Daniel L. Overmyer

Overmyer was born on August 20, 1935, in Columbus, Ohio. He graduated in 1957 from Westmar College in Le Mars, Iowa, earning his B.A. in Biology. In 1960 he received a Bachelor of Divinity from Evangelical Theological Seminary in Naperville, Illinois.[2] [3]

He then earned a master's degree in the history of religions in 1966 and a PhD in Chinese religion in 1971 from the University of Chicago Divinity School, where he studied with Mircea Eliade, and Joseph Kitagawa among others. When he suggested that folk popular sects as a topic for his dissertation, one of his advisers, Professor Ho Ping-ti said that these groups were only rebels and outlaws, but Professor Philip Kuhn encouraged him to pursue these heretics and bandits as a promising topic.[4]

Overmyer then studied in Taiwan at the Inter-University Center for Chinese Language. He later described a turning point while in Taiwan when he discovered that the "heretics and bandits" were in fact popular religious sects much like those found in many parts of the world, including in some forms of Christianity. One evening while attending a scholarly lecture,

from across the street I heard the “tok tok” sound of a small wooden drum accompanying the chanting of scriptures, so I left the lecture room and found a small group of people wearing aqua colored jackets and pants dancing slowly in the street while thumping their chests. They appeared to be in trance; as taxis drove by, they were gently herded to the side by others, all of this in front of a small storefront chapel.

On an altar in the back of this chapel was the image of a female deity, Yaoji jinmu, “The Golden Mother of the Jasper Pond”, whom he recognized as a variant of Wusheng Laomu, “The Eternal Venerable Mother”, the chief deity of the groups he had been studying in traditional written texts.[5]

Overmyer's teaching career began in the Department of Religion at Oberlin College, Ohio, in 1970. After three years, he was invited to the University of British Columbia. He was granted tenure in 1977 and taught Chinese religion and philosophy there until he retired in 2001. During that time held visiting professorships at Princeton University (1983), University of Heidelberg (1993), and The Chinese University of Hong Kong (1996–98).

Overmeyer's student Philip Clart wrote that Overmyer's scholarship was unique in its "attention to religion in its less well-known manifestations, religion located along paths less travelled by scholars," the religious life of common people. [6] Clart continues that Overmyer's "methodological choice to study religion as it was and is lived by real people rather than as an abstract system of ideas and doctrines is not limited to the study of popular religions, but has applicability across the sphere of Chinese religious traditions.[7]

His first book, Folk Buddhist Religion: Dissenting Sects in Late Traditional China, published by Harvard University Press in 1976, grew out of his doctoral dissertation. Paul Cohen's Discovering History in China says that Overmyer exploits new kinds of sources materials -- sectarian scriptures or "precious scrolls" (baojuan) -- to give a "bottom up" view and access an "interior view" of reality as experienced by participants rather than described by outsiders. [8] A reviewer called it [9] The book was awarded the American Council of Learned Societies Prize in 1979 for "the best first book written by an historian of religions in the last three years."

His next monograph, The Flying Phoenix: Aspects of Chinese Sectarianism in Taiwan (Princeton, 1986), written with David K. Jordan, followed by survey written for undergraduates and the general public, Religions of China: The World as a Living System (Harper & Row, 1986).

Precious Volumes: an Introduction to Chinese Sectarian Scriptures from the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Harvard, 1999) expanded on his insight that texts play a major role in the religious life of commoners, not only the canonical texts of the great traditions. This volume took these texts as its sole focus, arguing for their value as documents of popular religious thought and windows into the religious experience of commoners. [10]

After retiring from teaching in 2001, Overmyer continued to publish. He edited Local Religion in North China in the Twentieth Century: The Structure and Organization of Community Rituals and Beliefs. (E. J. Brill, 2009) and a special issue of The China Quarterly, "Religion in China Today." He was visiting scholar at the Graduate Institute of Religious Studies of National Chengchi University in Taipei, Taiwan, February to July 2002.

Among his students at Oberlin were Randall Nadeau[11] and Stephen F. Teiser, and at British Columbia Paul Clart.

• University of Chicago Divinity School, Daniel OvermyerCS1 maint: ref=harv (link) Accessed September 2016.
• Clart, Philip; Crowe, Paul, eds. (2009). The People and the Dao: New Studies in Chinese Religions in Honour of Daniel L. Overmyer. Sankt Augustin, Germany: Institut Monumenta Serica. ISBN 9783805005579.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Clart, Philip; Crowe, Paul (2009). "Introduction". In Clart, Philip; Crowe, Paul (eds.). The People and the Dao: New Studies in Chinese Religions in Honour of Daniel L. Overmyer (PDF). Sankt Augustin, Germany: Institut Monumenta Serica. ISBN 9783805005579.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

• Publications Record Daniel L. Overmyer, Ph.D. The University Of British Columbia (Accessed December 2, 2018)
• WorldCat Identity Page Overmyer, Daniel L. 1935-