1. Popular Religion: General Studies

Anderson, E.N., "Flowering Apricot: Environmental Practice, Folk Religion, and Daoism." In: N.J. Girardot, James Miller & Liu Xiaogan [eds.], Daoism and Ecology: Ways Within a Cosmic Landscape. Cambridge, MA: Center for the Study of World Religions, distributed by Harvard University Press, 2001. Pp. 157-183.

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.

Baker, Hugh. Ancestral Images: A Hong Kong Collection. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2011.

Abstract: This new revised edition collects in one place the articles from the three volumes of Hugh Baker's Ancestral Images originally published in 1979, 1980 and 1981. The 120 articles and photographs explore everyday life, customs and rituals in Hong Kong's rural New Territories. They investigate religion, food, language, history, festivals, family, strange happenings and clan warfare. The book documents much that can no longer be found. But it also provides an understanding of a world which has not yet entirely disappeared, and which still forms the background of life in modern urban Hong Kong and its neighbouring cities. Esoteric nuggets of information are scattered through the book: How do you ascend a pagoda with no staircase? How can you marry without attending the wedding? When is it wrong to buy a book? Hugh Baker answers these and many other questions in this well-rounded picture of a vibrant, quirky people painted with affection and informed by many years of scholarship and research. (Source: publisher's website)

Berling, Judith A., A Pilgrim in Chinese Culture. Negotiating Religious Diversity. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1997.

Berling, Judith A., "When They Go Their Separate Ways: The Collapse of the Unitary Vision of Chinese Religion in the Early Ch'ing." In: Irene Bloom & Joshua A. Fogel [eds.], Meeting of Minds: Intellectual and Religious Interaction in East Asian Traditions of Thought. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Pp. 209-237.

Chang, Wen-Chun. "Religious Attendance and Subjective Well-being in an Eastern-Culture Country: Empirical Evidence from Taiwan." Marburg Journal of Religion 14.1 (2009): online.

Abstract: This paper investigates the relationship between religious attendance and subjective well-being in an Eastern-culture country. The findings of this study indicate that religious attendance has positive relationships with happiness as well as domain satisfactions with interpersonal relationship, health, and marital life, but it is not significantly related to the satisfaction with personal financial status. Interestingly, for believers of Eastern religions, those who have a higher level of relative income tend to have higher levels of satisfaction with financial status and health status, but are less satisfied with being free of worry and interpersonal relationship. Moreover, for the adherents of Eastern religions, those who have a higher educational attainment appear to report lower levels of overall happiness and the satisfaction with being free of worry. It appears that the differences in the religious practices and organizational settings between Eastern religions and Western Christianity lead to different patterns of the relationships between religious attendance and various measures of subjective well-being.

Ching, Julia, "The Ambiguous Character of Chinese Religion(s)." Studies in Interreligious Dialogue 11(2001)2: 213-223.

Clart, Philip, "Sects, Cults, and Popular Religion: Aspects of Religious Change in Post-War Taiwan." British Columbia Asian Review 9(Winter 1995/96):120-163.

Clart, Philip. "The Concept of 'Popular Religion' in the Study of Chinese Religions: Retrospect and Prospects." In: The Fourth Fu Jen University Sinological Symposium: Research on Religions in China: Status quo and Perspectives, edited by Zbigniew Wesolowski, SVD. Xinzhuang: Furen Daxue chubanshe, 2007. Pp. 166-203.

Davis, Edward L., Society and the Supernatural in Song China. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2001.

Abstract: Society and the Supernatural in Song China is at once a meticulous examination of spirit possession and exorcism in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and a social history of the full panoply of China's religious practices and practitioners at the moment when she was poised to dominate the world economy. Although the Song dynasty (960-1276) is often identified with the establishment of Confucian orthodoxy, Edward Davis demonstrates the renewed vitality of the dynasty's Taoist, Buddhist, and local religious traditions. (Source: publisher's webpage)

Dobbelaere, Karel. “China Challenges Secularization Theory.” Social Compass 56 (2009): 362-370.

Abstract: The author proposes a reflection on challenges that the three anthropological articles in this issue present for secularization theory. The first two discuss “performances” of religion in two different Chinese cultural periods: welfare services offered by recognized religious associations in the People’s Republic of China and the judicial rituals in colonial settings. The author suggests similarities with such “performances” in western culture. The second part of the article discusses some issues raised by Szonyi in his comparison of recent social research literature on Chinese religion and sociological literature on secularization: a critique of the concept of “modernity” in relation to secularization; a reflection on the possibility of establishing a secularization theory with universal validity; how to integrate rational choice theory and secularization theory; the validity of secularization in view of individual religious sensitivity; and secularization as an ideology and a discussion of the so-called “privatization of religion” in secularized settings. (Source: journal)

DuBois, Thomas, "The Sacred World of Cang County: Religious Belief, Organization and Practice in Rural North China During the Late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries." Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 2001.

Abstract: Since the late nineteenth century, the villages of Cang County, located in southern Hebei Province, have undergone enormous political, social, and economic change. Yet throughout this period, personal and public religious life have remained matters of highest importance. This dissertation combines traditional archival sources with the authorís fieldwork to outline the religious needs and devotion of the individual, the history of local religious institutions and networks, and interaction between religious organization and local society in Cang County during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The dissertation begins with an analysis of personal religious mentality, asking how the individual comes to know the sacred and what he or she comes to expect of it. An analysis of religious vows (yuan) in the city of Tianjin and in rural Cang County demonstrates the place of morality and devotion in an overtly functional ritual regimen. The place of spirit healers (xiangtou) in Cang County, and their interaction with other healers, particularly village doctors, demonstrates both the contingency of belief and the characteristic manner by which religious knowledge is spread through the medium of miracle tales.

Religious institutions generally did not demand exclusive belief or affiliation, and popular religiosity freely drew upon different sects and teachings as sources of inspiration. Formal teachings such as Buddhism made a great impact on local belief, but by the twentieth century, monks were few and their teaching nearly indistinguishable from local religiosity. Sectarian groups, long characterized as subversive and secret, also left an important mark on local religious life. Each teaching had distinct doctrine, organization and social appeal. Teachings such as Zailijiao were oriented towards the development and public expression of personal morality, particularly of the local mercantile elite. Yiguandao addressed millenarian longings, thus finding a ready audience during times of trial, particularly the Japanese occupation. Others, such as Tiandimen and Taishangmen were grounded in everyday ritual practice, and have thus retained their popular appeal throughout the period.

Outside of religious networks, the organization of local society shaped the diffusion and of religious knowledge. The concentration of religious resources (such as temples and specialists) within the village, influenced the votive lives of individual peasants. However, although the village supported these resources and expressed a sense of common welfare, the ritual use of these resources was primarily by the household. [Source: author.]

DuBois, Thomas David. The Sacred Village: Social Change and Religious Life in Rural North China. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005.

Abstract: Until recently, few villagers of rural North China ventured far from their homes. Their intensely local view of the world included knowledge of the immanent sacred realm, which derived from stories of divine revelations, cures, and miracles that circulated among neighboring villages. These stories gave direction to private devotion and served as a source of expert information on who the powerful deities were and what role they played in the human world. The structure of local society also shaped public devotion, as different groups expressed their economic and social concerns in organized worship. While some of these groups remained structurally intact in the face of historical change, others have changed dramatically, resulting in new patterns of religious organization and practice.

The Sacred Village introduces local religious life in Cang County, Hebei Province, as a lens through which to view the larger issue of how rural Chinese perspectives and behaviors were shaped by the sweeping social, political, and demographic changes of the last two centuries. Thomas DuBois combines new archival sources in Chinese and Japanese with his own fieldwork to produce a work that is compelling and intimate in detail. This dual approach also allows him to address the integration of external networks into local society and religious mentality and posit local society as a particular sphere in which the two are negotiated and transformed. [Source: publisher's website]

DuBois, Thomas David. “Local Religion and the Cultural Imaginary: the Development of Japanese Ethnography in Occupied Manchuria.” American Historical Review 111.1 (2006): 52-74.

Faivre, Gilles, Recherches sur les superstitions en Chine: table analytique et index de l'oeuvre du père Henri Doré S.J. Paris: Librairie-éditeur You-Feng, 1997.

Falkenhausen, Lothar von, "Archaeology and the Study of Chinese Local Religion: A Discussant's Remarks." Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie 10(1998): 411-425.

Abstract: Avec comme base de sa réflexion quelques articles du présent volume des Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie et du volume conjoint en chinois, l'auteur examine quelques orientations grâce auxquelles la recherche archéologique pourrait aider à une vision plus globale des religions locales. Il aborde ainsi les questions suivantes: (1) Comment intégrer textes et documents matériels; (2) quelle est la relation entre l'inscription et son support - une dimension sémantique trop souvent sous-estimée en épigraphie; et (3) comment tenir compte de l'utilisation rhétorique de l'espace dans un site religieux. [Source of abstract: article]

Fan Lizhu, "Popular Religion in Contemporary China." Social Compass 50(2003)4: 449-457.

Feuchtwang, Stephan, Popular Religion in China: The Imperial Metaphor. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2001.

Feuchtwang, Stephan; Shih Fang-Long; Paul-François Tremlett. "The Formation and Function of the Category 'Religion' in Anthropological Studies of Taiwan." Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 18(2006)1: 37-66.

Gerritsen, Anne Tjerkje, "Gods and Governors: Interpreting the Religious Realms in Ji'an (Jiangxi) during the Southern Song, Yuan, and Ming Dynasties." Thesis (Ph.D.), Harvard University, 2001, 349p.

Abstract: This dissertation examines the religiosity of the common people in Ji'an Prefecture (Jiangxi Province) during the Southern Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties. I use the term "religiosity" to refer to the multiple ways in which the people of Ji'an interpreted and manipulated the realm of higher forces that affected their lives and deaths. This religiosity is of particular interest because the sources demonstrate that many "social actors" on the local scene attached great importance to this religiosity. Many regional and national groups of "actors" represented in local society were interested in asserting their authority over the religiosity of commoners by suggesting their own interpretations of the religious realm. This dissertation chronicles two processes of change; the gradual change in the religiosity of the common people, and the changing ways of manipulating this religiosity and their different rates of success.

Religiosity during the Southern Song dynasty is based on the availability and diversity of options. The importance of access to a range of options means that boundaries within which interpretations of the outer realm exist are constantly shifting, while the communities within which such interpretations exist are also fluid. The analysis of Yuan dynasty sources suggests a high degree of continuity between the Southern Song and Yuan. By the later Ming the diversity of options still exists, but the importance of an integrated community within which a tradition of practice is shared also begins to feature. I suggest that the emphasis on cohesion and small-scale integration in Ji'an does not appear in written sources until the middle of the Ming dynasty.

Throughout this period both representatives of the central government and local literati attempted to impose their own interpretations of the religious realm on local population. While government-based narratives of local religiosity change dramatically throughout this period, the effect of that change is much less noticeable on the local level. Analysis of literati narratives yield a more significant change. Throughout the Southern Song and Yuan dynasties literati use religion to give themselves a voice of authority in local society. This gradually diminishes during the Ming dynasty. [Source: Dissertation Abstracts International]

Goh, Daniel P.S. "Chinese Religion and the Challenge of Modernity in Malaysia and Singapore: Syncretism, Hybridisation and Transfiguration." Asian Journal of Social Science 37.1 (2009): 138-162.

Abstract: The past fifty years have seen continuing anthropological interest in the changes in religious beliefs and practices among the Chinese in Malaysia and Singapore under conditions of rapid modernisation. Anthropologists have used the syncretic model to explain these changes, arguing that practitioners of Chinese "folk" religion have adapted to urbanisation, capitalist growth, nation-state formation, and literacy to preserve their spiritualist worldview, but the religion has also experienced "rationalisation" in response to the challenge of modernity. This article proposes an alternative approach that questions the dichotomous imagination of spiritualist Chinese religion and rationalist modernity assumed by the syncretic model. Using ethnographic, archival and secondary materials, I discuss two processes of change — the transfiguration of forms brought about by mediation in new cultural flows, and the hybridisation of meanings brought about by contact between different cultural systems — in the cases of the Confucianist reform movement, spirit mediumship, Dejiao associations, state-sponsored Chingay parades, reform Taoism, and Charismatic Christianity. These represent both changes internal to Chinese religion and those that extend beyond to reanimate modernity in Malaysia and Singapore. I argue that existential anxiety connects both processes as the consequence of hybridisation and the driving force for transfiguration.

Goossaert, Vincent, "Le destin de la religion chinoise au 20ème siècle." Social Compass 50(2003)4: 441-448.

Haar, Barend J. ter, "Buddhist Inspired Options: Aspects of Lay Religious Life in the Lower Yangzi from 1100 until 1340." T'oung Pao 87(2001): 92-152.

Herrmann-Pillath, Carsten, "Strange Notes on Modern Statistics and Traditional Popular Religion: Further Reflections on the Importance of Sinology for Social Science as Applied to China." In: Lutz Bieg, Erling von Mende & Martina Siebert [eds.], Ad Seres et Tungusos: Festschrift für Martin Gimm zu seinem 65. Geburtstag am 25. Mai 1995. Wiesbaden: Harassowitz Verlag, 2000. Pp.171-189.

Hymes, Robert, Way and Byway: Taoism, Local Religion, and Models of Divinity in Sung and Modern China. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002.

Abstract: Using a combination of newly mined Sung sources and modern ethnography, Robert Hymes addresses questions that have perplexed China scholars in recent years. Were Chinese gods celestial officials, governing the fate and fortunes of their worshippers as China's own bureaucracy governed their worldly lives? Or were they personal beings, patrons or parents or guardians, offering protection in exchange for reverence and sacrifice?

To answer these questions Hymes examines the professional exorcist sects and rising Immortals' cults of the Sung dynasty alongside ritual practices in contemporary Taiwan and Hong Kong, as well as miracle tales, liturgies, spirit law codes, devotional poetry, and sacred geographies of the eleventh through thirteenth centuries. Drawing upon historical and anthropological evidence, he argues that two contrasting and contending models informed how the Chinese saw and see their gods. These models were used separately or in creative combination to articulate widely varying religious standpoints and competing ideas of both secular and divine power. Whether gods were bureaucrats or personal protectors depended, and still depends, says Hymes, on who worships them, in what setting, and for what purposes. [Source of abstract: publisher's webpage]

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, "Child and Family in Chinese Popular Religion." In: Harold Coward & Philip Cook [eds.], Religious Dimensions of Child and Family Life: Reflections on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Victoria, B.C.: Centre for Studies in Religion and Society, University of Victoria, 1996. Pp.123-139.

Jordan, David K., Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors: Folk Religion in aTaiwanese Village. Third edition. San Diego, CA: Department of Anthropology, University of California-San Diego, 1999. (Published as a WWW document. Access via http://weber.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan or directly at http://hops.ucsd.edu/~jordan/scriptorium/gga/ggacover.html)

Katz, Paul R., "Identity Politics and the Study of Popular Religion in Postwar Taiwan." In: Paul R. Katz and Murray A. Rubinstein [eds.], Religion and the Formation of Taiwanese Identities. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Pp.157-180.

Lagerwey, John, "Questions of Vocabulary, or, How Shall We Talk about Chinese Religion?" In: Lai Chi Tim [ed.], Daojiao yu minjian zongjiao yanjiu lunji. Hong Kong: Xuefeng Wenhua Shiye, 1999. Pp.166-181.

Lagerwey, John, "Du caractère rationnel de la religion locale en Chine." Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient 87(2000)1: 301-315.

Abstract: La thèse soutenue dans cet article est que le comportement religieux chinois, tel qu'on l'observe à l'échelon local, suppose un système symbolique commun qui est « approprié à la situation socioéconomique ». Basé sur un travail de terrain dans les parties habitées par les Hakka du Nord-Est de la province de Guangdong, il examine une vallée « idéal-typique » coupée par une rivière qui divise un village monolignager d'un village plurilignager. Il y a une « logique profonde de l'occupation lignagère de l'espace », qui est fondamentalement monopolistique et conduit, si le lignage arrive à ses fins, d'un ancêtre fondateur unique à un lignage dominant qui a chassé tous les rivaux de l'écosystème que constitue la vallée. C'est dans ce contexte que le souci intense, lors de la construction d'une maison ou d'une tombe, de la captation symbolique du pouvoir spirituel du paysage au moyen de la géomancie prend tout son sens. Si les ancêtres représentent le lignage comme entité « publique », sociale, ce sont les dieux qui représentent la vallée comme un tout, c'est-à-dire comme un écosystème social partagé. Les dieux les plus importants sont les dieux villageois du sol, qui protègent le village des envahisseurs surnaturels. Il arrive souvent que des villages, représentés par leurs dieux du sol, appartiennent à des alliances plus larges formées autour de divinités hébergées dans des temples. Les processions à travers le territoire du dieu font partie intégrante des célébrations communautaires. Les démons, enfin, sont des puissances spirituelles qui, contrairement aux dieux, ne sont pas attachées à un lieu précis et doivent être régulièrement « invitées », nourries, et chassées en des lieux rituels en aval du village. Cet espace religieux surpeuplé reflétait un espace socioéconomique surpeuplé, situation qui engendrait « une approche stratégique et opportuniste de la survie »."

The basic thesis of this essay is that Chinese religious behaviour as observed on the local level involves a symbolic system common to all that is "appropriate to the socio-economic context." Based on fieldwork in the Hakka parts of north-eastern Guangdong, the article examines an "ideal-type" valley bisected by a river which divides a uni-lineage from a multi-lineage "village". There is an "inner logic of the lineage occupation of space", a logic which is essentially monopolistic and leads, if the lineage is successful, from a single founding ancestor to a fully articulated major lineage which has driven all rivals from the valley ecosystem. It is in this context that the intense concern, when building a house or a tomb, with symbolic capture of the spiritual power of the landscape by means of geomancy makes sense. If the ancestors represent the lineage as a "public", social entity, it is the gods who represent the valley as a whole, that is, as a shared social ecosystem. The most important are the village earth gods, who protect the village against supernatural invaders. Not infrequently, villages represented by their earth gods will belong to larger alliances built up around gods housed in temples. Processions throughout the god's territory are a standard part of communal celebrations. Demons, finally, are spiritual forces who, unlike gods, are not tied to a fixed place and must be regularly "invited", fed, and driven away at ritual sites downstream from the village. This overcrowed religious space reflected an overcrowded socio-economic space, a situation that engendered "a strategic, opportunistic approach to survival".

 

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]

Lai Pan-chiu, "Chinese Religions and the History of Salvation: A Theological Perspective." Ching Feng 40 (1997) 1: 15-40.

Liao, Hsien-Huei, "Popular Religion and the Religious Beliefs of the Song Elite, 960--1276." Thesis (Ph.D.), University of California, Los Angeles, 2001, 338p.

Abstract: This study explores the interaction between the elite and popular religion during the Song. Its central concern lies in the question of how concurrent intellectual and religious trends could have been reconciled within the culture of the Song elite. My main contention is that rather than dissociating themselves from the supernatural realm or making genuine efforts to put it under control, many of the Song elite like the rest of the society upheld a deep-rooted belief in the power of the supernatural world. Yet due to their unique social, cultural, and political status, the beliefs and practices of the Song elite were not exactly identical to those of the common people. Implicit divergences of beliefs and practices between the elite and the common people remained abiding features underneath their commonly shared beliefs. The Song elite significantly contributed to the development and proliferation of popular religion through their personal piety and patronage. To demonstrate the above argument, this study will examine four key aspects of the elite's religious beliefs and practices: their appeals for divine aid, encounters with ghosts and demonic forces, obsession with death and the afterlife, and recourse to divination. Why they believed in supernatural powers, how they justified personal actions violating Confucian principles, and what reactions they made to supernatural interventions will all be closely investigated through their own testimonies and daily practices. By examining the religious views and actions of the elite in both the public and private spheres, this dissertation attempts to develop a new perspective for the study of the religious life and role of the elite and a novel conception of the formation and development of popular religion. [Source: Dissertation Abstracts International]

Lin, Wei-Ping. "Local History through Popular Religion: Place, People and Their Narratives in Taiwan." Asian Anthropology 8 (2009): 1-30.

Abstract: This paper explores how popular religion can offer a different interpretation of history than the macro politico-economic perspective. It draws on ethnography from rural Taiwan to discuss how the local people have their own ways of understanding history. The author examines religious narratives, the revelations of spirit mediums, and changes in the governance of temples to show how the social histories of the region and the wider society are reconstituted locally. These religious narrations and practices, grounded in ideas of place and in the social relations between deities and their adherents, are important means of constructing local identity and conveying people’s agency.

Lopez, Donald S., Jr. [ed.], Religions of China in Practice. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.

Madsen, Richard. “Religious Revival.” In: You-tien Hsing & Ching Kwan Lee [eds.], Reclaiming Chinese Society: The New Social Activism. London: Routledge, 2010. Pp.140-156.

Malek, Roman, Das Tao des Himmels. Die religiöse Tradition Chinas. Freiburg: Herder, 1996.

Morris, E.B., "Philosophic and Religious Content of Chinese Folk Religion." Chinese Culture 39(1998)2: 1-28.

Nadeau, Randall & Chang Hsun, "Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors: Religious Studies and the Question of 'Taiwanese Identity'." In: Philip Clart & Charles B. Jones [eds.], Religion in Modern Taiwan: Tradition and Innovation in a Changing Society. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2003. Pp.280-299.

Nadeau, Randall L. "A Critical Review of Daniel L. Overmyer's Contribution to the Study of Chinese Religions." In: The People and the Dao: New Studies in Chinese Religions in Honour of Prof. Daniel L. Overmyer, edited by Philip Clart & Paul Crowe. Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica, 2009. Pp. 23-35.

Overmyer, Daniel L., "Chinese Religions as Part of the History of Salvation: A Dialogue with Christianity." Ching Feng 40 (1997) 1: 1-14.

Overmyer, Daniel L. , "From 'Feudal Superstition' to 'Popular Beliefs': New Directions in Mainland Chinese Studies of Chinese Popular Religion". Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie 12(2001): 103-126.

Abstract: C'est environ à partir de 1990 que les chercheurs chinois ont commencé, pour la première fois depuis cinquante ans, à publier des études sur les traditions religieuses des Chinois ordinaires ; certaines d'entre elles assez générales et recourant à un style populaire, d'autres plus sérieuses et détaillées. Avec l'aide de deux collègues chinois, l'auteur a rassemblé cinquante deux ouvrages sur le sujet. Cet article est un compte rendu critique des ouvrages qui, dans cet ensemble, présentent le plus de valeur pour la recherche universitaire. Cette évaluation nouvelle de la religion populaire est à la fois un phénomène culturel et académique. Ces livres traduisent les débuts d'un changement quant à la perception autochtone de la culture chinoise dans son ensemble et aux sujets sur lesquels un chercheur peut légitimement poursuivre ses recherches. Il n'est pas exagéré de dire que c'est la première fois dans l'histoire chinoise que les activités et les croyances religieuses des gens ordinaires font l'objet d'autant d'attention et de publications. Bien sûr, une ambivalence demeure à propos de la légitimité de ces traditions, et la qualité de ces études est variable, mais, l'existence même de ces livres est importante. Nous pouvons nous réjouir de ce phénomène tout en gardant à l'esprit une perspective critique sur les travaux publiés. Ceux-ci restent, avant tout, un bon départ. (Source: journal)

Overmyer, Daniel L., "Religion in China Today: Introduction." The China Quarterly 174(2003): 307-316.

Palmer, David A. "Religion and Chinese Society." Quest 4(2005)2: 142-154.

Paper, Jordan, The Spirits are Drunk. Comparative Approaches to Chinese Religion. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995.

Paper, Jordan & Li Chuang Paper, "Chinese Religions, Population, and the Environment." In: Harold Coward [ed.], Population, Consumption, and the Environment: Religious and Secular Responses. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995. Pp. 173-191.

Paper, Jordan, "Conversion from Within and Without in Chinese Religion." In: Christopher Lamb & M. Darrol Bryant [eds.], Religious Conversion: Contemporary Practices and Controversies. London & New York: Cassell, 1999. Pp.102-114.

Paper, Jordan. "The Role of Possession Trance in Chinese Culture and Religion: A Comparative Overview from the Neolithic to the Present." In: The People and the Dao: New Studies in Chinese Religions in Honour in Prof. Daniel L. Overmyer, edited by Philip Clart & Paul Crowe. Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica, 2009. Pp. 327-345.

Poo, Mu-chou, In Search of Personal Welfare: A View of Ancient Chinese Religion. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1998.

Sangren, P. Steven, Chinese Sociologics: An Anthropological Account of the Role of Alienation in Social Reproduction. London: Athlone Press, 2000. [Note: A collection of essays by this author, some of which had previously been published elsewhere and are listed separately in this bibliography.]

Sangren, P. Steven, "Anthropology and Identity Politics in Taiwan: The Relevance of Local Religion." In: Paul R. Katz and Murray A. Rubinstein [eds.], Religion and the Formation of Taiwanese Identities. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Pp.253-287.

Sommer, Deborah [ed.], Chinese Religion: An Anthology of Sources. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Stafford, Charles, The Roads of Chinese Childhood: Learning and Identification in Angang. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Sterckx, Roel. “The Economics of Religion in Warring States and Early Imperial China.” In: John Lagerwey and Marc Kalinowski [eds.], Early Chinese Religion: Part One: Shang through Han (1250 BC-220 AD). Leiden: Brill, 2009. Pp.839-880.

St. Thecla, Adriano di, Opusculum de Sectis apud Sinenses et Tunkinenses: A Small Treatise on the Sects among the Chinese and Tonkinese. A Study of Religion in China and North Vietnam in the Eighteenth Century. Translated & Annotated by Olga Dror, in collaboration with Mariya Berezovska. Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Publications, 2002.

Szonyi, Michael. “Secularization Theories and the Study of Chinese Religions.” Social Compass 56 (2009): 312-327.

Abstract: The author proposes a dialogue between recent literature on the history of Chinese popular religion and recent sociological debates about secularization theory, asking whether a better understanding of concepts, theories and evidence from one field may be productive in interpreting those of the other. The author suggests on the one hand that certain elements of secularization theory can be useful tools in understanding the modern history of religions in China and on the other that thinking about what secularization has meant in China is crucial to a comparative global history of religion and modernity. He also argues that attention to secularization both as a historical process and as a political ideology may help us to better understand the religious policies of the People’s Republic of China today. (Source: journal)

Tam Wai Lun, "Local Religion in Contemporary China." In: James Miller [ed.], Chinese Religions in Contemporary Societies. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2006. Pp.57-83.

Tan Chee Beng, "The Study of Chinese Religions in Southeast Asia: Some Views." In: Leo Suryadinata [ed.], Southeast Asian Chinese: The Socio-Cultural Dimension. Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1995. Pp.139-165.

Tao, Hung-Lin; Yeh, Powen. "Religion as an Investment: Comparing the Contributions and Volunteer Frequency among Christians, Buddhists, and Folk Religionists." Southern Economic Journal 73.3 (2007): 770-790.

Abstract: The magnitude of the reward of an afterlife promised in the case of Christians is significantly greater than that in relation to both Buddhism and Taiwanese folk religions. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether these differences in the promised rewards of an afterlife across religions and the extent of the belief in the existence of an afterlife within the same religion are positively correlated with religionists' contributions to their religion and the frequency of their voluntary activities. This positive correlation is verified across different religions and within Christianity in regard to the religionists' contributions.

Teiser, Stephen F., "Popular Religion." In: Overmyer, Daniel L. [ed.], "Chinese Religions -- The State of the Field." "Part II: Living Religious Traditions: Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Islam and Popular Religion." Journal of Asian Studies 54(1995)2: 378-395.

Thamm, Ludwig, Glück, Geld und langes Leben. Tradition und Volksreligion im heutigen China. Regensburg: Verlag der Mittelbayerischen Zeitung, 1995.

Tsai, Wen-hui, "Folk Religion and Traditional Chinese Social Order." In: Phylis Lan Lin & David Decker [eds.], China (the Mainland and Taiwan) in Transition: Selected Essays. Indianapolis, Ind.: University of Indianapolis Press, 1997. Pp.51-63.

Verellen, Franciscus, "Société et religion dans la Chine médiévale. Le regard de Du Guangting (850-933) sur son époque." Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient 87(2000): 267-282.

Abstract: La littérature taoïste narrative, avec son insistance sur la religion comme phénomène de la vie quotidienne dans des contextes sociaux variés, constitue une source précieuse pour l'histoire sociale et l'anthropologie historique de la Chine traditionnelle. Dans cet article, l'auteur examine plusieurs genres d'écrits narratifs et fictionnels de Du Guangting &endash; mirabilia, hagiographies, récits de miracles &endash; pour en dégager les observations de première main de Du sur la place de la religion dans la société contemporaine. Son témoignage sur le taoïsme en tant que foi vivante à son époque est analysé sous divers angles : liturgie, politique, conflits sociaux, clergé et société laïque, communautés taoïste et bouddhiste, famille, religion populaire, contexte social de la pratique taoïste. En conclusion, l'auteur montre que le penchant de Du Guangting pour l'observation et l'analyse des comportements religieux dans diverses situations sociales l'emporte souvent sur son intérêt pour l'exposition des doctrines et la spéculation théologique. Il s'ensuit que Du donne sur le taoïsme de la société médiévale des informations comparables, à bien des égards, aux données relatives à la vie et aux institutions religieuses recueillies par les chercheurs en sciences humaines."

"Society and religion in medieval China. Du Guangting's (850-933) observation of his own time". Taoist informal writings, with their emphasis on religion as a phenomenon of daily life in various social contexts, can provide valuable data to social historians and historical anthropologists. This paper examines several genres of informal and imaginative writings by Du Guangting &endash; mirabilia, hagiography, miracle literature &endash; for the author's first-hand observation regarding the place of religion in contemporary society. His record of Taoism as a living faith in his time is discussed under headings comprising liturgy, politics, civil unrest, clergy and laity, the Taoist and Buddhist communities, the family, popular religion, and the social environment of Taoist practice. In conclusion, it is argued that Du Guangting's penchant for observing and analysing religious behaviour in terms of social situations in many instances prevailed over his interest in doctrinal exposition or theological speculation. As a result, Du provides information on Taoism in medieval society that is in many ways comparable to data on religious life and institutions collected by modern social scientists." [Source: journal]

Weller, Robert P., "Divided Market Cultures in China: Gender, Enterprise, and Religion." In: Robert W. Hefner [ed.], Market Cultures: Society and Morality in the New Asian Capitalism. Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1998. Pp.78-103.

Yao, Xinzhong. “Religious Belief and Practice in Urban China 1995-2005.” Journal of Contemporary Religion 22.2 (2007): 169-185.

Abstract: Drawing on relevant data from surveys conducted in 1995 and 2005, this article explores the perceptible changes in religious beliefs and practices among the Han Chinese in urban areas during this ten-year period. Through analysing the survey data, the article attempts to examine these changes - the increasing awareness of religious others and the more revealing interaction between change and continuity - in the context of greater changes of society, economy, and politics. It concludes that, while commercialism and rationalism continue to dominate the ideological sky of urban China, spiritual beliefs and practices in various forms have also gained a strong footing in contemporary society and demonstrate a complex religiosity. [Source: journal]

Yao Xinzhong & Paul Badham. Religious Experience in Contemporary China. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2007.

Abstract: This book is unique in that it provides data resulting from a four year study of religious experiencing in China today which could radically transform the understanding of the role of religion in contemporary China. The suppression of religion by communist authorities in the latter part of the 20th century is well known but, far less well-known, is the underlying resurgence of religious life within the most populous nation on earth. The research is focused on the Han Chinese who form over 90 percent of the population of mainland China and is undertaken on ten sites across the country resulting in data from 3,000 detailed questionnaires. The importance of this project is that it is ground-breaking research in an almost wholly new context. No previous research on this scale has taken place before and indeed until recently no such research would have been permitted in a state which since the Communist Revolution of 1949 has been deeply suspicious of any manifestation of religious feeling, and in which a wholly atheistic educational system has prevailed. [Source: publisher's website]

Ye Xiaoqing, The Dianshizhai Pictorial: Shanghai Urban Life, 1884-1898. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 2003. (Note: See Part Four, "Religious Practices", pp. 188-224.)

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.

Zhang, Jie. “The Effects of Religion, Superstition, and Perceived Gender Inequality on the Degree of Suicide Intent: A Study of Serious Attempters in China.” Omega: an International Journal for the Study of Dying, Death, Bereavement, Suicide, and Other Lethal Behaviors 55.3 (2007): 185-197.

Zhuo, Xinping, "Research on Religions in the People's Republic of China." Social Compass 50(2003)4: 441-448.

Zimmermann, Astrid, "Geister, Götter und Dämonen. Volksreligion in China." Das neue China 27(2000)1: 10-14.