The Chinese Zodiac in Cultures and TraditionsCindy I-Fen Cheng2024

Lunar New Year, or the first new moon of the lunar calendar, is celebrated by people around the world and across different cultures. Within Chinese culture, the ushering in of a new year is celebrated through one of 12 distinct zodiac animals, each of which is known for its power to map a person’s behavior, character, and fate.

In The Chinese Zodiac in Cultures and Traditions, you’ll gain insights into how cultures make sense of the passing of time and our relationship to it. Your guide is Cindy I-Fen Cheng, the Robinson Edwards professor of history and Asian American studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In six illuminating lectures, she takes you on an immersive journey into the cultural importance and traditions of the Rat, the Ox, the Tiger, the Rabbit, the Dragon, the Snake, the Horse, the Goat, the Monkey, the Rooster, the Dog, and the Pig.

Along the way, you’ll learn how the Chinese zodiac is itself a synthesis of many different schools of thought and thinking and how its development serves as an ever-changing guide to Chinese culture and its social mores and values. You’ll also get a greater sense of how the legacy of the Chinese zodiac has been incorporated and reimagined in other countries—convergences that speak to the beauty of cultures coming together and changing over time.