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Ritualizing Filial Debt: Narrative and Performance in Chinese Popular Religious Storytelling
Drawing on fieldwork, this presentation analyses the transformation of filial anxiety through the lens of Chinese popular religious storytelling. It focuses specifically on Ming-Qing baojuan 宝卷 (precious scrolls) and their associated performative contexts to reconstruct the ritual repertoire of these narratives. By juxtaposing literary analysis of paradoxical unfilial children who achieve ultimate filial piety (e.g., Mulian目连, Miaoshan妙善) in baojuan narratives with field observations of contemporary live baojuan performances in Wu-dialect-speaking areas, Professor Xiaosu Sun’s research reveals that baojuan storytelling transcends its traditional identity as a vehicle for religious preaching or folk entertainment. Instead, it operates as a dynamic ritual mechanism wherein audiences actively navigate and resolve the filial debt dramatized in the stories ‒ a debt that resonates deeply with their own lived experiences ‒ through their participatory engagement in the performance.
Xiaosu Sun 孙晓苏 is a Visiting Scholar of the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Oxford University. She is Associate Professor of Chinese Literature and Director of the Research Center for Chinese Culture and International Communication at Nanjing Normal University, China. She received her PhD in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University and has served as a Visiting Scholar of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences at Nanjing University. She specializes in pre-modern Chinese vernacular literature, with a particular emphasis on popular religious storytelling, ritual opera, and ritual soundscapes. She held a Loeb Fellowship, received a Humanities and Social Sciences Youth Fund, and has been awarded an Outstanding Achievement Award in Philosophy and Social Sciences, among other awards.
Date:
30 October 2025, 17:00
Venue:
Dickson Poon Building, Canterbury Road OX2 6LU
Venue Details:
Kin-ku Cheng Lecture Theatre (lower ground floor)
Speaker:
Professor Xiaosu Sun (University of Oxford)
Organising department:
Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
Organisers:
Dr Mark Czeller (University of Oxford),
Dr Cheuk Yee Wai (University of Oxford),
Professor Tian Yuan Tan (University of Oxford),
Dr Bo-jiun Jing (University of Oxford),
Dr Zhe Wang (University of Oxford),
Dr Evelyn Chan (University of Oxford),
Professor Denise van der Kamp (University of Oxford),
Dr Chigusa Yamaura (University of Oxford)
Organiser contact email address:
information@chinese.ox.ac.uk
Host:
Professor Tian Yuan Tan (University of Oxford)
Part of:
China Studies Seminar series
Booking required?:
Not required
Cost:
Free
Audience:
Public
Editor:
Clare Orchard
