Text and Context in the Modern History of Chinese Religions

Philip Clart, Ph.D. (1997), University of British Columbia, is Professor of Chinese Culture and History at Leipzig University, Germany. He works on popular religion and new religious movements in Taiwan, as well as literature and religions of late imperial China. David Ownby, Ph.D. (1989), Harvard University, is Professor of History at the Université de Montréal. He has published books and articles on Chinese secret societies, Chinese religion, and contemporary Chinese intellectuals. Wang Chien-chuan, Ph.D. (2003), National Chung Cheng University, is Assistant Professor at the Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology. His research focuses on Chinese popular religion, prophetic texts, late imperial popular religion, and contemporary Daoism, Buddhism, spirit-writing, and charity.

Contents

On the Contributors



Introduction

 Philip Clart and David Ownby



1 Giving Believers Back Their Voice: Agency and Heresy in Late Imperial China

 Barend J. ter Haar



2 The Composition and Distribution of the Scriptures of the Tongshanshe, with a Focus on the Ten Thousand Buddha Scripture (1917–1949)

 Wang Chien-chuan Translated by David Ownby



3 The Religious Texts of the Moral Studies Society: Print Publications, Photographs, and Visual Presentations

 Fan Chun-wu Translated by David Ownby



4 Science and Spirit-Writing: the Shanghai Lingxuehui 靈學會 and the Changing Fate of Spiritualism in Republican China

 Matthias Schumann



5 Text and Context: a Tale of Two Masters

 David Ownby



6 Transmission and Revision: Scripture Production in the Vietnamese Tứ Ân Hiếu Nghĩa Movement

 Chung Yun-Ying (Translated by Philip Clart)



7 The Bible of the Great Cycle of Esotericism: from the Xiantiandao Tradition to a Cao Ðài Scripture in Colonial Vietnam

 Jeremy Jammes and David A. Palmer



8 Text and Context in the Study of Spirit-Writing Cults: a Methodological Reflection on the Relationship of Ethnography and Philology

 Philip Clart



Index