BEYOND IDEOLOGY: RELIGIOUS THOUGHTS AND CULTURAL PRACTICES IN LETTERS BETWEEN FENG ZIKAI AND MASTER GUANGQIA IN SOCIALIST CHINA 1950S–1970S

Abstract

The letters between Feng Zikai and Master Guangqia after 1949 in socialist China complicated interaction among religion, the self, and the world, and during this period waves of literary and artistic practices emerged that sought to identify individual options in the face of the atrocities. Feng’s religious-cultural practices, overseas interactions, and his letters in the 1950s–1970s in my paper would be regarded as a set of values or a structure of feeling that registered a social episteme. The years 1949–1975 were a period when the cold war took place and Feng kept close relationships with intellectuals from Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan. This paper examines him in the transnational framework, and studies communist cultural and diplomatic policies as well. Therefore, this paper will focus on the letters between Feng and intellectuals from abroad, to explore the issue of how the religions, overseas publications and cultural practices helped Feng Zikai expand his ways of culture expression. Besides, this paper intends to investigate how Feng succeeded in retaining the continuation of Master Hongyi’s religious thoughts in socialist China during the 1950s–1970s.

Keywords

• intellectual history
• modern chinese culture
• religion
• socialist period
• structure of feeling