J uhn Y. A hn . Buddhas and Ancestors

The relationship between social change and religious change is an issue historians frequently wrestle with. Do changes in the dominant religion in a society stimulate changes in its social hierarchy, including who is ranked among the elite? Do alterations in a social hierarchy, bringing new faces to the fore, change which religious beliefs and practices are considered more prestigious and therefore bring about changes in the religious beliefs and practices associated with elite members of that society? Or should we recognize that this is not an either–or issue? Should religious change and social change instead be viewed as mutually transformative, such that changes in the composition of a society’s elite strata can both affect and reflect which religious beliefs and practice are more respected, and vice versa? Juhn Ahn, in this study of religious, social, and political change as Korea’s Koryŏ dynasty (918–1392) transitioned into the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910), has...

Affect (linguistics) · Elite · Hierarchy · Political change · Political science · Politics · Social change · Social hierarchy · Social science · Sociology · Transformative learning · Chinese history and philosophy · Gender Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies