NEW PUBLICATIONS IN 2014
Allio, Fiorella. "Matsu Enshrined in the Sanctuary of World Heritage: The 2009 Inscription of 'Mazu Belief and Customs' on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity and the Role of Taiwan in Preserving the Cult of the Goddess." In Yanjiu xin shijie: “Mazu yu Huaren minjian xinyang” guoji yantaohui lunwenji, ed. Wang Chien-chuan, Li Shiwei, Hong Yingfa, 91-180. Taipei: Boyang, 2014.
Arrault, Alain. "Les activités, le corps et ses soins dans les calendriers de la Chine médiévale (IXe-Xe s.)." Études chinoises 33, no.1 (2014): 7-56.
Abstract: Les activités, ce qu'il est conseillé de faire ou de ne pas faire, apparaissent dans les rubriques journalières des calendriers chinois à l’aube de la dynastie des Tang (618-907). Nous est parvenu, grâce aux documents retrouvés à Dunhuang, un nombre relativement conséquent de calendriers, environ une cinquantaine, répartis sur une période de temps parfaitement délimitée, du IXe au Xe siècle. L’extrême foisonnement des méthodes divinatoires mises en oeuvre dans le calendrier pour déterminer, entre autres, les activités, nous amène dans un premier temps à nous interroger sur la manière dont les calendriers étaient fabriqués, en faisant notamment appel aux sources japonaises. Dans un second temps, face à la centaine d’activités répertoriées, nous tentons d’en dégager des catégories pertinentes pour en faire une analyse statistique sur une durée de quelque deux cents années. Toutefois, en dehors de ces approches quantitatives, comment faire parler ces activités qui nous apparaissent dénuées de contexte ? Nous prenons ici l’exemple des soins du corps, essentiellement résumés dans les calendriers par les expressions « laver les cheveux et le corps » (muyu), « raser la tête » (titou), « laver la tête » (xitou), « enlever les cheveux blancs » (ba baifa), « couper les ongles des mains et des pieds » (jian shou zu jia). En convoquant diverses sources, littéraires, médicales, religieuses, etc., nous tentons de répondre aux questions suivantes : quelles conceptions avaient les Chinois de ces activités d’une manière générale et plus particulièrement dans l’hémérologie ? Existe-t-il une solution de continuité entre les discours sur les soins du corps et ce que laisse transparaître le calendrier ? Enfin, le calendrier développe-t-il un discours spécifique sur le corps ?
Barrett, Timothy H. “Speaking up for Superstition: A Note on the Ethics of Chinese Popular Belief.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 41, no. S1 (2014): 709-722.
Abstract: Most Chinese religious practice and belief in times past, and even throughout much of the Chinese world today, falls into the still current category of superstition. Assessing the ethical notions that tend to obtain within this vast area of religious life is not easy, but it needs to be done for practical reasons, not least because the legal consequences of moral actions arising from the body of beliefs concerned are starting to come before courts outside China itself. Once the assumptions of a very different worldview affirming the existence of an unseen spirit world are taken into account, the deeds of believers in this worldview can be discussed from the point of view of ethics. Philosophers might do well to pay more attention to this topic. (Source: journal)
Berezkin, Rostislav & Victor H. Mair. "The Precious Scroll on Bodhisattva Guanyin from Jingjiang, and Confucian Morality." Journal of Chinese Religions 42.1 (2014): 1-27.
Abstract: This article deals with the special features of the contents of the Precious Scroll on Bodhisattva Guanshiyin from Xiangshan (Xiangshan Guanshiyin baojuan), a prosimetric text performed in Jingjiang, and its role in the local culture. Though based on written narratives, this text exists primarily as an oral version in the tradition of religious storytelling called “scripture telling” (jiangjing). We trace the origin of this text and argue that it belongs to the late stage of the transformation of the famous Buddhist narrative subject—the story of Princess Miaoshan (earthly incarnation of Guan[shi]yin)—in the religious culture of China, where it was heavily influenced by Confucian ideas. We also analyze the application of these ideas in the context of ritualized performances of this text in modern Jingjiang. (Source: publisher's website)
Broy, Nikolas. "Die religiöse Praxis der Zhaijiao („Vegetarische Sekten“) in Taiwan." Doctoral dissertation, Universität Leipzig, 2014. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:15-qucosa-138361
Abstract: Die Dissertation beschäftigt sich mit drei Religionsgemeinschaften in Taiwan, die spätestens seit der japanischen Kolonialzeit (1895-1945) unter der Bezeichnung „vegetarische Sekten“ (Zhaijiao) klassifiziert werden. Auffälligstes Merkmal dieser Gruppen war und ist das der Mahayana-buddhistischen Tradition entlehnte Gebot vegetarischer Ernährung. Während sich der chinesische Mönchsorden von Beginn an Anfeindungen ausgesetzt sah, welche die tatsächliche Befolgung des vegetarischen Gebots in Frage stellten, waren es oft nicht-monastische Gruppierungen außerhalb des klerikalen Machtmonopols, welche dieses und andere Gebote scheinbar viel strikter befolgten. Zu diesem Kreis „außerbuddhistischer Buddhisten“ zählen die in dieser Studie untersuchten Religionsgemeinschaften Longhuapai („Sekte der Drachenblume“), Xiantianpai („Sekte des früheren Himmels“) und Jintongpai („Sekte des Goldwimpels“), die generisch als Zhaijiao bezeichnet werden. Diese drei ursprünglich vom chinesischen Festland stammenden Traditionen werden heute zumeist als laienbuddhistische Vereinigungen angesehen, teilen aber eine Geschichte, die weit über die Grenzen des „orthodoxen“ und distinkten Buddhismus hinausgeht. In ihnen verschmelzen nicht nur buddhistische und daoistische Elemente sowie Vorstellungen und Praktiken der kommunalen Volksreligiosität. Sie stehen auch in ungebrochener Tradition mit volksreligiösen Sekten der späten Ming- (1368-1644) und frühen Qing-Zeit (1644-1911). Während die religiösen Vorstellungen und sozialen Organisationsformen der seit der Ming-Zeit entstandenen volksreligiösen Sekten – in deren Tradition die Zhaijiao Taiwans stehen – durch das Studium schriftlicher Quellen bereits recht gut bekannt sind, ist ihre religiöse Praxis hingegen bisher kaum erforscht. Die Dissertation unternimmt daher den Versuch, einen Beitrag dazu zu leisten, diese Lücke zu schließen. Sie hat es sich zum Ziel gemacht, die religiöse Praxis der vegetarischen Sekten im heutigen Taiwan zu analysieren und sie vor dem Hintergrund ihrer historischen Entwicklung einzuordnen. „Religiöse Praxis“ fungiert dabei als Oberbegriff für alles soziale und individuelle Sichverhalten in einem religiösen Feld und schließt damit sowohl hochgradig standardisiertes, formelles und vorgeprägtes Handeln (z.B. Rituale), als auch Formen religiös geprägter Lebensführung ein. Die religiöse Praxis der Zhaijiao wird dabei erstmals einer ausführlichen diachronen Untersuchung unterzogen, die von den ältesten Erwähnungen im 16. Jahrhundert bis in die Gegenwart des frühen 21. Jahrhunderts reicht. Ein zentrales Element besteht dabei in der Verknüpfung von Feldforschung und dem Studium literarischer Quellen, welche es ermöglicht, einerseits historische Veränderungen zu erkennen und andererseits die historischen Quellen vor dem Hintergrund empirischer Beobachtungen besser zu verstehen. Zu diesem Zweck wurde im Jahr 2010 eine Erhebung von Primärdaten im Zuge einer Feldforschung durchgeführt, die sich insgesamt über sieben Monate erstreckte und in der 31 Gemeinden in ganz Taiwan besucht wurden. Erst mit diesen vor Ort gewonnenen Daten über das religiöse Leben der Zhaijiao-Anhänger in ihrem „natürlichen Umfeld“ können die spärlichen Informationen, die aus historischen Quellen und bisherigen Forschungsarbeiten gewonnen werden konnten, in einen lebensweltlichen Kontext eingebettet und interpretiert werden. Die heutigen Zhaijiao in Taiwan tragen als Abkömmlinge festlandchinesischer Sekten der Ming- und Qing-Zeit ein tief verwurzeltes historisches Erbe in sich. Dies besteht nicht nur aus jahrhundertealten Texten, die noch immer gedruckt, gelesen und rituell benutzt werden. Auch die religiöse Vorstellungswelt und Praxis nährt sich weiterhin aus dieser Tradition. Auf der anderen Seite erlebte Taiwan im vergangenen Jahrhundert infolge von Modernisierung, Verwestlichung, Urbanisierung usw. erhebliche politische und gesellschaftliche Umwälzungen, die auf die Entwicklung der Zhaijiao einen nachhaltigen Einfluss ausübten. Vor dem Hintergrund dieser zum Teil gegenläufigen Entwicklungen soll nach dem Verhältnis von Kontinuität und Wandel der Zhaijiao gefragt werden: Wie haben sich die kulturell eher konservativ und traditionell eingestellten Sekten unter den Bedingungen einer modernen und demokratischen Gesellschaft entwickelt und möglicherweise verändert? (Source: see URL above)
Bunkenborg, Mikkel. „From Metaphors of Empire to Enactments of State: Popular Religious Movements and Health in Rural North China.“ positions: east asia cultures critique 22, no.3 (2014): pp. 573-602.
Cai, Jiehua. Das Tianfei niangma zhuan des Wu Huanchu. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2014. (Maritime Asia, vol. 26)
Abstract: Das Tianfei niangma zhuan des Wu Huanchu ist ein kurzer Roman aus der späten Ming-Zeit (1368-1644) über die Wundertaten der Göttin Tianfei, die - zumeist unter dem Namen Mazu - bis in die Gegenwart entlang den chinesischen Küsten und weit darüber hinaus als Schutzpatronin der Seefahrer verehrt wird. Die Erzählung berichtet von zwei bösen Dämonen - einem Affen- und einem Krokodilgeist -, die aus dem Himmel fliehen. Das veranlasst die mitfühlende Tochter eines Sternenfürsten, persönlich in die Welt der Menschen hinabzusteigen, um Unheil abzuwenden und für Ordnung zu sorgen. Sie wird dazu in die Familie Lin geboren, steigt schließlich als Tianfei erneut in den Himmel auf und jagt die beiden Flüchtigen, auch jenseits der Reichsgrenzen, bis sie diese nach zahlreichen Abenteuern zur Strecke bringt. In einer ausführlichen Studie der Hauptfiguren der Erzählung wird der langen Tradition dieser Götter und Monster in der chinesischen Literaturgeschichte nachgegangen, um so dem Schaffen des Verfassers näher auf die Spur zu kommen und die Feinheiten des Romans auskosten zu können. Auf der Grundlage dieser Detailstudien werden abschließend strukturelle und inhaltliche Deutungsansätze geboten, welche die religionshistorische Bedeutung des Tianfei niangma zhuan unterstreichen. (Source: publisher's website)
Camhi-Rayer, Bernadette. "Why Do They 'Walk the Walk'? A Comparative Analysis of Two Pilgrimages, Dajia Mazu in Taiwan and Lourdes in France: Political, Sociological and Spiritual Aspects." In Yanjiu xin shijie: “Mazu yu Huaren minjian xinyang” guoji yantaohui lunwenji, ed. Wang Chien-chuan, Li Shiwei, Hong Yingfa, 79-89. Taipei: Boyang, 2014.
Chan, Selina Ching & Graeme Lang. Building Temples in China: Memories, Tourism and Identities. London, New York: Routledge, 2014.
Abstract: Much has been written on how temples are constructed or reconstructed for reviving local religious and communal life or for recycling tradition after the market reforms in China. The dynamics between the state and society that lie behind the revival of temples and religious practices initiated by the locals have been well-analysed. However, there is a gap in the literature when it comes to understanding religious revivals that were instead led by local governments. This book examines the revival of worship of the Chinese Deity Huang Daxian and the building of many new temples to the god in mainland China over the last 20 years. It analyses the role of local governments in initiating temple construction projects in China, and how development-oriented temple-building activities in Mainland China reveal the forces of transnational ties, capital, markets and identities, as temples were built with the hope of developing tourism, boosting the local economy, and enhancing Chinese identities for Hong Kong worshippers and Taiwanese in response to the reunification of Hong Kong to China. Including chapters on local religious memory awakening, pilgrimage as a form of tourism, women temple managers, entrepreneurialism and the religious economy, and based on extensive fieldwork, Chan and Lang have produced a truly interdisciplinary follow up to The Rise of a Refugee God which will appeal to students and scholars of Chinese religion, Chinese culture, Asian anthropology, cultural heritage and Daoism alike. (Source: publisher's website)
Chen Xi & Hoyt Cleveland Tillman. “Ghosts, Gods, and the Ritual Practice of Local Officials during the Song: With a Focus on Zhu Xi in Nankang Prefecture.” Journal of Song-Yuan Studies 44 (2014): 287-323.
Cheng, Tien-Ming; Chen, Mei-Tsun. "Image Transformation for Mazu Pilgrimage and Festival Tourism." Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research 19, nos.4-6 (2014): 538-557.
Cheung, Neky Tak-ching. “Women’s Salvation and Collective Order: A Penitential Ritual for Deliverance from the Lake of Blood Performed in Hong Kong.” Journal of Chinese Studies 2014, no. 58: 287-314.
Clart, Philip. “Conceptualizations of ‘Popular Religion’ in Recent Research in the People’s Republic of China.” In Yanjiu xin shijie: “Mazu yu Huaren minjian xinyang” guoji yantaohui lunwenji, ed. Wang Chien-chuan, Li Shiwei, Hong Yingfa, 391-412. Taipei: Boyang, 2014.
Faure, Bernard. „Indic Influences on Chinese Mythology: King Yama and His Acolytes as Gods of Destiny.“ In India in the Chinese Imagination: Myth, Religion, and Thought, edited by John Kieschnick and Meir Shahar, 46-60. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.
Fava, Patrice. Aux Portes du ciel. La statuaire taoïste du Hunan: Art et anthropologie de la Chine. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2014.
Abstract: Ce livre est le fruit d'une enquête dans la province chinoise du Hunan qui a duré plus de dix ans. Le point de départ aura été la découverte sur un marché du sud de la Chine de quelques statues en bois polychrome à l'intérieur desquelles se trouvaient des documents de consécration, indiquant, pour certains d'entre eux, qu'il s’agissait de maîtres taoïstes. On y mentionnait la date de fabrication, le nom des personnages représentés, celui des commanditaires, le lieu où se trouvait la statue, les raisons pour lesquelles elle avait été faite, les vœux associés au culte et bien d’autres renseignements concernant l’histoire locale. De très nombreux séjours dans le centre du Hunan apportèrent peu à peu des réponses aux différentes énigmes que posait l’immense corpus de documents de consécration accompagnant quelque deux mille statues datant pour la plupart de la dernière dynastie mandchoue (1644-1911). Non seulement personne n’avait rencontré dans aucune autre partie de la Chine une statuaire de ce type, mais de surcroît, cette province méridionale du Hunan comptait un très grand nombre de maîtres taoïstes et de sculpteurs qui perpétuaient cette tradition très ancienne. C’est grâce à eux que progressivement furent assemblées les pièces d’un puzzle très complexe qui rendait compte d’un système de croyances qui plongeait ses racines dans l’Antiquité chinoise et rappelait de manière très évidente le culte des immortels du temps de Laozi et Zhuangzi. La confrontation des sources scripturaires, conservées entre autres dans le Canon taoïste compilé au XVe siècle, avec la liturgie des maîtres de cette province, aura permis de mettre en lumière, en dépit des bouleversements de tous ordres qu’a connu le pays, l’extraordinaire continuité dont se prévaut le taoïsme et un très grand nombre de particularités locales, car la transmission au sein de lignées taoïstes s’est faite de manières très différentes dans chaque région de Chine. Le Hunan et sa statuaire auront ainsi été l’occasion d’écrire une nouvelle page de l’histoire du taoïsme qui demeure l’une des composantes essentielles de la civilisation et de la pensée chinoises. Écrit du point de vue d’un anthropologue, ce livre consacré à l’art taoïste du Hunan, ne s’adresse pas uniquement à un public de sinologues. Débordant le cadre des études chinoises, il s’interroge sur la religion en général et fait référence aux travaux de Claude Lévi-Strauss, Philippe Descola, Clifford Geertz ou Alfred Gell, et se réclame à la fois de la philosophie de l’histoire de Marcel Gauchet et de l’héritage surréaliste. La très abondante iconographie qui accompagne le texte est constituée de documents inédits qui donnent une dimension indispensable à la compréhension du taoïsme, en tant que tradition vivante. (Source: publisher's website)
Fisher, Gareth. From Comrades to Bodhisattvas: Moral Dimensions of Lay Buddhist Practice in Contemporary China. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2014.
Abstract: From Comrades to Bodhisattvas is the first book-length study of Han Chinese Buddhism in post-Mao China. Using an ethnographic approach supported by over a decade of field research, it provides an intimate portrait of lay Buddhist practitioners in Beijing who have recently embraced a religion that they were once socialized to see as harmful superstition. The book focuses on the lively discourses and debates that take place among these new practitioners in an unused courtyard of a Beijing temple. In this non-monastic space, which shrinks each year as the temple authorities expand their commercial activities, laypersons gather to distribute and exchange Buddhist-themed media, listen to the fiery sermons of charismatic preachers, and seek solutions to personal moral crises. Applying recent theories in the anthropology of morality and ethics, Gareth Fisher argues that the practitioners are attracted to the courtyard as a place where they can find ethical resources to re-make both themselves and others in a rapidly changing nation that they believe lacks a coherent moral direction. Spurred on by the lessons of the preachers and the stories in the media they share, these courtyard practitioners inventively combine moral elements from China’s recent Maoist past with Buddhist teachings on the workings of karma and the importance of universal compassion. Their aim is to articulate a moral antidote to what they see as blind obsession with consumption and wealth accumulation among twenty-first century Chinese. Often socially marginalized and sidelined from meaningful roles in China’s new economy, these former communist comrades look to their new moral roles along a bodhisattva path to rebuild their self-worth. Each chapter focuses on a central trope in the courtyard practitioners’ projects to form new moral identities. The Chinese government’s restrictions on the spread of religious teachings in urban areas curtail these practitioners' ability to insert their moral visions into an emerging public sphere. Nevertheless, they succeed, at least partially, Fisher argues, in creating their own discursive space characterized by a morality of concern for fellow humans and animals and a recognition of the organizational abilities and pedagogical talents of its members that are unacknowledged in society at large. Moreover, as the later chapters of the book discuss, by writing, copying, and distributing Buddhist-themed materials, the practitioners participate in creating a religious network of fellow-Buddhists across the country, thereby forming a counter-cultural community within contemporary urban China. (Source: publisher's website)
Formoso, Bernard. “Spirit-Writing and Mediumship in the Chinese New Religious Movement Dejiao in Southeastern Asia.” Anthropos 109, no.2 (2014): 539-550.
Gao Bingzhong. “How Does Superstition Become Intangible Cultural Heritage in Postsocialist China?” positions: east asia cultures critique 22, no.3 (2014): 551-572.
Goossaert, Vincent. “Managing Chinese Religious Pluralism in Nineteenth-century City God Temples.” In Globalization and the Making of Religious Modernity in China: Transnational Religions, Local Agents, and the Study of Religion, 1800-Present, edited by Thomas Jansen, Thoralf Klein, and Christian Meyer, 29-51. Leiden: Brill, 2014.
Goossaert, Vincent. "Modern Daoist Eschatology: Spirit-Writing and Elite Soteriology in Late Imperial China." Daoism: Religion, History and Society 6 (2014): 219-246.
Haar, Barend J. ter. Practicing Scripture: A Lay Buddhist Movement in Late Imperial China. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2014.
Abstract: Practicing Scripture is an original and detailed history of one of the most successful religious movements of late imperial China, the Non-Action Teachings, or Wuweijiao, from its beginnings in the late sixteenth century in the prefectures of southern Zhejiang to the middle of the twentieth century, when communist repression dealt it a crippling blow. Uncovering important data on its beliefs and practices, Barend ter Haar paints a wholly new picture of the group, which, despite its Daoist-sounding name, was a deeply devout lay Buddhist movement whose adherents rejected the worship of statues and ancestors while venerating the writings of Patriarch Luo (fl. early sixteenth century), a soldier-turned-lay-Buddhist. The texts, written in vernacular Chinese and known as the Five Books in Six Volumes, mix personal experiences, religious views, and a wealth of quotations from the Buddhist canon. Ter Haar convincingly demonstrates that the Non-Action Teachings was not messianic or millenarian in orientation and had nothing to do with other new religious groups and networks traditionally labelled as White Lotus Teachings. It combined Chan and Pure Land practices with a strong self-identity and vegetarianism and actively insisted on the right of free practice. Members of the movement created a foundation myth in which Ming (1368–1644) emperor Zhengde bestowed the right upon their mythical forefather. In addition, they produced an imperial proclamation whereby Emperor Kangxi of the Qing (1645–1911) granted the group similar privileges. (Source: publisher's website)
He Yanran. “Sage Descendants Fight: A History of the Master You Ancestral Hall in Chongming.” Ming Qing Studies 2014: 43-61.
Homola, Stéphanie. "Les usages de la main dans les calculs divinatoires." Études chinoises 33, no.1 (2014): 113-132.
Abstract: Les praticiens des arts divinatoires chinois ont l’habitude de s’aider de la paume de la main pour effectuer diverses opérations en parcourant avec le pouce les positions matérialisées par les phalanges des quatre autres doigts. Deux techniques sont ici examinées : la méthode du petit liuren, pratiquée par tout un chacun dans la vie quotidienne, et le calcul des signes horoscopiques par les spécialistes des arts divinatoires. En facilitant la manipulation et la mémorisation des réseaux complexes de symboles cosmologiques, le dispositif de la main opère comme un outil de communication entre le microcosme et le macrocosme. Il est également l’expression d’un savoir commun sur le destin et peut ainsi être mis en parallèle avec les arts de la mémoire occidentaux qui renvoient non seulement à une mnémotechnique mais également aux valeurs partagées par une communauté.
Homola, Stéphanie. "Le cas du « dragon chinois » : légende, destin et chance autour d’un jeu divinatoire." Études chinoises 33, no.2 (2014): 153-175.
Abstract: Le « dragon chinois » (Zhonghua yitiao long) est un jeu divinatoire contemporain qui se pratique avec des cartes à la manière d’un solitaire. Ce cas soulève tout d’abord la question de la circulation et de la transmission des jeux. On s’intéressera ainsi aux légendes qui accompagnent les jeux ainsi qu’aux conditions de l’enseignement des règles à de nouveaux joueurs. Rituel d’interrogation du destin ou jeu pour attirer la chance, cet exemple permet également d’examiner les catégories de jeu et de rituel, de mettre en évidence les mécanismes qui les rapprochent et ceux qui les distinguent. On s’interrogera en particulier sur la nature de l’instance qui préside au résultat du jeu, sur l’effet qui est attendu du jeu et sur l’analogie entre la manipulation des cartes et celle du destin. Le cas du « dragon chinois » peut ainsi être utilement confronté aux réflexions théoriques récentes menées par Roberte Hamayon sur les mécanismes fondamentaux des jeux divinatoires ou des rituels pour attirer la chance.
Hu, Anning; Yang, Fenggang. "Trajectories of Folk Religion in Deregulated Taiwan: an Age, Period, Cohort Analysis. Chinese Sociological Review 46, no.3 (2014): 80-100.
Janousch, Andreas. “The Censor’s Stele: Religion, Salt-Production and Labour in the Temple of the God of the Salt Lake in Southern Shanxi Province.” East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine 39 (2014): 7-53.
Abstract: This case study analyses religious and technological changes that occurred during the last seventy years of the Ming dynasty (1574-1644) around the Hedong Salt Lake, situated south of Yuncheng City in southern Shanxi province. Based on a close reading of inscriptions found on stone steles at the Temple of the God of the Salt Lake and of different kinds of gazetteers, the article documents the processes and analyses the factors that shaped the expanding pantheon of local salt-production-related deities during this period. I argue that these religious changes need to be understood in the context of a wider sociotechnical system around the Salt Lake, especially the emergence of new salt production methods that were introduced at this time under the increasingly affirmative leadership of local salt merchants, as well as the changing conditions of local labour management. The larger methodological point the article makes is about the necessity to take stone steles themselves in their spatial and material dimensions as evidence of historical processes: this will allow us to see that by means of these steles and their inscriptions the temple became an architectural discursive space that facilitated new forms of social participation and of administrative intervention, while offering simultaneously a nexus be- tween the sphere of human intervention and the relevant ‘natural’ factors of the salt production at the Salt Lake. Accordingly, the article proposes novel ways to understand the role of religious institutions such as temples in their relation to ‘natural’ and ‘technological’ processes. (Source: journal)
Jansen, Thomas. “Sectarian Religions and Globalization in Nineteenth Century Beijing: The Wanbao baojuan (1858) and Other Examples.” In Globalization and the Making of Religious Modernity in China: Transnational Religions, Local Agents, and the Study of Religion, 1800-Present, edited by Thomas Jansen, Thoralf Klein, and Christian Meyer, 115-135. Leiden: Brill, 2014.
Joo Fumiko. „Ancestress Worship: Huxin Temple and the Literati Community in Late Ming Ningbo.“ Nan Nü: Men, Women and Gender in China 16, no.1 (2014): 29-58.
Kim, Han-shin. "The Transformation in State Responses to Chinese Popular Religious Cults." Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies 14, no.1 (Apr 2014): 1-20.
Klein, Thoralf. “The Missionary as Devil: Anti-Missionary Demonology in China, 1860-1930.” In Europe as the Other: External Perspectives on European Christianity, edited by Judith Becker and Brian Stanley, 119-148. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014.
Koh, Khee Heong; Ong, Chang Woei. "Gods and / or Ancestors: Practicing Lineage in Contemporary Singapore." Journal of Chinese Overseas 10, no.1 (2014): 3-32.
Lazzaroti, Marco. “Modern Life and Traditional Death: Tradition and Modernization of Funeral Rites in Taiwan.” Fu-Jen International Religious Studies 8, no.1 (2014): 108-126.
Leamaster, Reid J.; Anning Hu. “Popular Buddhists: The Relationship between Popular Religious Involvement and Buddhist Identity in Contemporary China.” Sociology of Religion 75 (2014): 234-259.
Abstract: Drawing on previous literature and theoretical considerations, the authors identify six key independent variables related to popular religious belief and practice in mainland China: institutional religious affiliation, level of education, income, perspectives on inequality as a social problem, assessment of overall health, and rural residency. Using the 2007 Spiritual Life Study of Chinese Residents, the authors find that Buddhist identity is positively associated with popular religious involvement across measures of popular religious belief and practice. Identifying as a formally committed Buddhist consistently displays the strongest positive relationship with popular religious involvement. The level of education does not reveal a consistent negative association with popular religious adherence, contrary to predictions of classical secularization theory. One measure of existential security theory, feeling inequality is a serious social problem, shows a strong positive relationship with popular religious belief, but not popular religious practices. Finally, despite research highlighting the functional importance of popular religion in rural areas, rural residency is not consistently a significant predictor of popular religious adherence. The implications of these findings are discussed. (Source: journal)
Liang, Yongjia. "Morality, Gift and Market: Communal Temple Restoration in Southwest China." Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 15, no.5 (Nov 2014): 414-432 .
Ling Xiaoqiao. “Law, Deities, and Beyond: From the Sanyan Stories to Xingshi yinyuan zhuan.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 74, no.1 (2014): 1-42.
Liu, Anrong. "Catholic and Chinese Folk Religion During the Republican Era in the Region of Taiyuan, Shanxi." In A Voluntary Exile: Chinese Christianity and Cultural Confluence since 1552, edited by Anthony E. Clark, 145-171. Bethlehem, Penn.: Lehigh University Press, 2014.
Liu, Xun. "Physicians, Quanzhen Daoists, and Folk Cult of the Sage of Medicine in Nanyang, 1540s-1950s." Daoism: Religion, History and Society 6 (2014): 269-334.
Ownby, David, “The Politics of Redemption: Redemptive Societies and the Chinese State in Modern and Contemporary Chinese History.” Sinological Reflexions (Taipei: Academia Sinica, 2014), 477-502.
Poo, Mu-chou. “Religion and Religious Life of the Qin.” In Birth of an Empire: the State of Qin Revisited, ed. Yuri Pines, Gideon Shelach, Lothar von Falkenhausen & Robin D.S. Yates. Berkeley, London: University of California Press, 2014. Pp. 187-205.
Remoiville, Julie. "Le renouveau religieux en Chine contemporaine: Le rôle social des lieux de culte en contexte urbain." Études chinoises 33, no.1 (2014): 133-146.
Abstract: Les nouvelles politiques et réformes mises en place au lendemain de la Révolution Culturelle en Chine ont permis un renouveau religieux dans les milieux urbains, exerçant ses effets sur la structuration même du champ religieux chinois. Après une brève présentation de la situation religieuse de la ville de Hangzhou, capitale de la province du Zhejiang, je propose dans cette note de recherche d’analyser le rôle social que peuvent jouer aujourd’hui les lieux de culte en contexte urbain. En effet, une analyse des différentes activités religieuses que l’on peut observer dans les lieux de culte de la ville, ainsi que des types de fidèle pratiquant ces activités, permet de constater qu’il existe actuellement une coupure sociale profonde entre les acteurs de la vie religieuse autour des petits temples et ceux autour des temples officiels, reconnus par l’État.
Sanft, Charles. “Paleographic Evidence of Qin Religious Practice from Liye and Zhoujiatai.” Early China 37 (2014): 327-358.
Schlehe, Judith. "Translating Traditions and Transcendence: Popularised Religiosity and the Paranormal Practitioners' Position in Indonesia." In Religion, Tradition and the Popular: Transcultural Views from Asia and Europe, edited by Judith Schlehe and Evamaria Sandkühler, 185-201. Bielefeld, Germany: Transcript, 2014.
Shahar, Meir. „Indian Mythology and the Chinese Imagination: Nezha, Nalakubara, and Krsna.“ In India in the Chinese Imagination: Myth, Religion, and Thought, edited by John Kieschnick and Meir Shahar, 21-45. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.
Sun, Yanfei. "Popular Religion in Zhejiang: Feminization, Bifurcation, and Buddhification." Modern China 40, no.5 (2014): 455-487.
Abstract: Based on eighteen months of fieldwork in a county in Southeast China, this article identifies three tendencies that have appeared in the revitalization of temple-based popular religion in the post-Mao period. These three tendencies—women taking more central roles in popular religion, the bifurcation between the ever increasing popularity and prosperity of a small number of temples and the decline in the majority of small village temples, and the tendency of popular religion temples to acquire Buddhist features—have consequently caused the character and terrain of popular religion to diverge greatly from the pre-1949 past. To explain these changes, the article argues that we have to come to terms with the two faces of popular religion: the communal/mandatory dimension and the individual/voluntary dimension that is largely associated with female devotees. All three tendencies have been taking place when popular religion temples’ bonds with village communities attenuated and their voluntary dimension moved to the forefront. The article attributes the weakening of the communal dimension of popular religion temples to the restructuring of rural society by the Maoist political campaigns and the post-Mao marketization. (Source: journal)
Tischer, Jacob. Mazus neue Heimat: Interpretationen und Institutionen einer chinesischen Göttin in Taiwan. Berlin: regiospectra Verlag, 2014.
Abstract: Wie kann eine chinesische Göttin zum Symbol einer nationalen taiwanischen Identität werden? Welchen Einfluss üben lokale Gemeindetempel auf die Formulierung politischer Maßnahmen der taiwanischen Regierung aus? Welche institutionelle Rolle spielen sie im demokratischen Prozess? Diesen Fragen widmet sich Jacob Tischer in seiner Analyse der heutigen Bedeutung Mazus, deren Entwicklung er historisch nachverfolgt und dabei neben der religiösen auch politische und soziokulturelle Dimensionen einbezieht. Mazu ist mit über 800 ihr gewidmeten Tempeln eine der bedeutendsten Gottheiten Taiwans. Obwohl aus China stammend, ist die Göttin ein wichtiger Anker für verschiedene lokale und regionale Identitäten und wird sogar als Repräsentantin der Einheit aller Taiwanerinnen und Taiwaner wahrgenommen. Mazus Stellung als Schutzpatronin Taiwans ist jedoch – wie die politische Unabhängigkeit des Inselstaats selbst – aufgrund chinesischer Ansprüche prekär. (Source: publisher's website)
Wang-Riese, Xiaobing. “Globalization vs. Localization: Remaking the Cult of Confucius in Contemporary Quzhou.” In Globalization and the Making of Religious Modernity in China: Transnational Religions, Local Agents, and the Study of Religion, 1800-Present, edited by Thomas Jansen, Thoralf Klein, and Christian Meyer, 182-207. Leiden: Brill, 2014.
Weller, Robert. “Beyond Globalization and Secularization: Changing Religion and Philanthropy in Lukang, Taiwan.” In Globalization and the Making of Religious Modernity in China: Transnational Religions, Local Agents, and the Study of Religion, 1800-Present, edited by Thomas Jansen, Thoralf Klein, and Christian Meyer, 136-155. Leiden: Brill, 2014.
Wilson, Rex. "Chinese Folk Religion in Macao: Ritualism or Relief?" Revista de Cultura, no. 48 (2014): 68-85.
Abstract: Although Chinese religion is characterised by Stephan Feuchtwang as ritualistic, meaning that the emphasis is on precise performances of ritual to achieve desired results, as opposed to religions such as Christianity and Islam that stress personal belief, the practices and beliefs described by worshippers in Macao of the popular Daoist god Nezha are not ritualistic. Chinese folk religion and Western Judeo-Christian religions have many differences but also many similarities. For example, the Nezha temples in Macao have no creeds, commandments, clergy, doctrines, scriptures, or sacraments such as in the Roman Catholic Church, nor do they have regular educational activities such as Sunday schools, sermons, or prayer groups. Nevertheless, from interviews with members of the two Nezha temple associations in Macao, we learn that their religion benefits members with ‘spiritual relief’ and the sense of belonging to a community. Their expressed beliefs are consistent with the four functions of myth identified by Joseph Campbell: metaphysical, cosmological, sociological, and pedagogical. (Source: journal)
Yi Jo-lan. „Gender and Sericulture Ritual Practice in Sixteenth-Century China.“ Journal of Asian History 48, no.2 (2014): 281-302.
Yue Yongyi. "Holding Temple Festivals at Home of Doing-gooders: Temple Festivals and Rural Religion in Contemporary China." Cambridge Journal of China Studies 9, no. 1 (2014): 48-95.
Abstract: Holding temple festivals at home is a local temple festival system and practicing religious in Pear Area of North China, referring to the regular “temple festivals” people hold at home centering on shénshen (Gods). Through the ethnographic study on the family space shared by people and shénshen, the controlled possession, unbalances in the daily life of local people, shrine of spirits and the practice of efficacious reading-incense, etc., this article responds to both classic modes of Chinese rural religious study and contemporary western discourse of Chinese temple festivals’ study. The article tries to illuminate the following ideas: firstly, as a life style and a part of daily life, both Chinese rural religion and temple festivals represent a cultural system that not only embodies sacredness and carnival but is more of an extension to daily life as well; secondly, the flexibility of temple festivals. Family temple festivals are the bearing soil of temple festivals, and the relationship of encompassing the contrary is the essence among family temple festivals, village temple festivals and multi-village temple festivals; Thirdly, it is the necessity and the significance of its methodology to come back to the domestic space in the course of daily life as investigating rural religion and temple festival. (Source: journal)
Zhang Qingren. "The Logic of Chinese Local Religion - Analysis of the Statement of 'Serving Lao Niangniang' Claimed by the Incense Societies Pilgrimaging to Miaofeng Mount." Cambridge Journal of China Studies 9, no. 1 (2014): 96-108.
Abstract: The pilgrims heading for Miaofeng Mount address the Bixia Yuanjun as “Lao Niangniang”, and describing their religious practices as serving Lao Niangniang. These actions reflect the logic of the Chinese local religious practice. The motivation of religious practice is to obtain the goddess’ blessing. In the believers’ opinion, although all the believers pray in front of the goddess and pilgrimage to Miaofeng Mount, the religious practices are centred around the goddess and the blessings differentiate depending on the relationship between the goddess and the believers. The believers try to establish an intimate relationship with Bixia Yuanjun by addressing Bixia Yuanjun as Lao Niangniang and describing their religious practices as serving Lao Niangniang. Therefore they are able to use the moral obligation between relatives to ensure the goddess’ rewards. The logic of the local religious practices is then shaped by the Pattern of Difference Sequence of Chinese society. (Source: journal)