Early Taoist Texts

The two great early Daoist (Taoist) texts, the Daodejing (Tao te ching) and the Zhuangzi (Chuang–tzu), date from the Warring States period (475 -221 BCE) of China and remain widely read and studied. We will read them closely and slowly, considering questions of authorship, audience, translation and literary strategy as well as unpacking their philosophical, religious, and political messages. We will wrestle at length with these wonderful and difficult texts, with attention primarily to their original context and secondarily to their reception and interpretation in later religion, philosophy, and literature in East Asia and beyond.