NEW PUBLICATIONS IN 2010
Agnew, Christopher S. “Bureaucrats, Sectarians, and the Descendants of Confucius.” Late Imperial China 31.1 (2010): 1-27.
Abstract: Through an examination of an investigation of heterodoxy and corruption, this article explores the relationship between the Kongs of Qufu, the recognized descendants of Confucius, and the bureaucracy of the Qing state in the early nineteenth century. In 1811, the Kongs were scandalized by revelations that officials of their estate had been accepting contributions of silver from a popular religious association decried as “heterodox” by the Qing state. This study of the subsequent investigation reveals the bureaucratic dynamics of anti-corruption cases; provincial officials drove the interrogations to increasingly violent extremes in the search for silver. The unusual arrangement linking the Kong estate to a sectarian organization is also suggestive. While the declining fortunes of the Kongs contributed to an increased motivation to forge patronage relationships with alternative social networks, it also weakened the Kong duke’s ability to protect his mansion bureaucracy from intrabureaucratic attack.
Aijmer, Göran. “Cold Food, Fire and Ancestral Production: Midspring Celebrations in Central China.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Third Series 20.3 (2010): 319-344.
Abstract: This article seeks to explain the traditional celebration of Cold Food and some other springtime customs in the mid-Yangzi basin in central China. In these rituals the ancestors and their influence in the production of new rice were highlighted while, at the same time, social reproduction through women was temporarily suspended. Female generative energy was not allowed to compete with the creative force of the ancestors in the fields. Cold Food is seen as a trope on seasonal agricultural tasks. The myth of moral constancy, which accompanied the festival, was on another deeper level an iconic exploration of the preparation of the agr icultural fields. Death was seen to propel life, ancestral energy being transfer red to the living through rice.
Bai Bin. “Religious Beliefs as Reflected in the Funerary Record.” In: John Lagerwey and Lü Pengzhi [eds.], Early Chinese Religion: Part Two: The Period of Division (220-589 AD). Leiden: Brill, 2010. Pp.989-1073.
Berezkin, Rostislav. “The Development of the Mulian Story in Baojuan Texts (14th-19th Century) in Connection with the Evolution of the Genre.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2010.
Abstract: Baojuan (precious scrolls) is a genre of Chinese prosimetric narrative literature, implying predominantly religious contents, which arose around the 14 th century and is still a living tradition today. Baojuan are the texts intended for performance. They were written in simple classical Chinese with vernacular elements. Baojuan were transmitted in the form of manuscripts and printed editions. I examine the development of one particular story (Buddha's disciple Mulian rescuing his mother from hell) in baojuan texts of different time periods in order to observe the changes of literary and religious characteristics of the genre, and also its social dimensions. It is the first attempt at an overall comparative study of the major baojuan texts on the Mulian story in world sinology. The dissertation focuses primarily on five texts, composed in the 14 th -19 th century. I also employ sources of other genres of Chinese literature, however, as well as materials of modern live performances of baojuan, including texts dealing with Mulian. Data on these performances comes mainly from my own fieldwork in China. I analyze the transformation of the purposes baojuan performances--from Buddhist proselytizing to sectarian propaganda in the early period of development and then to an act of religious devotion connected with folk ritual in the later. I argue that several traditions merged in this genre: religious exegesis, popular sermons, sectarian eschatology, religious festivals, popular drama, and the novel. Conclusions of my research challenge the existing periodization of the history of baojuan genre. With the use of methodology of the modern theory of oral literature, I demonstrate how the connection with the oral performance shaped the special features of form and contents of baojuan texts. I argue that baojuan genre has a special status of performance oriented text and reveal the close interaction of oral and written traditions in baojuan texts.
Chang, Wen-Chun. “Buddhism, Taoism, Folk Religions, and Rebellions: Empirical Evidence from Taiwan.” Journal of Asian and African Studies 45.4 (2010): 445-460.
Abstract: This study investigates the influences of religion in determining whether to support what might be perceived to be rebellious actions in Taiwan where most people are adherents of Buddhism, Taoism, and folk religions. Using data from the Taiwan Social Change Survey 2004, the estimations of the probit model suggest that there are some strong links between religion and the attitudes toward rebellious actions. In particular, being a Taoist reduces the probability of protest participation while being a Buddhist and being a folk religionist cut the likelihood of signing a petition. Moreover, the frequencies of religious attendance are positively associated with the probabilities of participating in a protest, signing a petition, and taking actions against injustice or harmful regulations.
Chau, Adam Yuet. "Mao’s Travelling Mangoes: Food as Relic in Revolutionary China." Past & Present 2010, Supplement 5: 256-275. Online edition.
Chittick, Andrew. “Competitive Spectacle Competitive Spectacle during China’s Northern and Southern Dynasties: With Particular Emphasis on ‘Dragon’ Boat Racing.” Asia Major, Third Series, 23.1 (2010): 65-85.
Chu, Julie Y. Cosmologies of Credit: Transnational Mobility and the Politics of Destination in China. Durham: Duke University Press, 2010. (See especially chapter 5, "For Use in Heaven or Hell: The Circulation of the U.S. Dollar among Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors")
Clark, Hugh R. „On the Protection of Mariners: A Trajectory in the Cultic Traditions of Southern Fujian from the Early Song to the Early Qing.“ Minsu quyi/Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 167 (2010): 65-121.
Cline, Erin M. “Female Spirit Mediums and Religious Authority in Contemporary Southeastern China.” Modern China 36.6 (2010): 520-555.
Abstract: Although studies of Chinese spirit mediums in Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan abound, there has been little work done on spirit mediums in mainland China today. Yet spirit mediums play an important role in religious life in southeastern China, and in some areas, spirit mediums are predominantly women. This phenomenon is significant not only because it allows women who are of relatively low status to hold positions of religious authority but also because female spirit mediums sometimes address community needs that are not addressed by other religious authorities.
Dean, Kenneth & Zheng Zhenman. Ritual Alliances of the Putian Plain. Volume One: Historical Introduction to the Return of the Gods. Volume Two: A Survey of Village Temples and Ritual Activities. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2010.
Abstract: Making ingenious use of a wide variety of sources, and old as well as modern technical resources, Kenneth Dean and Zheng Zhenman here set a new standard for an histoire totale for a coherently well-defined cultural region in China. At the same time it deals in-depth with the ongoing negotiation of modernity in Chinese village rituals. Over the past thirty years, local popular religion has been revived and re-invented in the villages of the irrigated alluvial plain of Putian, Fujian, China. Volume 1 provides a historical introduction to the formation of 153 regional ritual alliances made up of 724 villages. Early popular cults, Ming lineages, Qing multi-village alliances, late Qing spirit-medium associations, 20th century state attacks on local religion, and the role of Overseas Chinese and local communities in rebuilding the temple networks are discussed. Volume 2 surveys the current population, lineages, temples, gods, and annual rituals of these villages. Maps of each ritual alliance, the distribution of major cults and lineages, are included. [Source: publisher's website]
Dean, Kenneth. “The Return Visits of Overseas Chinese to Ancestral Villages in Putian, Fujian.” In: Tim Oakes & Donald S. Sutton [eds.], Faiths on Display: Religion, Tourism, and the Chinese State. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010. Pp.235-263.
DeBernardi, Jean. "On Women and Chinese Ritual Food Culture in Penang and Singapore." Min-su ch'ü-i / Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 168 (2010): 111-155.
de Vries, Patrick. “Passing the Shrine of the God Calming the Waves and the Notion of Emptiness in Huang Tingjian’s (1045–1105) Calligraphy.” Asiatische Studien / Études Asiatiques 64.4 (2010): 907-941.
Dott, Brian R. “Spirit Money: Tourism and Pilgrimage on the Sacred Slopes of Mount Tai.” In: Tim Oakes & Donald S. Sutton [eds.], Faiths on Display: Religion, Tourism, and the Chinese State. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010. Pp.27-49.
Fan Chunwu. “Confucian “Religion” in the Early Republican Period: Historical Questions Concerning Duan Zhengyuan and the Morality Society.” Chinese Studies in History 44.1-2 (2010/11): 91-120.
Abstract: On the basis of newly discovered archival materials and the work of main- land scholars interested in the current Confucian revival, Fan Cunwu offers a new appraisal of Duan Zhengyuan and his Morality Society. While providing an overview of the organization and history of the group, Fan emphasizes the importance of Duan’s effort to found a Confucian-based religion and connects this undertaking with the long-term evolution of Confucianism in the Ming-Qing period. (Source: journal)
Feuchtwang, Stephan. The Anthropology of Religion, Charisma and Ghosts: Chinese Lessons for Adequate Theory. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010.
Abstract: It has been said that Chinese government was, until the republican period, government through li. Li is the untranslatable word covering appropriate conduct toward others, from the guest rituals of imperial diplomacy to the hospitality offered to guests in the homes of ordinary people. It also covers the centring of self in relation to the flows and objects in a landscape or a built environment, including the world beyond the spans of human and other lives. It is prevalent under the republican regimes of China and Taiwan in the forming and maintaining of personal relations, in the respect for ancestors, and especially in the continuing rituals of address to gods, of command to demons, and of charity to neglected souls. The concept of ?religion’ does not grasp this, neither does the concept of ?ritual’, yet li undoubtedly refers to a figuration of a universe and of place in the world as encompassing as any body of rite and magic or of any religion. Through studies of Chinese gods and ghosts this book challenges theories of religion based on a supreme god and that god’s prophets, as well as those like Hinduism based on mythical figures from epics, and offers another conception of humanity and the world, distinct from that conveyed by the rituals of other classical anthropological theories. (Source: publisher's website)
Formoso, Bernard. De Jiao - A Religious Movement in Contemporary China and Overseas: Purple Qi from the East. Singapore: NUS Press, 2010.
Abstract: De Jiao ("Teaching of Virtue") is a China-born religious movement, based on spirit-writing and rooted in the tradition of the "halls for good deeds," which emerged in Chaozhou during the Sino-Japanese war. The book relates the fascinating process of its spread throughout Southeast Asia in the 1950s, and, more recently, from Thailand and Malaysia to post-Maoist China and the global world. Through a richly-documented multi-site ethnography of De Jiao congregations in the PRC, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, Bernard Formoso offers valuable insights into the adaptation of Overseas Chinese to sharply contrasted national polities, and the projective identity they build with relation to China. De Jiao is of special interest with regard to its organization and strategies which strongly reflect the managerial habits and entrepreneurial ethos of the Overseas Chinese businessmen. It has also built original bonding with symbols of the Chinese civilization whose greatness it claims to champion from the periphery. Accordingly, a central theme of the study is the role that such a religious movement may play to promote new forms of identification with the motherland as substitutes for loosened genealogical links. The book also offers a comprehensive interpretation of the contemporary practice of fu ji spirit-writing, and reconsiders the relation between unity and diversity in Chinese religion. [Source: publisher's website]
Formoso, Bernard. “Dejiao, a Chinese Religious Movement in the Age of Globalization.” Journal of Chinese Religions 38 (2010): 36-58.
Goossaert, Vincent & Fang Ling. “Tempel und Daoisten im urbanen China seit 1980.” China heute 29.2 (2010): 87-96.
Goossaert, Vincent. „Bureaucratie, taxation et justice. Taoïsme et construction de l’État au Jiangnan (Chine), XVIIe-XIXe siècle.“ Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales 65.4 (2010): 999-1027.
Abstract: La dimension territoriale de l’organisation socioreligieuse de la Chine moderne est étroitement liée au taoïsme et à sa vision bureaucratique du monde. L’article met en évidence ce lien dans le cas de la région du Jiangnan à l’époque moderne. Cette région est caractérisée par des élites taoïstes particulièrement bien implantées. Ces élites contrôlent des temples centraux qui entretiennent avec les communautés territoriales des rapports de type bureaucratique : elles nomment les dieux locaux de ces communautés, perçoivent un impôt symbolique de leur part, et leur donnent accès à un système de justice divine. Ce faisant, elles fonctionnent comme une branche religieuse de la bureaucratie impériale, à laquelle elles sont par ailleurs intégrées. Cette triple bureaucratie, taoïste, divine, et impériale, a fonctionné jusqu’au début du XXe siècle.
"Bureaucracy, taxation and justice : Daoism and state building in Jiangnan (China), 17th-19th centuries." The territorial dimension of early modern China’s socio-religious organization is intimately linked with Daoism and its bureaucratic worldview. This article studies such a link through a case study of the Jiangnan area during the late imperial period. Jiangnan was characterized by particularly deeply rooted Daoist elites who controlled central temples. These elites and temples oversaw local territorial communities in a bureaucratic manner, as they nominated their local gods, collected a symbolic tax from their members, and administered a system of divine justice for them. They thus operated as a religious branch of the imperial bureaucracy, to which they firmly belonged. The triple Daoist/Divine/ Imperial bureaucracy functioned in such a way until the early twentieth century.
Guo, Qitao. “Genealogical Pedigree versus Godly Power: Cheng Minzheng and Lineage Politics in Mid-Ming Huizhou.” Late Imperial China 31.1 (2010): 28-61.
Abstract: This article focuses on power negotiations among prominent lineages in Huizhou prefecture during the mid Ming (1450–1550) as manifested through gentry compilation of regional genealogies and scripting of local liturgies. It enriches the current scholarship on Chinese lineage institutions and the mid-Ming rise of regional consciousness and local elite activism.
Hatfield, DJ W. Taiwanese Pilgrimage to China: Ritual, Complicity, Community. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Abstract: This book examines the pilgrimages to China from Taiwan in the late 1980s and early 1990s and offers a wide-ranging account of urban planning statements, arguments about ritual propriety, and the material culture of pilgrimage. Taiwanese Pilgrimage to China argues that as Taiwanese pilgrims and their Chinese hosts translated values produced in ritual contexts into the terms of economic and political reform, they became complicit in a shared project of composing historical truth. With its attention to pilgrimages at a possible center of geopolitical conflict, Taiwanese Pilgrimage to China provides an account of how shared frameworks for action grow and advances anthropological understandings of conflict resolution.
Hsieh, Daniel. "Fox as Trickster in Early Medieval China." In: Alan K.L. Chan & Yuet-keung Lo [eds.], Interpretation and Literature in Early Medieval China. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2010. Pp. 223-249.
Hung Chang-tai. “The Anti-Unity Sect Campaign and Mass Mobilization in the Early People’s Republic of China.” The China Quarterly 202 (2010): 400-420.
Abstract: The anti-Unity Sect campaign (1949–53), a precursor to the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries (the zhenfan movement), was one of the Chinese Communists' most violent policies to root out a perceived evil cult in China. This article argues that the drive was never simply a religious crusade. It was essentially a mass mobilization for the purpose of consolidating the Communists' power and legitimacy. Through a host of propaganda channels, including media attacks and public trials, the Communists dealt a crippling blow to the sect. The mobilization campaign turned many citizens into supporters and agents of the government, and its tactics would soon be mimicked in subsequent political movements.
Iiyama, Tomoyasu. „Maintaining Gods in Medieval China: Temple Worship and Local Governance in North China under the Jin and Yuan.“ Journal of Song-Yuan Studies 40 (2010): 71-102.
Johnson, David. Spectacle and Sacrifice: The Ritual Foundations of Village Life in North China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2010.
Abstract: This book is about the ritual world of a group of rural settlements in Shanxi province in pre-1949 North China. Temple festivals, with their giant processions, elaborate rituals, and operas, were the most important influence on the symbolic universe of ordinary villagers and demonstrate their remarkable capacity for religious and artistic creation. The great festivals described in this book were their supreme collective achievements and were carried out virtually without assistance from local officials or educated elites, clerical or lay. Chinese culture was a performance culture, and ritual was the highest form of performance. Village ritual life everywhere in pre-revolutionary China was complex, conservative, and extraordinarily diverse. Festivals and their associated rituals and operas provided the emotional and intellectual materials out of which ordinary people constructed their ideas about the world of men and the realm of the gods. It is, David Johnson argues, impossible to form an adequate idea of traditional Chinese society without a thorough understanding of village ritual. Newly discovered liturgical manuscripts allow him to reconstruct North Chinese temple festivals in unprecedented detail and prove that they are sharply different from the Daoist- and Buddhist-based communal rituals of South China. [Source: publisher's website]
Johnson, Elizabeth Lominska. "Women as Worshippers, Women Worshipped: A Hakka Community in Hong Kong." Min-su ch'ü-i / Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 168 (2010): 79-109.
Jones, Stephen. In Search of the Folk Daoists of North China. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010.
Abstract: The living practice of Daoist ritual is still only a small part of Daoist studies. Most of this work focuses on the southeast, with the vast area of north China often assumed to be a tabula rasa for local lay liturgical traditions. This book, based on fieldwork, challenges this assumption. With case studies on parts of Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces, Stephen Jones describes ritual sequences within funerals and temple fairs, offering details on occupational hereditary lay Daoists, temple-dwelling priests, and even amateur ritual groups. Stressing performance, Jones observes the changing ritual scene in this poor countryside, both since the 1980s and through all the tribulations of twentieth-century warfare and political campaigns. The whole vocabulary of north Chinese Daoists differs significantly from that of the southeast, which has so far dominated our image. Largely unstudied by scholars of religion, folk Daoist ritual in north China has been a constant theme of music scholars within China. Stephen Jones places lay Daoists within the wider context of folk religious practices - including those of lay Buddhists, sectarians, and spirit mediums. This book opens up a new field for scholars of religion, ritual, music, and modern Chinese society. [Source: publisher's website]
Knapp, Keith N. “Borrowing Legitimacy from the Dead: the Confucianization of Ancestral Worship.” In: John Lagerwey and Lü Pengzhi [eds.], Early Chinese Religion: Part Two: The Period of Division (220-589 AD). Leiden: Brill, 2010. Pp.143-192.
Lagerwey, John. China: A Religious State. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010.
Abstract: Over the last forty years, our vision of Chinese culture and history has been transformed by the discovery of the role of religion in Chinese state-making and in local society. The Daoist religion, in particular, long despised as "superstitious", has recovered its place as "the native higher religion." But while the Chinese state tried from the fifth century on to construct an orthodoxy based on Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, local society everywhere carved out for itself its own geomantically defined space and organized itself around local festivals in honor of gods of its own choosing—gods who were often invented and then represented by illiterate mediums. Looking at China from the point of view of elite or popular culture therefore produces very different results. John Lagerwey has done extensive fieldwork on local society and its festivals. This book represents a first attempt to use this new research to integrate top-down and bottom-up views of Chinese society, culture, and history. It should be of interest to a wide range of China specialists, students of religion and popular culture, as well as participants in the ongoing interdisciplinary dialogue between historians and anthropologists. [Source: publisher's website]
Lee, Anru & Anna Wen-hui Tang. “The Twenty-five Maiden Ladies’ Tomb and Predicaments of the Feminist Movement in Taiwan.” Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 39(3): 23-49.
Abstract: “The Twenty-five Maiden Ladies’ Tomb” is the collective burial site of the female workers who died in a ferry accident on their way to work in 1973. The fact that of the more than 70 passengers on board all 25 who died were unmarried young women, and the taboo in Taiwanese culture that shuns unmarried female ghosts, made the Tomb a fearsome place. Feminists in Gaoxiong had for some years wanted the city government to change the tomb’s public image. Their calls were not answered until the Gaoxiong mayor’s office finally allocated money to clean up the gravesite and, as part of the city’s plans to develop urban tourism, to remake it into the tourist-friendly “Memorial Park for Women Labourers”. Consequently, even though the tomb renovation seemed to indicate a triumph of the feminist endeavour, it was more a result of the Gaoxiong city governmurban revitalization. (Source: journal)
Li, Shiwei. “A Survey and Evaluation of Postwar Scholarship of Popular Taiwan (1950–2000).” Chinese Studies in History 44.1-2 (2010/11): 38-75.
Abstract: Most of the best Chinese-language scholarship on redemptive societies, and on religion in general, has been done by Taiwanese scholars, both because religion in Taiwan has been subject to less state intervention than on the main- land, and because scholarship on Taiwan is both freer and more open to Western influence. Although Li Shiwei’s article is not focused squarely on the subject of redemptive societies, he offers a comprehensive and valuable overview of the last half century of work on Chinese popular religion by Taiwanese scholars, a useful shortcut to a very useful body of knowledge. (Source: journal)
Lin, Fu-shih. “Shamans and Politics.” In: John Lagerwey and Lü Pengzhi [eds.], Early Chinese Religion: Part Two: The Period of Division (220-589 AD). Leiden: Brill, 2010. Pp.275-318.
Lu, Zhongwei. “Huidaomen in the Republican Period.” Chinese Studies in History 44.1-2 (2010/11): 10-37.
Abstract: Lu Zhongwei’s study of huidaomen in the Republican period is a classic Marxist analysis such as often found in the People’s Republic of China. Huidaomen are presented as the “opiate of the people,” peddled to the suffering masses during a difficult period by evil charlatans eager for money and fame. At the same time, Lu has done a great deal of work in the sources of the period and presents a useful sociological profile of huidaomen leaders and members. (Source: journal)
Oakes, Tim. “Alchemy of the Ancestors: Rituals of Genealogy in the Service of the Nation in Rural China.” In: Tim Oakes & Donald S. Sutton [eds.], Faiths on Display: Religion, Tourism, and the Chinese State. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010. Pp.51-77.
Peng, Mu. “Imitating Masters: Apprenticeship and Embodied Knowledge in Rural China.” In: Devorah Kalekin-Fishman & Kelvin E.Y. Low [eds.], Everyday Life in Asia: Social Perspectives on the Senses. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2010. Pp. 115-136.
Poo, Mu-chou. “Images and Ritual Treatment of Dangerous Spirits.” In: John Lagerwey and Lü Pengzhi [eds.], Early Chinese Religion: Part Two: The Period of Division (220-589 AD). Leiden: Brill, 2010. Pp.1075-1094.
Raphals, Lisa. “Divination and Autonomy: New Perspectives from Excavated Texts.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 37 (Supplement) (2010): 124-141.
Salguero, Pierce C. “’A Flock of Ghosts Bursting Forth and Scattering’: Healing Narratives in a Sixth-Century Chinese Buddhist Hagiography.” East Asian Science, Technology and Medicine 32 (2010): 89-120.
Song Guangyu. “The Heavenly Way Transmits the Light : The Yiguandao and Contemporary Society.” Chinese Studies in History 44.1-2 (2010/11): 76-90.
Abstract: Song Guangyu was among the first Chinese scholars to study Chinese redemptive societies from a cultural and religious perspective. As part of his research, he joined the Yiguandao and carried out fieldwork, providing insights into beliefs and rituals largely inaccessible to nonmembers. He ultimately came to defend the Yiguandao and other redemptive societies as having defended traditional Chinese culture against the aggressive campaigns of westernization which have marked much of Chinese politics during the twentieth century. In the excerpts from his book The Heavenly Way Transmits the Light, Song reflects on the origin of his scholarly quest and provides an overview of his neotraditional reinterpretation of modern Chinese culture. (Source: journal)
Song Guangyu. “Religious Propagation, Commercial Activities, and Cultural Identity: The Spread and Development of the Yiguandao in Singapore.” Chinese Studies in History 44.1-2 (2010/11): 91-120.
Abstract: This article uses the example of the growth of the Yiguandao in Singapore to explore the mutual relationships between religion, commercial activity, and the cultural identity of local Chinese society. There has been much dispute over the nature of the Yiguandao, and both the Nationalist and Communist governments have outlawed its activities. Consequently, the Yiguandao sought out opportunities for development in the Chinese diaspora. After thirty years of efforts they have made impressive gains. The Yiguandao is established in thirty-eight countries, particularly in Southeast Asia. All branches of the Yiguandao are active in Singapore, the Baoguang-Jiande branch being the most successful. This branch set up a factory in Singapore some twenty years ago [in the mid-1970s], as part of a long-term development plan. After encountering all sorts of difficulties, an unexpected rise in the price of the commodity the fac- tory produced reversed their declining fortunes and also launched the religion on a rapid upward course. At the same time, the Singapore government was promot- ing traditional Chinese culture in an effort to strengthen the spiritual life of the Singapore people. The activities of the Yiguandao fit in perfectly with the govern- ment campaign. Consequently, religious development, commercial activities, and cultural identity all came together, providing a case study of the development of Chinese popular religion. (Source: journal)
Sutton, Donald S. & Xiaofei Kang. “Making Tourists, Remaking Locals: Religion, Ethnicity, and Patriotism on Display in Northern Sichuan.” In: Tim Oakes & Donald S. Sutton [eds.], Faiths on Display: Religion, Tourism, and the Chinese State. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010. Pp.103-126.
Svensson, Marina. “Tourist Itineraries, Spatial Mangement, and Hidden Temples: The Revival of Religious Sites in a Water Town.” In: Tim Oakes & Donald S. Sutton [eds.], Faiths on Display: Religion, Tourism, and the Chinese State. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010. Pp.211-233.
Thornton, Patricia M. “The New Cybersects: Popular Religion, Repression and Resistance.” In: Elizabeth J. Perry & Mark Selden [eds.], Chinese Society: Change, Conflict and Resistance. Third edition. London; New York: Routledge, 2010. Pp. 215-238.
Tillman, Margaret Mih & Hoyt Cleveland Tillman. “A Joyful Union: The Modernization of the Zhu Xi Family Ritual Wedding Ceremony.” Oriens Extremus 49 (2010): 115-142.
Wang, Jianchuan. “An Exploration of the Early History of the Tongshanshe (1912-1945).” Chinese Studies in History 44.1-2 (2010/11): 121-131.
Abstract: In this article, Wang Jianchuan examines the early history of the Tongshanshe, one of the major redemptive societies of the Republican period, using newly discovered archival documents and other historical data. (Source: journal)
Woo, Terry Tak-Ling. “Chinese Popular Religion in Diaspora: A Case Study of Shrines in Toronto’s Chinatowns.” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 39, no. 2 (2010): 151-177.
Abstract: This article examines spirit shrines in Toronto’s Chinatowns by drawing on two broad areas of existing scholarship: the study of Chinese popular religion in native communities by scholars like Adam Chau, Alessandro Dell’Orto, Randall Nadeau and Chang Hsun, and Donald Sutton; and the study of the religiosity of North American Chinese diasporic communities which concentrates primarily on Christianity and peripherally Buddhism by scholars like Rudy Busto, Kenneth Guest, Lien Pei-te, and Yang Fenggang. This paper aims to describe one aspect of folk, non-textual diasporic Chinese religiosity expressed in spirit shrines as a means through which to explore the apparent anomaly of the ‘‘non-religious’’ Chinese-Canadian. (Source: journal)
Yu, Zhejun. "Volksreligion im Spiegel der Zivilgesellschaftstheorie: Gottbegrüßungsprozession in Shanghai während der Republikzeit." Doctoral dissertation, University of Leipzig, Germany, 2010. Download here.
Abstract: Gottbegrüßungsprozession (????, oder Gottempfangsprozession) ist die eines der wichtigsten volksreligiösen Rituale, die zu den bedeutendsten Zeremonien des Religionslebens des chinesischen Volks zählen dürften. Der Ausgangspunkt meiner Forschung ist die 1995 veröffentlichte Studie Demon Hordes and Burning Boats: The Cult of Marshall Wen in Late Imperial Chekiang von Paul Katz, in der „Zivilgesellschaft und Volksreligion“ zum ersten Mal in der Forschung über die chinesische Kultur thematisiert. Um Katz’ Schwächen in der Studie zum Marschall Wen - sowohl an Quellen als auch in Theorie - auszugleichen, folgen ich in meiner Arbeit vertiefend zwei Grundlinien und damit sie grob in zwei Teile teilen, nämlich einen theoretischen und einen empirischen Teil. Im theoretischen Teil müssen zwei Fragen beantwortet: Was ist Zivilgesellschaft? Wie könnte die Zivilgesellschaftstheorie für diese religionswissenschaftliche Forschung nützlich sein? Um eine präzise Arbeitsdefinition geben und eine operationalisierbare Fragestellung aufstellen zu können, verfolge ich zunächst im ersten Teil die Begriffsgeschichte von „Zivilgesellschaft“ und „Öffentlichkeit“ im abendländischen Kontext zurück. Ein dreieckiges Problemfeld zwischen Staat, Privatsphäre und Ökonomie, zwei Ansätze der Zivilgesellschaftstheorie (der analytisch-deskriptive und der Idealistisch-präskriptive) werden zusammengefasst. Sieben Merkmale (öffentliche Assoziationen, Autonomie, Pluralität, Legalität, zivilisiertes Verhalten und utopisches Potenzial) und sechs Modelle (Das Trennungs-, Oppositions-, Öffentlichkeits-, Unterstützungs-, Partnerschaftsmodell und die globale Zivilgesellschaft) werden in der Forschung angeführt. Anschließend setze ich mich mit der Zivilgesellschaftsdiskussion im chinesischen Kontext auseinander. Aus der „Modern China Debate“ in den U. S. A. und der daran angeschlossenen chinesischen Diskussion wird eine Bilanz gezogen. Die „teleologische Annahme“ und der „China-Hat(te)-Auch-Komplex“ werden herausgefunden, die in einer historischen Forschung nicht legitimierbar sind. Danach wird die bisherige Erörterung über die Beziehung zwischen Zivilgesellschaft und Religion kurz zusammengefasst. Zum Ende des theoretischen Teils beschließe ich auf den idealistisch-präskriptiven Ansatzes zu verzichten. Die Zivilgesellschaftstheorie als Idealtypus im Weberschen Sinn benutzt, um die Kulturbedeutung der volksreligiösen Feste in China zu erkennen. Besonders die Organisation und die politische Auseinandersetzung der Prozession sollen in Betrachtung der Zivilgesellschaftstheorie gezogen werden, um die chinesische Gesellschaft besser zu verstehen. Im empirischen Teil der Arbeit werden Regionalbeschreibungen, Archivakten und Zeitungsartikel als Hauptquelle benutzt. Weil bisher keine systematische Forschung im Bereich der Religionswissenschaft zur Gottbegrüßungsprozession vorliegt, wird zuerst eine ausführliche Einführung in die Prozessionen in China gegeben, um ein zuverlässiges Bild von den Prozessionen innerhalb der chinesischen Religionslandschaft entwerfen zu können. Die Etymologie, die Arbeitsdefinition und die kosmologische Ordnung hinter der Prozession werden anschließend vorgestellt. Ich schlage vor, die Prozession als das Kennzeichen der kommunalen Religion Chinas anzusehen. Durch einige Sammelbände zur Folklore in China wird dann deutlich belegt, dass zahlreiche Gottbegrüßungsprozessionen ab Anfang der Qing-Zeit bis in die Republikzeit hinein kontinuierlich in fast allen Provinzen Chinas stattfanden. Danach werden die gesetzlichen Verbote in der Kaiserzeit dargestellt. Die Forschungsgeschichte zur Prozession und deren Problematik werden daraufhin zusammengefasst. Nachdem die Grundform bzw. die alternativen Formen, der Aufbau des Umzugs, Gottheiten, Dauer und Häufigkeit der Prozessionen in einem weiter begrenzten geographischen Raum, nämlich dem heutigen Shanghai, und zeitlich Raum, nämlich der Republikzeit (1912-49), dargestellt werden, werden die Haltung der Regierung und die mediale Präsentation solcher Prozessionen während der Republikzeit rekonstruiert, um die potenzielle Spannung zwischen dem Staat und den religiösen Gemeinschaften als eine der wichtigsten kollektiven Einstellungen zur Prozession zu zeigen. Die Zwischenfälle in der Nachbarregion werden wiedergegeben. Sodann werden drei detailreiche historische Fallbeispiele stichprobenartig angeführt und analysiert, um die weitere Behandlung der Fragestellung empirisch zu untermauern. Das erste historische Fallbeispiel ist der Stadtgott-Inspektionsrundgang. In diesem Fallbeispiel werden besonders die Finanzierung, die Aktivisten und Organisationen berücksichtigt, um ein Licht auf die Durchführung und Verwaltung der Prozessionen zu werfen. Darüber hinaus werden die Streite, Auseinandersetzungen und Konflikte zwischen den lokalen Behörden und dem Aufsichtsrat des Stadtgotttempels beleuchtet, um deren Verläufe, Hintergründe und Ursachen zu erforschen. Das zweite Fallbeispiel handelt sich um die Prozessionen und die Konflikte in Pudong von 1919 bis 1935. Die Verbote, die Gegenmaßnahmen der Regierung und die Verstöße gegen das Prozessionsverbot werden ausführlich geschildert, um die tatsächliche Ursachen der Konflikte zu finden. Zum Schluss des Kapitels wird die Polizei als Beispiel der damaligen Staatsmacht analysiert. Das dritte Fallbeispiel ist die Prozession im Dorf Jiangwan. Im Jahr 1935 wurde die dortige Prozession von der lokalen Feuerwehr schikaniert. Die Nachwirkung und die direkte Einmischung der Parteidirektion werden auch detailreich dargelegt. In der Schlussfolgerung der Arbeit werden die Beteiligten der Prozession in drei Gruppen, nämlich den Schaulustigen, den Aktivisten, den Unterstützer und die Förderer, eingeteilt. Ihre unterschiedlichen Funktionen und Motivationen getrennt zusammengefasst. Die andere Partei, die Kontrolleure der Prozession, wird anschließend behandelt. Alle historischen Beschreibungen werden im Spiegel der Zivilgesellschaftstheorie, v. a. der sieben Merkmale und sechs Modelle, evaluiert. Außerdem bringe ich zwei Einwände gegen die Dichotomie von C. K. Yang vor.
Zhai, Jiexia Elisa. “Contrasting Trends of Religious Markets in Contemporary Mainland China and in Taiwan.” Journal of Church and State 52.1 (2010): 94-111.