Modern Ghost Melodramas
Michael Walker
Therapy, Spirituality, and East Asian Imaginaries
Ioannis Gaitanidis, Luis Fernando Bernardi Junqueira, Avery Morrow, Sang-yun Han (eds)
- Title
- Therapy, Spirituality, and East Asian Imaginaries
- Price
- € 134,00 excl. VAT
- ISBN
- 9789048559015
- Format
- Hardback
- Number of pages
- 302
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 25 - 02 - 2025
- Dimensions
- 15.6 x 23.4 cm
- Discipline
- Asian Studies
List of figures and tables
Acknowledgements
Note on naming, use of italics and other conventions
Therapy, Spirituality and East Asian Imaginaries: An Introduction
Section 1: Circulation of ‘East Asian’ Concepts
Chapter 1: How Qi Became Energy: Parapsychology, Soviet Science and Chinese Acupuncture in the 1970s
Chapter 2: Finding Kyo in Shiatsu Spaces: Sensing the Global Movement of Embodied Knowledge
Chapter 3: Capturing the Moment of Kimochi-ii: Transnational Flows and the Transformation of Qigong in Japan
Section 2: Circulation of Therapeutic Narratives
Chapter 4: Five-Element Acupuncture in 1960-80s Britain: In Pursuit of Alternative Treatment with Body-Mind-Spirit
Chapter 5: From Eden to Aquarius: ‘Oriental Medicine’, Natural Healing and the Market of Self-Care Books in Brazil in the 1970s
Chapter 6: Buddhist Self-Help Healing Narratives and the Meditative Turn
Section 3: Alternative Therapies Across Epistemic Fields and Professions
Chapter 7: A Collaboration Between Mother and Baby: Sophrology in a Japanese Maternity Clinic and the Making of Medical Knowledge
Chapter 8: The Influence of Traditional Chinese Medicine on Brazilian Naturology
Chapter 9: Constructing a Modern Esoteric Buddhist Breath Therapy
Section 4: Alternative Therapies and National Identities
Chapter 10: Ki Sury.n in South Korea: Reclaiming the Term Pigwahakch.k (Unscientific) to Challenge Scientific Supremacy
Chapter 11: Nationalism and the Legitimacy of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Macau: Colonial Legacy and Contemporary Imaginaries
Acknowledgements
Note on naming, use of italics and other conventions
Therapy, Spirituality and East Asian Imaginaries: An Introduction
Section 1: Circulation of ‘East Asian’ Concepts
Chapter 1: How Qi Became Energy: Parapsychology, Soviet Science and Chinese Acupuncture in the 1970s
Chapter 2: Finding Kyo in Shiatsu Spaces: Sensing the Global Movement of Embodied Knowledge
Chapter 3: Capturing the Moment of Kimochi-ii: Transnational Flows and the Transformation of Qigong in Japan
Section 2: Circulation of Therapeutic Narratives
Chapter 4: Five-Element Acupuncture in 1960-80s Britain: In Pursuit of Alternative Treatment with Body-Mind-Spirit
Chapter 5: From Eden to Aquarius: ‘Oriental Medicine’, Natural Healing and the Market of Self-Care Books in Brazil in the 1970s
Chapter 6: Buddhist Self-Help Healing Narratives and the Meditative Turn
Section 3: Alternative Therapies Across Epistemic Fields and Professions
Chapter 7: A Collaboration Between Mother and Baby: Sophrology in a Japanese Maternity Clinic and the Making of Medical Knowledge
Chapter 8: The Influence of Traditional Chinese Medicine on Brazilian Naturology
Chapter 9: Constructing a Modern Esoteric Buddhist Breath Therapy
Section 4: Alternative Therapies and National Identities
Chapter 10: Ki Sury.n in South Korea: Reclaiming the Term Pigwahakch.k (Unscientific) to Challenge Scientific Supremacy
Chapter 11: Nationalism and the Legitimacy of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Macau: Colonial Legacy and Contemporary Imaginaries
Therapy, Spirituality, and East Asian Imaginaries
In the context of modern global exchanges, an imagined and essentialised notion of ‘East Asia’ has served as both a source of inspiration and a catalyst for new connections, extending beyond the geographic boundaries of China, Japan and Korea. This volume explores the global circulation of practices, technologies and ideas identified as ‘East Asian’ in alternative therapies and spiritual practices since the 1970s. Case studies range from sophrology in Japanese maternity clinics to incorporating traditional Chinese medicine into Brazilian naturopathy, and from self-development seminars promoting Korean national identity to the healthy-minded meditation practices of enthusiasts in London. Rather than focusing on questions of authenticity, the book uniquely interrogates how and why the cultures of China, Japan, and Korea have been invoked over the last fifty years to promote specific therapeutic, spiritual and political agendas worldwide.
Editors
Ioannis Gaitanidis
Ioannis Gaitanidis is Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Global and Transdisciplinary Studies, Chiba University (Japan). His research focusses on alternative therapies and contemporary religion in Japan. He has recently authored Spirituality and Alternativity in Contemporary Japan: Beyond Religion? (2022, Bloomsbury Advances in Religious Studies).
Luis Fernando Bernardi Junqueira
Luis Fernando Bernardi Junqueira (PhD, University College London) is a Research Associate at the Centre for the Social History of Health & Healthcare, University of Strathclyde, Scotland. He is a global historian working on the intersection of science, medicine and religion in 19th- and 20th-century China, with extended interests in studies of esotericism, psychology and mental health in modern East Asia and South America. He has published extensively in Chinese, Portuguese and English (https://luisfbj.com/).
Avery Morrow
Avery Morrow is a PhD candidate in Religious Studies at Brown University. His research broadly covers new religious movements and occultism in Japan from 1868 through the present day. He is currently preparing a book chapter on Shinto and hypnotism in the Meiji period.
Sang-yun Han
Sangyun Han is a PhD student at the Graduate School of International Cultural Studies, Tohoku University and a visiting research student at the Centre for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents, University of Amsterdam. Her research focuses on the history of modern Japanese religion, especially the relationship between the “Occult Boom” of the 1970s and Japanese esoteric Buddhism.
