Religion and Mythology

Author: Li Yiyuan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-05-01
Features: This collection includes 18 essays, with the first 11 listed under the Religious category and the last 7 under the Mythological category. Among the 11 religious essays, 10 are directly related to Taiwan. Specifically, 2 were published in the mid-1970s, 4 in the 1980s, and 4 in the 1990s. This arrangement of essays from different eras may not be perfectly appropriate, but it has its own advantages. On one hand, it allows readers to understand the various changes in Taiwan's religious phenomena across three different periods. On the other hand, it also demonstrates how a researcher can apply a consistent theoretical framework to analyze transformations over time.
In the Mythological section, there are 7 essays of varying lengths, including three longer ones: Cold Food Festival and Jizhi Tui, Dragon Boat Festival and Qu Yuan, and Pingmin Shiba Dong. The author examines the changes in Taiwanese religion over the past 30 years through an anthropological lens, exploring topics such as belief and culture, religion and superstition, and ritual and conversion. The author also presents rigorous arguments based on fieldwork and academic research regarding the modern trends of Taiwanese folk religion and the transformation and evolution of folk temples.
In the Mythological section, the author analyzes the inherent harmony and balance in Chinese mythology using Lévi-Strauss's structuralist framework. Readers can gain insights into the inner spirit of Chinese mythology through the author's detailed research and clear reasoning.