New Books in East Asian Studies artwork

William Matthews, "Cosmic Coherence: A Cognitive Anthropology Through Chinese Divination" (Berghahn Books, 2021)

New Books in East Asian Studies

English - August 15, 2022 08:00 - 1 hour - ★★★★★ - 55 ratings
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Previous Episode: Roselyn Hsueh, "Micro-Institutional Foundations of Capitalism" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
Next Episode: Angela Ki Che Leung et al., "Moral Foods: The Construction of Nutrition and Health in Modern Asia" (U Hawaii Press, 2019)

Today I spoke to anthropologist William Matthews about his new book, Cosmic Coherence: A Cognitive Anthropology Through Chinese Divination (Berghahn Books, 2021). This book explores how humans are unique in their ability to create systematic accounts of the world – theories based on guiding cosmological principles. Mathews explains the role that cognition plays in creating cosmologies, and explores this through the ethnography and history of Yijing divination in China. Diviners explain the cosmos in terms of a single substance, qi, unfolding across scales of increasing complexity to create natural phenomena and human experience. Combined with an understanding of human cognition, it shows how this conception of scale offers a new way for anthropologists and other social scientists to think about cosmology, comparison and cultural difference.
Dr. Suvi Rautio is an anthropologist of China.
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Today I spoke to anthropologist William Matthews about his new book, Cosmic Coherence: A Cognitive Anthropology Through Chinese Divination (Berghahn Books, 2021). This book explores how humans are unique in their ability to create systematic accounts of the world – theories based on guiding cosmological principles. Mathews explains the role that cognition plays in creating cosmologies, and explores this through the ethnography and history of Yijing divination in China. Diviners explain the cosmos in terms of a single substance, qi, unfolding across scales of increasing complexity to create natural phenomena and human experience. Combined with an understanding of human cognition, it shows how this conception of scale offers a new way for anthropologists and other social scientists to think about cosmology, comparison and cultural difference.

Dr. Suvi Rautio is an anthropologist of China.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies