interrogate the Chinese sources and presuppositions that historians bring to the study of sacrifice.

He will argue that Confucian sacrifice defined the literati's relationship with the gods and spirits on the basis of the primacy of exchange rather than expiation or inner spiritual transformation. The paper seeks to complicate current theories of sacrifice through a study of Confucian ritual, which does not fit neatly into paradigms based on the analysis of Vedic and Hebrew sacrifice.

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