New Publications 2022

NEW PUBLICATIONS IN 2022

Beadle, Joseph J. L. "Of Horror Games and Temples: Religious Gamification in Contemporary Taiwan." British Journal of Chinese Studies 12, no. 2 (2022): 11–45.

Abstract: This article examines the intersection of Taiwanese horror videogame Devotion (2019) and folk religious ritual guanluoyin 觀落陰 (descent into the netherworld) as a new window into the symbiotic evolution of religion and gaming technology. It traces the curious trend whereby Taiwanese gamers, after encountering guanluoyin while playing Devotion, went to offline, physical guanluoyin temples to ‘play’ the ritual for themselves, and playfully invoked Devotion’s intra-game religious narrative in their extra-game lives. Devotion thus activated a dynamic community of gamers who, hungry for horror, produced novel forms of engagement with the world(s) beyond their consoles. This anthropological study reconfigures the popular framework in existing scholarship of ‘gaming as a religious experience’, instead investigating ‘religion as a gaming experience’, and proposes the concept of ‘religious gamification’ to capture religion’s re-imagination, marketing, and operation as a gaming experience by a surprising ensemble of social actors and institutions. By drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and analyses of game design, temple advertisements, gaming chatrooms, a television show, songs, viral videos, and social media trends, this article explores the unexpected convergence and mutual articulation of Taiwan’s gaming and religious cultures, and the wider implications thereof for understanding religion in our rapidly gaming-mediated world.

Bol, Peter K. "On the Spatio-temporal Analysis of Religious Institutions: A Study of the Jinhua Prefectural Gazetteer of 1480." In The Formation of Regional Religious Systems in Greater China, edited by Jiang Wu, 58–70. London: Routledge, 2022.

Chai, Chin Fern Elena Gregoria, and Monica Janowski. "Becoming Local: Datuk Kong Beliefs in Sarawak, East Malaysia." Indonesia and the Malay World 50 (2022): 252–272.

Abstract: Datuk Kong (拿督公) are shen (神) – a Chinese term that can be glossed in English as ‘deity’ or ‘spirit’ depending on context. They have long been known to be venerated by Chinese in West Malaysia but have not been investigated until now in Sarawak, where they are of increasing importance, or in Kalimantan, where they appear to have been worshipped for much longer. In both West Malaysia and in Borneo Datuk Kong are closely associated with (a) the ethnic groups that were already living in the area before the Chinese arrived and (b) with the local landscape. In this article we explore the ways in which Datuk Kong beliefs have developed in Borneo and how, through the ‘respect’ (拜) paid to these shen, the Chinese have integrated the beliefs that they brought originally from China into a belief system that remains distinctively Chinese but overlaps with the beliefs of ethnic groups with which they co-exist; and embedded this belief system in the local landscape and the spirits inhabiting that landscape.

Chao, Shin-yi. "Seekers and Seers: Lay Buddhists and Buddhist Revival in Rural China." Review of Religion and Chinese Society 9, no. 2 (2022): 222–248.

Abstract: This paper explores lay Buddhism in contemporary rural North China through investigating the practice and practitioners of “Buddha-chanting” (nianfo 念佛) in relation to local religion, monastic Buddhism, and spirit mediums. The nianfo groups are led by and consist of ordinary villagers, overwhelmingly female. They meet in private houses or village temples of local deities. The groups are not subject to the authority of clergy, but individual group members, especially the leaders, may maintain a close relationship with a Buddhist monastery. These individuals are a link from monastic Buddhism to the Buddhist masses in villages, and the nianfo groups are the nexus of the networks. Members of the nianfo groups have a clear sense of being Buddhist while they also participate in activities of local religion. In addition, village spirit mediums, with whom the villagers often consult during crises, command some influence. They have also played a consequential role in the process of restoring Buddhism in the area.

Chen, Mei-Chen. “What to Preserve and How to Preserve It: Taiwan’s Action Plans for Safeguarding Traditional Performing Arts.” In Resounding Taiwan: Musical Reverberations across a Vital Island, edited by Nancy Guy, 145–164. London: Routledge, 2022.

Chen, Ningning; Jinwen Chen, and Kenneth Dean. "Religion in Times of Crisis: Innovative Lay Responses and Temporal-Spatial Reconfigurations of Temple Rituals in COVID-19 China." cultural geographies 29, no. 2 (2022): 301–308.

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about massive changes in religious landscapes across the world. Recent research has focused on whether religions create problems or are sources of solution or support in these extraordinary times. Although some studies document religious leaders’ and institutions’ innovative responses to preserve ritual practices and foster members’ sense of belonging, they fail to highlight lay practitioners’ bottom-up religious transformations. Noting this, this article draws on the case of Lufeng city in south China to examine how local residents inventively reconfigured the temporal-spatiality of their ritual practices during temple lock-downs. Through an ethnographic-style exploration, we reveal multi-faceted spatial changes in the ritual performance, including the reconfiguration of home spaces, the performance of worship practices outside temple doors and the mobilization of digital spaces of communication to accumulate good fortune. Apart from these spatial strategies, local ritual transformation also produces temporal adaptations. Through these temporal-spatial reconfigurations, local residents innovatively cope with new social circumstances and articulate religion’s continual significance. This study foregrounds an agentive and flexible understanding of religion in times of crisis.

Chen, Ningning, and Jingfu Chen. "Diaspora Governance and Religion: The (Re)production of the Guangze Zunwang Cult in the Chinese Diaspora." Global Networks, 2022, DOI: 10.1111/glob.12369 .

Abstract: The role of sending states receives little attention in existing studies of transnational religion; another body of literature on diaspora governance gives little scrutiny to the religious dimension of diaspora strategies. This paper attempts to bridge the two bodies of works by exploring the state-directed religious networking in the Chinese diaspora. Through a case study of the Guangze Zunwang cult, it investigates how origin states mobilize migrant religious networks for diaspora engagement and how diaspora communities respond to governing strategies. Different Chinese (non)state agents operate diasporic religious programs—international cultural tourism festivals and deities’ cross-border processions—respectively within and outside the territory. Inspired by the state-directed networking, diaspora groups also launch temple alliances in residential places, yet at the same time, produce alternative networks dedicated to revitalizing the cult. The paper sheds light on the multiplicity and flexibility of diaspora governance and provides further insights into the agency of the diaspora through transnational religious networking.

Cheng, Sealing. "Feeding Hungry Ghosts: Grief, Gender, and Protest in Hong Kong." Critical Asian Studies 54, no. 3 (2022): 327–347.

Abstract: Following a particularly violent police operation inside the Prince Edward subway station on August 31 2019, during the anti-extradition movement in Hong Kong, a group of older women performed mourning rituals for the possibly dead outside the subway exit for almost one hundred days. In view of increasing police surveillance, violence, and arrests, these women’s religious practices and the sociality they generated constituted a form of infrapolitics. By carefully performing their gendered roles as funerary experts, these women created a makeshift shrine that operated symbolically as a public sphere of dissent. This paper examines the making of their shrine in the context of widespread public discontent about police brutality, and by extension, state violence in a broader political-economic context. Without knowing who was being memorialized, the continuous flow of mourners to the Prince Edward Station shrine compels scholars to consider what these possible deaths could mean and what other losses they were accounting for. Through the lens of infrapolitics, these women’s creative appropriation of mourning rituals directs our attention to the amebic vitality of resistance and its persistence against great odds.

Chia, Jack Meng-tat. "The Making of a Local Deity: The Patriarch of Sanping's Cult in Post-Mao China, 1979–2015." Critical Asian Studies 54, no. 1 (2022): 86–104.

Abstract: This article explores how local Chinese authorities employed various strategies to promote the Patriarch of Sanping's cult in post-Mao China from 1979 to 2015. It argues that the cult of the Patriarch of Sanping became an invented tradition for expanded religious tourism in Pinghe County in Zhangzhou, Fujian Province. Local state agents employed various place making strategies to promote Sanping Monastery and endorse the deity's efficacy, creating an opportunity for resources to be channeled from other parts of China, Taiwan, and overseas Chinese communities to develop Pinghe County. This study shows that, on the one hand, local state agents have propagated miracle tales to entice devotees to visit and make donations to this monastery while, on the other hand, they have courted scholars, journalists, and tour guides to generate attention and interest in the cult. Overall, this article demonstrates how local government place making and marketing strategies have contributed to the transformation of a Buddhist master from a local deity to a popular god in contemporary China.

Choo, Jessey J. C. Inscribing Death: Burials, Representations, and Remembrance in Tang China. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2022.

Abstract: This nuanced study traces how Chinese came to view death as an opportunity to fashion and convey social identities and memories during the medieval period (200–1000) and the Tang dynasty (618–907), specifically. As Chinese society became increasingly multicultural and multireligious, to achieve these aims people selectively adopted, portrayed, and interpreted various acts of remembrance. Included in these were new and evolving burial, mourning, and commemorative practices: joint-burials of spouses, extended family members, and coreligionists; relocation and reburial of bodies; posthumous marriage and divorce; interment of a summoned soul in the absence of a body; and many changes to the classical mourning and commemorative rites that became the norm during the period. Individuals independently constructed the socio-religious meanings of a particular death and the handling of corpses by engaging in and reviewing acts of remembrance. Drawing on a variety of sources, including hundreds of newly excavated entombed epitaph inscriptions, Inscribing Death illuminates the process through which the living—and the dead—negotiated this multiplicity of meanings and how they shaped their memories and identities both as individuals and as part of collectives. In particular, it details the growing emphasis on remembrance as an expression of filial piety and the grave as a focal point of ancestral sacrifice. The work also identifies different modes of construction and representation of the self in life and death, deepening our understanding of ancestral worship and its changing modus operandi and continuous shaping influence on the most intimate human relationships—thus challenging the current monolithic representation of ancestral worship as an extension of families rather than individuals in medieval China.

Clart, Philip. "Popular Religion and Prognostication." In Handbook of Divination and Prognostication in China. Part I: Introduction to the Field of Chinese Prognostication, edited by Michael Lackner and Zhao Lu, 345–363. Leiden: Brill, 2022.

Dean, Kenneth. "Historical GIS and the Study of Southeast China and the Southeast Asian Chinese Diaspora." In The Formation of Regional Religious Systems in Greater China, edited by Jiang Wu, 177–197. London: Routledge, 2022.

Doan, Ngoc Chung. "The Function of Mazu Belief of the Chinese People in Vietnam." In Praxis, Folks' Beliefs, and Rituals: Explorations in the Anthropology of Religion, edited by Augustin F.C. Holl, 88–97. London, Tarakeswar: B P International (Classic), 2022.

Duan, Zeli. "The Architecture and Religion of Jinci." In Praxis, Folks' Beliefs, and Rituals: Explorations in the Anthropology of Religion, edited by Augustin F.C. Holl, 99–110. London, Tarakeswar: B P International (Classic), 2022.

Eichman, Jennifer. "Women and Animals: Culinary Dilemmas and Karmic Entanglements." Nan nü: Men, Women and Gender in China 24, no. 1 (2022): 95–133.

Abstract: The primary focus of this article is the gendering of Buddhist karmic culpability presented in the extra-canonical Buddhist essay, "Quan funü jiesha wen" (On exhorting women to refrain from killing). This mid-1650 work written by the Ming loyalist Chai Shaobing (1616-70) was subsequently reprinted in the Republican era Buddhist periodical press. "Quan funü jiesha wen" offers an extraordinary entry into a Buddhist moral universe in which women who kill animals are subject to various levels of karmic retribution. The bodily intimacy of such retributions is experienced in the form of complicated pregnancies, difficult childbirths, and a myriad of diseases unique to the female reproductive body. The first half of this study provides a full translation and detailed analysis of the Buddhist tropes and exemplary stories Chai employs as he sought to change women's culinary choices. The second half of this study shifts attention to the essay's historical context, first through a consideration of its early publication history and the seventeenth-century milieu in which it was created, and then through an examination of how the essay's ideas on gender fit within the changing world of Republican era China.

Fan, I-Chun et al. "Using Geospatial Technologies to Study Regional Folk Religions: The Taiwan Religion Database and Two Case Studies." In The Formation of Regional Religious Systems in Greater China, edited by Jiang Wu, 198–212. London: Routledge, 2022.

Fava, Patrice. "Le pèlerinage au Miaofengshan et les théâtres de procession." In Lieux saints et pèlerinages: la tradition taoïste vivante, edited by Vincent Goossaert and Tsuchiya Masaaki, 409–458. Turnhout: Brepols, 2022.

Ganany, Noga. “Writing and Worship in Deng Zhimo’s Saints Trilogy.” Religions 13 (2022).

Gao, Yuanxing. "Southern Fujian's Tradition and Innovation in Historical Perspective: Past and Present." In Praxis, Folks' Beliefs, and Rituals: Explorations in the Anthropology of Religion, edited by Augustin F.C. Holl, 111–123. London, Tarakeswar: B P International (Classic), 2022

Goossaert, Vincent. “Historiens et anthropologues repensent la diversité religieuse en Chine.” Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident 45 (2022): 15–34.

Abstract: La société chinoise est reconnue par les spécialistes de la diversité religieuse comme un cas remarquable de diversité ancienne et toujours très vivace. Pourtant, les travaux de sciences sociales portant sur la diversité religieuse en Chine appliquent largement des théories développées en Occident. Cet article présente l'état actuel des modèles et théories dans lesquelles est étudié le pluralisme religieux chinois et propose d'esquisser les développements les plus prometteurs qui rendent pleinement compte de la diversité religieuse réelle sur le terrain. Il développe notamment deux outils analytiques : les quatre dimensions de la société et les cadres liturgiques. Il montre ensuite que ces outils mettent en relief la forte propension de la société chinoise à la division régulée du travail religieux.

Goossaert, Vincent, and Tsuchiya Masaaki, eds. Lieux saints et pèlerinages: la tradition taoïste vivante. Turnhout: Brepols, 2022.

Abstract: La Chine est couverte de lieux saints, des hautes montagnes jusqu'au sanctuaires locaux, qui attirent depuis plus de deux mille ans des foules de pèlerins. Ce volume, richement illustré, propose quinze études sur des montagnes saintes et des pratiques pèlerines par des approches historiques et anthropologiques ; elles mettent l'accent sur les conceptions et les rites taoïstes qui sont au cœur de la géographie sacrée chinoise, mais en les comparant à d'autres telles que pèlerinages bouddhiques et les troupes de théâtre processionnels.

Guo, Huanyu; Canglong Wang, Youping Nie, Xiaoxiang Tang. "Hybridising Minjian Religion in South China: Participants, Rituals, and Architecture." Religions 13 (2022), https://doi.org/10.3390/ rel13050384

Abstract: This study focuses on the ongoing hybridisation of minjian (folk or popular, literally “among the people”) religious activities in rural areas of south China. It demonstrates recent changes in religious hybridisation through extensive fieldwork in two villages. It also investigates intellectual debate on the concept of minjian religion and presents the relationship between state power and the religious revival in contemporary Chinese society. It then draws on fieldwork data to examine the hybrid nature of Chinese minjian religion from three aspects: the diversification of participants, the performative hybridisation of rituals, and the blending of spatial layouts. The main argument is that the revival of minjian religion involves the hybridisation of mystical and secular elements and of traditional and modern elements through the complex interactions between rural communities and official authorities.

Heng, Terence. "Interacting with the Dead: Understanding the Role and Agency of Spirits in Assembling Deathscapes." Social & Cultural Geography 23, no. 3 (2022): 400–423.

Abstract: When thinking about deathscapes and how they are assembled, current literature often points to the presence of material objects as ways in which individuals evoke the absence of the dead. These objects can be both performative and communicative, becoming a channel of communication. But the literature has so far mostly neglected the ability of spirits to ‘talk back’ to the living through objects and bodies, and in doing so influence and have effect on the latter’s actions. In this paper, I will investigate the ways in which spirits are seen to have agency in deathscapes. I propose the concept of material proxies of consociation, denoting objects/ bodies which act as ways for spirits to not just communicate, but interact with the living. Using two visual ethnographic case studies, one of the divining blocks and the other of a ritual exhumation, I will demonstrate that spirits can indeed be seen to be active and effective agents in the assembling of deathscapes. In doing so, this paper offers new ways of understanding three things – the role and importance of spirits in deathscapes, how the absent is made present, and how the spaces in which living and dead interact are constructed and shaped.

Hertzman, Emily Zoe. "An International Turn: Rebuilding Chinese Temple Networks in Indonesia 20 Years after the Suharto Era." Global Networks, 2022. DOI: 10.1111/glob.12398

Abstract: The transnationalization of Chinese temples is producing new spatial imaginaries and adding cosmopolitan dimensions to Chinese Indonesian identities in the post-Suharto era. In 1999, the Indonesian state legally-sanctioned Chinese Popular Religion after decades of prohibition, ushering in a period of Chinese religious revival nationally backed by constitutional legitimacy. The recent emergence of transnational temple networks is providing a further form of cultural legitimacy based on symbols and statuses that circulate in a broader cosmopolitan transnational social sphere. Using case studies of three temples in Singkawang, Indonesia, each with a different form of international network, this paper shows how the transnational circulation of religious teachings, people, ideas, donations and deities can provide the raw materials for expressions of cultural identity which are locally rooted and embedded in specific ethnic politics of belonging. Forging transnational religious connections has the potential to develop into long lasting and formal institutional platforms of exchange, however, it often begins with informal, spontaneous and idiosyncratic encounters.

Homola, Stéphanie. "The Living Traditions of Divination." In Handbook of Divination and Prognostication in China. Part I: Introduction to the Field of Chinese Prognostication, edited by Michael Lackner and Zhao Lu, 502–536. Leiden: Brill, 2022.

Hsieh, Jennifer C. "Noisy Co-Existence: Contestations of renao and zaoyin amidst Taiwan's Noise Control System." In Resounding Taiwan: Musical Reverberations across a Vital Island, edited by Nancy Guy, 165–179. London: Routledge, 2022.

Abstract: The liveliness of temple festivals and traditional rituals throughout Taiwan, characterized by the concept of renao or hot-noisy, is largely celebrated today as a distinctive feature of Taiwanese music and culture, though it was not always the case. This chapter examines the concept of renao as a contested aesthetic during the creation of noise control regulations in the postauthoritarian transition. According to legislative officials in the 1970s and 1980s, the unrestrained display of renao by locals signified the backwardness of Taiwanese, an issue that featured prominently in legislative discussions about the regulatory scope of noise management. Drawing upon legislative proceedings and government reports, this chapter argues that the regulation of the sonic environment is central to the ongoing development of renao as a cultural value and that ongoing debates about the status of renao is productive of the relationship between government authority and political expression. Using ethnographic and historical data about government officials’ views of renao, as well as discussions with Taiwanese citizens about whether or not renao counts as noise, this chapter expands an understanding of renao from a cultural, local aesthetic into an articulation of political subjectivity, one that continues to be negotiated in the sonic domain.

Jia, Jinhua, ed. Traditional Chinese State Ritual System of Sacrifice to Mountain and Water Spirits. Special issue of Religions (2022). Including articles from vols. 12 (2021) and 13 (2022) of Religions.

Jiang, Xiao. "Dizang and the Three Kings: Constructing Buddhist Hell by Imitating the Bureaucratic System in the Tang Dynasty." Religions 13 (2022), https:// doi.org/10.3390/rel13040317

Abstract: The Buddhist ideas and practices of hell were bureaucratized in medieval China. The cult of Dizang and the Ten Kings of Hell was popular from the late Tang Dynasty onward. However, the concept of the Three Kings of Hell (King Yama 閻羅王, the Magistrate of Mount Tai 泰山府君, and the Great Spirit of the Five Paths 五道大神) appeared before that of the Ten Kings and has long been ignored. This article aimed to make a textual comparison of the descriptions of Dizang and the Three Kings in the literature with the bureaucratic system of the Three Departments (sansheng zhi 三省制), which was the central government system during the Tang Dynasty, where the Three Departments performed their respective functions. There are several structural and functional parallels between the underworldly afterlife and the political bureaucracies of the world. The workings of the system in hell changed in texts from different periods, showing the evolution of the Three Departments system during the Tang Dynasty. This case study demonstrated that the system of Dizang and the Three Kings of Hell were constructed based on the official system used in human society and that the underworld was reinterpreted as a bureaucratic system similar to the temporal one.

Ju, Fei. "Polytheism Tendency in the Trend of Integration of the Three Major Religions: Worship of Silkworm Deity Art of Medieval China." Religions 13: 1047. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13111047

Abstract: A silkworm deity was a Trade God worshipped by the court and the folk, and was also a spiritual symbol of sericulturists in medieval China. Images of the silkworm deity in ancient Chinese art are important relics of material heritage for studying culture and ritual activities in medieval China. This paper investigates images of silkworm worship from the Han Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty to distinguish between their use by the court and the folk. This paper explores the gradual personification of the silkworm deity in medieval China, as well as the differences in the identity of the silkworm deity connected to the varying status of worshipers and the functions of the silkworm deity. It is proposed that silkworm deity worship is evidence of a tendency toward polytheism, and has a variety of identities and unified functions under the trend of continuous integration of three major religions and folk religion. The worship of the silkworm deity has the characteristics of hybridity, integrated and patriarchal, as well as the social edification and practical functionality caused by the different mentality of official and folk silkworm deity worship in medieval China.

Lackner, Michael,and Zhao Lu, eds. Handbook of Divination and Prognostication in China Part One: Introduction to the Field. Leiden: Brill, 2022.

Abstract: This is the first comprehensive book that presents the manifold aspects of divination and prognostication in traditional and modern China, from the early period of oracle bones to present-day fortune-tellers. It introduces what is out there in the field of Chinese divination and prognostication, and how we can further explore it especially through different disciplines. Eminent specialists outline the classifications of divination, recently excavated texts, the relationship between practitioners and clients, the place of the "occult" arts in cosmology, literature and religion, and the bureaucratic system. Contributors are: Constance Cook, Richard J. Smith, Marc Kalinowski, Stephen R. Bokenkamp, Lü Lingfeng, Liao Hsien-huei, Philip Clart, Fabrizio Pregadio, Esther-Maria Guggenmos, Andrew Schonebaum, and Stéphanie Homola.

Lan, Xing. “The Influence of Daoism on the Dramatization of the Liaozhaixi of Chuanju.” Religions 13 (2022).

Leffman, David. Paper Horses: Traditional Woodblock Prints of Gods from Northern China. Hong Kong: Blacksmith Books, 2022.

Abstract: In 2020 a large album of "paper horses" – prayer prints of Chinese gods – appeared for sale. How had these fragile things, cheaply printed in the 1940s and meant to be ritually burned soon after purchase, survived intact for so long? And how come there were at least three other identical sets in collections around the world? In answering this mystery, author David Leffman explores the history and techniques behind traditional Chinese woodblock printing, which dates back to at least the Tang dynasty (618-907). All 93 "paper horses" in the original album are reproduced alongside biographies of the gods, spirits and demons depicted, providing an illustrated introduction to the complex and fascinating world of Chinese folk religion.

Li, Nan. "Establishing in Shandong: A Study on the Relationship Between the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and the Folk Secret Sects in Shandong." Cultural and Religious Studies 10, no. 7 (2022): 379–384.

Abstract: In the northwest of Shandong Province during Late Qing Dynasty, the struggle for survival among the villagers became social norm due to the fragility of the natural ecology, which was not only an important cause of local social unrest, but also complicated social relations. The potential anti-government tendencies of folk secret sects made them the targets of Qing government’s crackdown. In order to seek survival and development, the folk secret sects in northwest Shandong turned their eyes to Christian churches for political protect that was North China Mission of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. With the help of secret sects, missionaries of the North China Mission gained a foothold in northwest Shandong. But they were not willing to provide political protect for secret sects. They only used the social ties of secret sects to wedge themselves into the rural society of northwest Shandong, hoping to establish Christian mission stations and develop Christian communities, not to integrate with secret sects.

Li, Hongwei and Xingbo Zhu. "A Study on Building a Firm Chinese Community Consciousness in the Perspective of Folk Beliefs Exchange in Southern Fujian." International Journal of Education and Management 7, no. 2 (2022): 246–250.

Abstract: Folk beliefs are an important part of folk culture. With the development of society and the passage of time, it has been widely spread to Southeast Asia, Taiwan and other countries and regions, which has an extremely important role in enhancing the national identity of local Chinese overseas Chinese and Taiwan compatriots, promoting overseas and cross-strait exchanges, building a sense of Chinese national community, promoting the peaceful reunification of the motherland, and realizing the Chinese dream of great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. This paper takes the folk beliefs of Southern Fujian as a study. This paper takes the folk beliefs of southern Fujian as the research object, and through systematic combing, clarifies the history and paths of their occurrence, development, flow and spread, keeps the pulse of the new era, roots the strong genes of Chinese culture, explores the relationship between the folk beliefs of southern Fujian and the sense of Chinese national community, tries to clear the fog of history, combines the positive factors of the folk beliefs of southern Fujian with the construction of the sense of Chinese national community, and We will try to clarify the historical fog, combine the positive elements of Minnan folk beliefs with the construction of Chinese national community consciousness, and build the spiritual home of the Chinese nation.

Lim, Alvin Eng Hui. "Wangye Practices Online: From Burning Effigy Vessels to Digital Networks." Global Networks, DOI: 10.1111/glob.12412.

Abstract: This article explores the performance of a transnational network of Wangye practices, spirits, technologies, vessels, and Sinophone communities. The Wangye belief, a Fujianese popular religion performed in mainland China, Southeast Asia and Taiwan, remains widely performed. The article begins with an account of watching a YouTube recording of the live stream video of the Donggang Ying Wang religious festival in 2018. Culminating in the deity’s sending off at the seaside and the burning of the NT$7 million Wangye’s Boat, the video of the burning vessel remains archived online. Similarly in Malaysia, Yong Chuan Tian Temple performed the ‘Wangkang Ceremony’ in 2020, which also featured an elaborate construction of a vessel and its eventual burning. Streamed and recorded online, viewers can now witness the revelation of spirits through the conversion of material vessels into ash, smoke, and digital video. These digital enactments of religious vessels articulate a new religious re-composition that includes religious and non-religious social actors, machines, and gods, bringing old frontiers of nation and diaspora into contact.

Lim, Tai Wei. "Zheng He: Its Diasporic Historical Narratives, Deification Folklores, and Material Heritage Symbolisms in East Asia." In Modernization in Asia: The Environment/Resources, Social Mobilization, and Traditional Landscapes across Time and Space in Asia, edited by Satoshi Abe and Tai Wei Lim, 113–146. Singapore: World Scientific, 2022.

Lin, Yu-sheng. "Religion, Cult or the Truth? The Struggle of Yiguan Dao in Thailand's Competitive Religious Field." Asian Studies Review, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2022.2041553

Abstract: Most studies on Chinese religions in Southeast Asia focus on their relationship with Chinese communities, but little attention has been paid to their social interactions outside these communities. At the same time, most studies on Thai religion have concentrated on the issue of syncretism and especially the dominance of Theravada Buddhism. Rather than focusing on either Chinese ethnicity or Theravada Buddhism-dominated syncretism, this article adopts a competitive view of religion to comprehend the relationship between religious practitioners in Thailand. It draws on the example of Yiguan Dao, a religious group that originated in China. The article argues that although the group is not formally recognised as a ‘religion’ (sasana) by the Thai state, it is subject to little government regulation. Instead, it faces attacks and criticism from its Buddhist critics, who call it a ‘cult’ (latthi). Like Bourdieu’s prophet who challenges the priest, Yiguan Dao has claimed its teachings are the ‘truth’ (thamma). The group has asserted its legitimacy and superiority by transferring other forms of symbolic capital to its own religious capital and revising its hierarchical position in Thailand’s Buddhist-dominated religious field.

Ma, Zhujun. "Intimacy in Pilgrimage: Reconsidering the Gendered Implications of the Cult of the Goddess of Mount Tai in Late Imperial China (1368–1912)." PhD diss., University of Colorado at Boulder, 2022.

Abstract: The Goddess of Mount Tai has been one of the most popular deities in the north China plain in the late imperial period (1368–1912). Women were strongly associated with her worship in popular depictions, which attributed this to her often mentioned efficacy in female reproduction and childrearing. By investigating literati writings, official documents, Daoist scriptures, and precious scrolls, this thesis queries the gendered implications of her cult. Chapter 1 unpacks how the Goddess’s maternal compassion and renowned efficacy in female reproduction factored into the construction of a gendered pilgrimage in historical texts and previous scholarship. Chapter 2 contextualizes the Goddess’s rapid rise in influence through comparison with other female deities who rose to prominence in Late Imperial China. In Chapter 3, I argue how precious scrolls create a parallel between pilgrimage and the Goddess’s origin story to reinforce an intimate deity-human relationship through hands-on bodily practices.

Moskowitz, Marc L. "Hopping Vampire Zombies: Hong Kong Cinema Brings Chinese Folklore to the Present." The Journal of Popular Culture 55, no. 4 (2022): 867–885.

Naquin, Susan. Gods of Mount Tai: Familiarity and the Material Culture of North China, 1000–2000. Leiden: Brill, 2022.

Abstract: At the intersection of art and religious history, this work suggests a fresh method for studying Chinese gods and sacred places. Susan Naquin tells the full story of the transformations of the Lady of Mount Tai, North China's most important female deity, and her mountain home. This generously illustrated visual history presents a rich array of overlooked statues, prints, murals, and paintings of gods that were discovered in museums, auctions, and extensive travel. By focusing on ordinary images, temples, and region-based materiality Naquin demonstrates how this flexibly gendered new god flourished while her male predecessor was neglected. Both suffered greatly during the last century, but Mount Tai continues to be a culturally significant monument and China's most popular tourist mountain.

Nguyen, Ngoc Tho. "The Ritual Incorporation and Cross-Cultural Communication in Camau, Vietnam: A Case Study of the Tianhou Cult." Culture and Religion. DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2022.2140686.

Abstract: Tianhou (天后) is a popular religious figure rooted in Fujian, China. Historically, she was continuously ‘standardised’ by late imperial China, making this character a standard symbol. In the late 17th century, Chinese immigrants propagated the Tianhou cult in Southern Vietnam, further developed, and made Tianhou the identity marker of their community. However, in Camau and other places of Southern Vietnam, this symbol became partially changed due to the process of localisation and cross-cultural exchange. The Chinese successfully incorporate Chinese Tianhou rituals with Vietnamese family rites (especially the worships of Kitchen God and ancestors) to gain both community consolidation and cross-ethnic integration. The illusionary incorporation effectively consolidates the ties between peoples and improves the position of the ethnic Chinese in the local society. This paper mainly applies the concept of ‘inventing tradition’ and Seligman’s and Weller’s (2012) viewpoint of the cultural interaction of notation, ritual and shared experience to generalise the nature and significance of liturgical transformation in the Tianhou cult among the ethnic Chinese in Camau. The study shows that cultural adaptation, as a means for survival and evolution, has been the goal of an endless struggle among the Chinese in contemporary Vietnam.

Olles, Volker. "The Numinous Ancestor Elevated: On the Deity Lingzu in the Fayan tan Ritual Tradition." Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 172, no. 2 (2022): 451–472.

Abstract: The title Lingzu 靈祖 (Numinous Ancestor) generally denotes Wang lingguan 王靈官 (Numinous Officer Wang), the well-known Daoist temple protector who is worshiped as an exorcistic deity connected with the forces of thunder and fire. In the Fayan tan 法言壇 ritual tradition, Lingzu is said to refer to Kuixing 魁星, the first four stars (or the first star) of the Northern Dipper 北斗 constellation, and as a deity he is known under the titles Precelestial Numinous Ancestor of the Dipper Bowl (Xiantian doukou lingzu 先天斗口靈祖) and Numinous and Majestic Holy Emperor of the Precelestial Dipper Palace (Xiantian douque lingwei shengdi 先天斗闕靈威聖帝). However, the title Doukou lingzu is not understood as a personal name, but as designation of a celestial office (zhiwu 職務) that may be held by various personalities. Consequently, the deity Lingzu in the Fayan tan liturgy is also identified as Wang lingguan. The present paper examines the unique career of Lingzu in the Sichuanese Fayan tan tradition.

Pettit, J.E.E., and Joey Marshall. "Mapping the Growth of Early Yiguandao Buddha-halls." In The Formation of Regional Religious Systems in Greater China, edited by Jiang Wu, 135–147. London: Routledge, 2022.

Poo, Mu-chou. Ghosts and Religious Life in Early China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022.

Abstract: For modern people, ghost stories are no more than thrilling entertainment. For those living in antiquity, ghosts were far more serious beings, as they could affect the life and death of people and cause endless fear and anxiety. How did ancient societies imagine what ghosts looked like, what they could do, and how people could deal with them? From the vantage point of modernity, what can we learn about an obscure, but no less important aspect of an ancient culture? In this volume, Mu-chou Poo explores the ghosts of ancient China, the ideas that they nurtured, and their role in its culture. His study provides fascinating insights into the interaction between the idea of ghosts and religious activities, literary imagination, and social life devoted to them. Comparing Chinese ghosts with those of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome, Poo also offers a wider perspective on the role of ghosts in human history.

Qu, Ray. "The Quest for a Good Life: Incense Seeing and the Porous and Dividual Hoping Person in North China." American Anthropologist 124, no. 2 (2022): 252–262. DOI: 10.1111/aman.13719.

Abstract: The focus on human intention and action in anthropological studies of hope has made it difficult to attend to the aspects of a hopeful life that lie outside a hoping person’s purpose and control. This article brings the concepts of porous and dividual personhood into conversation with the fast-growing literature on hope to explore how spiritual forces shape the hoping person and the practices of hope for a good life in North China’s Xia County. The lived experience of my Chinese interlocutors calls attention to the fact that hoping persons are often entangled in extended relationships with spiritual forces as well as other humans. An extended relational framework allows us to attend more carefully to the contingency and complexity of hope, and brings a more nuanced lens to personhood, one that rejects the Enlightenment idea that persons are autonomous, bounded agents, fully in charge of their own worlds.

Shiga Ichiko. "What Kind of Innovations Did Spirit Writing Bring About for a Popular Saint's Cult? A Case Study of the Song Dafeng Cult in Nineteenth-Century Chaozhou." In Lieux saints et pèlerinages: la tradition taoïste vivante, edited by Vincent Goossaert and Tsuchiya Masaaki, 151–184. Turnhout: Brepols, 2022.

Soh, Esmond Chuah Meng. "Practicing Salvation: Meat-Eating, Martyrdom, and Sacrifice as Religious Ideals in the Zhenkongjiao." Journal of Chinese Religions 50, no. 1 (2022): 77–114.

Abstract: The Zhenkongjiao is a Chinese sectarian religion that was founded in Jiangxi in 1862. By the 1950s, the movement expanded into the lower Yangzi region, Guangdong province, and among the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. Unlike many sectarian religions and Buddhist movements in late-imperial and Republican China, the movement advocated non-vegetarianism and performed animal sacrifice. This article first sheds light on how the Zhenkongjiao's promoters structured its belief system to address and challenge prevalent discourses of vegetarianism and nonkilling as markers of religious practice. I also propose that the Zhenkongjiao's repertoire of thaumaturgical rituals—which include animal sacrifice—cannot be studied in isolation, but should be situated within a sectarian religious paradigm where sacrifice was exalted as a soteriological ideal. This study demonstrates the agency exercised by the Zhenkongjiao's apologists, who appropriated and hybridized dominant religious discourses and cultural images characteristic of Republican China (1911–1949) to justify their beliefs and ritual systems.

Tan, Tongxue, and Qiusha Lv. Two-Dimensional People: Lives, Desires, and Social Attitudes in a Changing Chinese Village. London: Routledge, 2022.

Abstract: Based on almost eight years of fieldwork in a town and a village in South China, this book analyzes contradictions among various dimensions of the peasant economy, social relationships, popular religion, and local politics in rural China. Compared to many anthropological, sociological, and political studies of rural China, which regard Chinese peasants as one-dimensionally materialistic, politically conservative, egocentric (lacking public-mindedness, as in anthropologist Yan Yunxiang’s notion of the "uncivil individual"), with collapsed beliefs, and thinking only of the present (or the "today-ness of today" according to anthropologist Liu Xin), this book shows that people in contemporary rural China are actually "two-dimensional": trying to combine the calculation of self-interest with affective networks of reciprocity, but often falling into awkwardness or cynicism, in a paradoxical symbiosis between nihilism and transcendence. While Marcuse used the words of Benjamin to analyze "one-dimensional man," writing "Only for the sake of the hopeless ones have we been given hope," this book writes of two-dimensional people, "Only when the vast majority of ordinary people can find hope in everyday life can we finally be given hope!"

Wang, Meijun. "Funeral Ceremony and Social Functions in Xinjiang." In Praxis, Folks' Beliefs, and Rituals: Explorations in the Anthropology of Religion, edited by Augustin F.C. Holl, 66–76. London, Tarakeswar: B P International (Classic), 2022.

Wang, Qian, and Qiong Yang. “Ritual, Legend, and Metaphor: Narratives of the Willow in Yuan Zaju.” Religions 13 (2022).

Wang, Xiaoyang, and Shixiao Wang. “On the Differences between Han Rhapsodies and Han Paintings in Their Portrayal of the Queen Mother of the West and Their Religious Significance.” Religions 13 (2022).

Wong, Yee Lam Elim. "Worship of the God of War: A Case Study of Guandi Religion in Japan and Hong Kong." In Modernization in Asia: The Environment/Resources, Social Mobilization, and Traditional Landscapes across Time and Space in Asia, edited by Satoshi Abe and Tai Wei Lim, 147–176. Singapore: World Scientific, 2022.

Wu, Jiang, ed. The Formation of Regional Religious Systems in Greater China. London: Routledge, 2022.

Abstract: The rise of Spatial Humanities has spurred a digital revolution in the field of Chinese studies, especially in the study of religion. Based on years of data compilation and analysis of religious sites, this book explores the formation of Regional Religious Systems (RRS) in Greater China in unprecedented scope and depth. It addresses quantitatively the enduring historical and contemporary issues of China's deep-rooted regionalism and spatially variegated cultural and religious landscape. A range of topics are explored: theoretical discussions of the concept of RRS; case studies of regional and local religious institutions; the formation of local cults and pilgrimage network; and the spread of religious networks to overseas Chinese communities and the Bon religion in Tibet. The book also considers long-standing challenges of researching with spatial data for humanities and social science research, such as data collection, integration, spatial analysis, and map creation.

Yang, Mayfair. "Structures patriarcales et agentivité religieuse des femmes de Wenzhou." In Le Féminin et le religieux, edited by Gladys Chicharro, Stéphane Gros, Adeline Herrou, and Aurélie Névot, 187–228. Paris: L'Asiathèque, 2022.

Yang, Peilin. "Contemporary Mazu Belief: Cultural Interactions and Nation Identification." In Praxis, Folks' Beliefs, and Rituals: Explorations in the Anthropology of Religion, edited by Augustin F.C. Holl, 66–76. London, Tarakeswar: B P International (Classic), 2022.

Yang, Xiaomin. "Ritual and Gender Role in a Sanyang Village Patriarchal Clan, Fujian." In Praxis, Folks' Beliefs, and Rituals: Explorations in the Anthropology of Religion, edited by Augustin F.C. Holl, 57–65. London, Tarakeswar: B P International (Classic), 2022.

Yang, Xiuyun. "Worshipping Colliery Gods in China: A Religious View of Resource Extraction and Mining Safety." The Extractive Industries and Society 9 (2022), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2021.101041.

Abstract: The relations between resource extraction and religion have been studied worldwide, but such relations in China have been underexplored. This introductory paper is the first in the English literature to present the worship of colliery gods in China. It identifies the different forms of colliery gods such as gods with powers linked to coal and fire, human heroes deified after death, and mice. The choice of gods is associated with varied functions, such as access to wealth and protection from hazards. As small-scale mines have been closed and mining safety has improved, the need for colliery gods has decreased, and worship is waning accordingly. This paper also provides a comparison with el Tío and Khadan-Kali in terms of the religious view of resource extraction and mining safety. Finally, this paper calls for a more systematic and comparative study of the religious beliefs of miners.

Yang, Yujun. "Trees in Taiwanese Folklore." Lagoonscapes: The Venice Journal of Environmental Humanities 2, no. 2 (2022): 295–306.

Abstract: In Taiwanese folklore, the worship of immortal trees has taken various forms. Often such practices are closely related to the worship of the earth god. In other cases, what is called Dashugong, literally ‘great tree god’, acts as a child’s guardian figure: the health and reproduction of a living tree in an otherworldly setting parallel the health and posterity of a human being. Religious rituals associated with ancient tree worship continue today. Trees symbolise fertility in folk beliefs and in folk art, and the impact of ancient beliefs may be traced in horticultural practices, and in the retail sale of trees. The idea that gods reside in large trees persists, as does the belief that a tree spirit appears only when it – or the living tree – is confronted, wounded, or killed. Reacting to such violence, a tree spirit becomes vengeful and dangerous. Government agencies and environmentalists have alluded to this concept to promote conservation. When an old tree dies, people nowadays plant a sapling to replace it. The tree of life continues to be celebrated, no longer for its gigantic profile but as a symbol of renewal.

Zhang, Luyao. "The Practice and Function of Ancestor Worship in Chinese Society." In Praxis, Folks' Beliefs, and Rituals: Explorations in the Anthropology of Religion, edited by Augustin F.C. Holl, 48–56. London, Tarakeswar: B P International (Classic), 2022.

Zhang, Nora. "The Presence of the Sovereign: An Investigation across Socialist Spaces." The Columbia Journal of Asia 1, no. 2 (2022): 58–65.