Constructions of Shangqing, or How does Religion Do?

Eschewing theories of religion that configure religions as tightly integrated systems, this panel emphasizes practices of construction that do not create an epistemically bounded space but rather an open-ended assemblage of practices that find coherence in specific contexts using particular methods. This panel thus approaches the formation of religion(s) as a poly-vectoral coming-together of multiple dimensions of doing, using the medieval Daoist Supreme Purity (Shangqing) movement as an example. Such an approach moves beyond, or reads through, textual canons to uncover implicit actions and performative dimensions inherent in text. Taken together as a comparative conversation, the discussion members will open up a pout-pourri of methods and techniques by which the sect was formed, known, and asserted over time, the processes that made the religion what it was.