Subproject A02

The Kinesis of Immortality. Spatial-kinetic Metaphors and Daoist Salvation

The subproject focuses on the role of spatial-kinetic metaphors in the formation of the Daoist religion between 300 BCE and 350 CE. First, the project aims to explore the relationship between cognition and religious communication. Second, the role of metaphors in the linguistic encoding of the transcendence/immanence distinction (especially with respect to deixis) shall be analyzed in detail. Third, the project will explore whether and to what extent spatial-kinetic metaphors worked as a semantic bridge between early Daoist literature and the broader realm of pre-Buddhist religions.

Publications

• Di Giacinto, Licia. 2024b. “Daoismus und der gerechte Krieg: ein Überblick.” In Handbuch Religion in Konflikten und Friedensprozessen, edited by Ines-Jacqueline Werkner, Madlen Krüger, and Anna Löw, 985–994. Wiesbaden: Springer.
• Di Giacinto, Licia. 2025. “The DAO Metaphor in Early China: The Religion of the Way between and beyond ‘the way that can be way-ed’ and ‘the way that cannot be way-ed’.” In Conceptualizing CONDUCT OF LIFE through WAY Metaphors, edited by Kianoosh Rezania, Neda Mohtashami, and Roman Seidel. Metaphor Papers 19. https://doi.org/10.46586/mp.430.497.