Tables, Maps, and Figures Note on Romanization and Measurements 1. Introduction: Religion, Modernity, Nationalism Part I: Of Legislation and ling 2. Inventing Religion 3. Temples and the Redefinition of Public Life Part II: Material Motives 4. Jiangsu Temples as Target and Tactic 5. Idealized Communities and the Religious Remainder Part III: Transactional Modernity 6. Embodying Superstition 7. Affective Regimes 8. Conclusion: Superstition's Legacy Appendix: Three Major KMT Laws on Temples Notes Works Cited Index
Rebecca Nedostup is Associate Professor of History at Boston College.
Superstitious Regimes offers a penetrating analysis of the complex
confrontation between the Chinese Nationalist regime and the many
faces of Chinese religion, largely during the Nanjing Decade...The
broad outlines of this struggle are well known, at least to
scholars of Chinese religion. Nedostup's signal contribution is to
examine in much greater detail a number of case studies from the
Nationalists' base area in Jiangsu, grounding her work in an
impressive variety of legal cases, archival materials, memoirs,
newspapers, and magazines. Her efforts on this front are nothing
short of herculean...This is a superb study, deserving of wide
readership. Its evidence and insights should be incorporated into
more general studies of the Republican period, which have tended to
treat religion as a side story. For scholars and China-watchers
fascinated by the current religious revival in China, this volume
is yet another proof that the Communists inherited rather than
created their religious problems, and a model of the sort of
research we should attempt to carry out in the context of
contemporary China. Finally, Superstitious Regimes is a profound
reflection on the nature and limits of secularism as part and
parcel of the experience of modernity.
*Journal of Asian Studies*
Nedostup is a historian of modern Chinese politics, particularly of
the Kuomintang (KMT); she explores the formation and the effects of
the KMT's religious policies in order to shed new light on
processes of state building and social reforms. But, in stark
contrast to the many previous historians who have broached such
topics in rather naive ways, she has a solid and nuanced
understanding of what religion actually was in Republican-period
Chinese society and never confuses ideological categories with
social practice. She has notably taken stock of the most recent
research on Republican-period redemptive societies (by Prasenjit
Duara, David Ownby, and David Palmer) and has thus been able to
astutely critique the characterizations of such religious groups by
politicians. Her work is therefore extremely useful for scholars in
the fields of religious studies and political, intellectual, and
social history. For this alone, Nedostup's study is a
historiographical milestone that demonstrates that the subject of
religion is entering mainstream scholarship on Chinese modern
history. That this milestone reflects an impressive command of a
staggering body of primary and secondary literature, features
sophisticated theorizations, and is rendered in finely crafted
prose, speaks further to the importance and desirability of
Superstitious Regimes... The state side of the story has been
masterfully told by Nedostup, and it is very unlikely that her work
will be superseded any time soon.
*Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies*
Ask a Question About this Product More... |