1st Edition

Religion, Ethnicity, and Gender in Western Hunan during the Modern Era The Dao among the Miao?

By Paul R. Katz Copyright 2022
250 Pages 16 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

250 Pages 16 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

250 Pages 16 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This book explores how beliefs and practices have shaped the interactions between different ethnic groups in Western Hunan, as well as considering how religious life has adapted to the challenges of modern Chinese history. Combining historical and ethnographic methodologies, chapters in this book are structured around changes that occurred during the interaction between Miao ritual traditions... Read more

1. Western Hunan: An Overview  2. Temple Cults  3. Ritual Specialists  4. Ritual Violence and the Judicial Continuum:  5. Female Mediums and Rites of Resistance  6. The Incense Dancing Festival  7. Repaying a Nuo Vow

Biography

Paul R. Katz is Distinguished Research Fellow at the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, and Program Director of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange. His research centers on modern Chinese religious life, with his most recent monograph (Religion in China and its Modern Fate) published in early 2014.

This book stands out for Katz’s utter mastery of secondary literature on religion in Hunan and the Southwest, his use of Western Hunan as a case study to challenge existing models of Chinese religion, and his keen attention to processes of religious transformation through the theoretical innovations of reverberation and trans-hybridity.
Megan Bryson, University of Tennessee, USA