| Mozina, David |
 |
|
Assistant Professor Office: Macy 108C Phone: 704-687-3186 Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Curriculum Vitae
Teaching
Research
Daoist priests processing during a funeral, Hunan Province, People's Republic of China (Photo courtesy of Doug Kanter, www.dougkanter.com) The clangs of hand cymbals, courtly melodies of the bamboo flute, and processions of Daoist priests during ceremonies large and small are daily occurrences in the hinterlands of central Hunan province (Xiangzhong 湘中). Since the late 1980s when the Chinese communist government relaxed proscriptions of religious activity throughout much of China, Daoist priests have again begun practicing esoteric rituals that had been outlawed since the 1950s. During my doctoral research, I was fortunate to experience first hand something of this revival. I lived with a lineage of Zhengyi 正一 Daoist priests in Anhua County 安化縣 for long stints, learning from them the brand of thunder ritual (leifa 雷法) they practice. Developed during the Song Dynasty (907-1279), thunder ritual blends inner alchemical (neidan 內丹) methods of self-cultivation with ritual modes of employing martial deities associated with the celestial Thunder Department (leibu 雷部) in order to exorcise demons believed to cause illness and economic misfortune. One finds conspicuous forms of thunder ritual thriving these days in central Hunan, sometimes including incantations and ritual instructions identical word for word with those found in 13th-century and later ritual manuals preserved in Daoist canons.
Ritual manual for hailing a thunder deity, Hunan Province, People's Republic of China (Scan by David Mozina) I am interested in how these thunder rituals work, how they are imagined as technologies for hailing, communicating with, and even cajoling thunder deities, who are charged with serving under the command of the priest as his exorcists. In Quelling the Divine, I employ textual and ethnographic methods to explore a particular thunder ritual that features the subtle art of talisman making to hail a thunder deity. A close reading of the symbolic and performative aspects of the ritual compels us to reimagine a written talisman on cloth or paper (fu 符) not as simply a piece of textual script or material artifact but as the condensation of a sophisticated ritual process that employs memory, visualization, and rhetorical play. Such a close reading of the ritual reveals a fantastic cosmology, physiology, and theology rooted in late imperial traditions of thunder ritual and in Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) vernacular fiction. These cultural resources are again being appropriated by Daoist priests to negotiate the demands of life in rapidly modernizing, 21st-century rural China. |
David Mozina (A.B., Columbia University; M.T.S., Harvard Divinity School; Th.D., Harvard Divinity School and Committee on the Study of Religion, Harvard University) joined the UNC Charlotte junior faculty in 2009. He teaches courses in Chinese and East Asian religions, with a focus on Daoism, as well as courses on ritual theory. David spent many years living on mainland China and in Taiwan. He is currently at work on his first monograph, tentatively entitled Quelling the Divine: The Performance of a Talisman in Contemporary Daoist Thunder Ritual, which explores the technology of talisman making in the strain of Daoist ritual currently practiced in central Hunan Province in south China. He is a member of the steering committee of and inaugural contributor to the Daoist Iconography Project, a collaborative research project based at the University of Hawaii, and is a member of the steering committee of the Daoist Studies Group of the American Academy of Religion. A former second baseman for Columbia, David attempts to keep up his skills by playing competitive fastpitch softball in Charlotte. He also tries to learn as many culinary tips as he can while hanging out with local chefs and wine distributors. 
