Uncanny Beliefs
Superstition in Modern Chinese History
Seiten
2026
Harvard University, Asia Center (Verlag)
978-0-674-30340-9 (ISBN)
Harvard University, Asia Center (Verlag)
978-0-674-30340-9 (ISBN)
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Uncanny Beliefs seeks to understand what “superstition” has meant in modern China—and questions why superstitious thinking has remained such an urgent target of state intervention. This volume links the study of superstition to the histories of science, religion, gender, state building, and popular culture.
In the early twentieth century, scholars around the world believed that “superstition” belonged to a bygone era. Yet despite their confident predictions, superstitious beliefs have endured. Perhaps nowhere has the history of superstition been more prolonged and tumultuous than in China. From the late nineteenth century to the present day, intellectuals and politicians have denigrated practices like divination, ancestor worship, and geomancy as unbefitting of a modern nation, and governing regimes have launched a succession of campaigns to replace superstitious thinking with science and rationality. Efforts to eliminate such practices from public life, however, have regularly encountered resistance from people who continue to find meaning in them.
Uncanny Beliefs seeks to understand what “superstition” has meant in modern China—and questions why superstitious thinking has remained such an urgent target of state intervention. Through a range of temporal and thematic perspectives, the chapters in this volume link the study of superstition to the histories of science, religion, gender, state building, and popular culture. In doing so, they collectively broaden our understanding of modern Chinese history by revealing the complex entanglements of superstition with religion, modernity, authority, and everyday life.
In the early twentieth century, scholars around the world believed that “superstition” belonged to a bygone era. Yet despite their confident predictions, superstitious beliefs have endured. Perhaps nowhere has the history of superstition been more prolonged and tumultuous than in China. From the late nineteenth century to the present day, intellectuals and politicians have denigrated practices like divination, ancestor worship, and geomancy as unbefitting of a modern nation, and governing regimes have launched a succession of campaigns to replace superstitious thinking with science and rationality. Efforts to eliminate such practices from public life, however, have regularly encountered resistance from people who continue to find meaning in them.
Uncanny Beliefs seeks to understand what “superstition” has meant in modern China—and questions why superstitious thinking has remained such an urgent target of state intervention. Through a range of temporal and thematic perspectives, the chapters in this volume link the study of superstition to the histories of science, religion, gender, state building, and popular culture. In doing so, they collectively broaden our understanding of modern Chinese history by revealing the complex entanglements of superstition with religion, modernity, authority, and everyday life.
Emily Baum is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine. Albert Wu is Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 7.4.2026 |
|---|---|
| Reihe/Serie | Harvard Contemporary China Series |
| Zusatzinfo | 5 illus./ 1 color illus |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 152 x 229 mm |
| Themenwelt | Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Religionsgeschichte |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Weitere Religionen | |
| ISBN-10 | 0-674-30340-7 / 0674303407 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0-674-30340-9 / 9780674303409 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
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