Globalization and the Making of Religious Modernity in China: Transnational Religions, Local Agents, and the Study of Religion, 1800-present

Globalization and the Making of Religious Modernity in China, co-edited by Thomas Jansen, Thoralf Klein and Christian Meyer, investigates the transformation of China’s religious landscape under the impact of global influences since 1800. The interdisciplinary case studies analyze the ways in which processes of globalization are interlinked with localizing tendencies, thereby forging transnational relationships between individuals, the state and religious as well as non-religious groups at the same time that the global concept ‘religion’ embeds itself in the emerging Chinese ‘religious field’ and within the new academic disciplines of Religious Studies and Theology. The contributions unravel the intellectual, social, political and economic forces that shaped and were themselves shaped by the emergence of what has remained a highly contested category.

The contributors are: Hildegard Diemberger, Vincent Goossaert, Esther-Maria Guggenmos, Thomas Jansen, Thoralf Klein, Dirk Kuhlmann, LAI Pan-chiu, Joseph Tse-Hei Lee, Christian Meyer, Lauren Pfister, Chloë Starr, Xiaobing Wang-Riese, and Robert P. Weller.

Thomas Jansen, Dr. phil. (2000), is Lecturer for Chinese Studies at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. His current project is entitled Religious Text Production in Late Imperial China and explores the cultural history of popular religious scriptures ('baojuan').

Thoralf Klein, Dr. phil (2000), is Senior Lecturer in Modern History at Loughborough University (UK). He has published extensively on modern Chinese social, cultural and religious history. His current project investigates political religions in twentieth-century China.

Christian Meyer, Dr. phil. (2003), is currently Privatdozent and Replacement Professor at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He authored Ritendiskussionen am Hof der nördlichen Song-Dynastie and has recently finished a book manuscript on the adoption of Religious Studies in Late Imperial and Republican China.