Interactions between Religious and Political Authority

Through eight case studies from premodern, modern, and contemporary China and Japan, this volume presents an interdisciplinary exploration of the manifold relations between religion and politics in the formation of authority. It combines theoretical with empirical interests and follows different approaches to a multitude of historical and cultural settings in order to investigate the institutional, legal, and academic entanglements that shape and constitute authority. The contents of the individual contributions range from the chronicles of the Fujiwara family written in 8th century Japan to the contentions between Confucian and Christian institutions in present-day China; from issues in the nomenclature and institutionalization of offices on the fringes of the Chinese empire to controversies on the relation between academic historiography and Shintō mythology during the emergence of the modern Japanese nation-state. The arguments focus on and rigorously analyze various historical attempts at distinguishing religious from political functions (and vice versa) as well as the ideologically motivated endeavors at blurring such distinctions with special regard to the politicization of premodern traditions.