Chinese Studies Teaching Staff
Dr Adam Yuet Chau
Contact Information
Email: ayc25@cam.ac.uk
Position
University Lecturer in the Anthropology of Modern China.
Fellow of Fitzwilliam College (Director of Studies for Asian and Middle Eastern Studies).
Biographical Details
I was born in Beijing and grew up in Beijing and Hong Kong (hence the Anglicised Cantonese romanisation of my Chinese name). My undergraduate and graduate training in sociocultural anthropology was done in the US. My doctoral fieldwork was conducted in Shaanbei (northern Shaanxi Province) in the Yulin and Yan’an prefectures, on the cultural, social and political aspects of the revival of popular religion in rural China during the reform period. The results of that research have been published in a monograph (Miraculous Response: Doing Popular Religion in Contemporary China; 2006, Stanford University Press) and a series of journal articles. After having lived in the US for more than a dozen years, I came to the UK in 2005, and have taught at Oxford and SOAS respectively before coming to Cambridge.
Educational Details
| 1993 | BA in Anthropology, Williams College (MA, USA) |
| 2001 | PhD in Anthropology, Stanford University (CA, USA) |
| 2004-05 | An Wang Post-doctoral Fellow, Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University (MA, USA) |
I also studied for one year at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1988-89 (BBA, member of the United College) and spent one semester at the Stockholm University in Sweden in the autumn of 1991 (study abroad).
Research Interests
Social and cultural transformations in contemporary China; Chinese religions, especially their social aspects; hosting as an idiom of social practice in Chinese religion and politics; forms of powerful writing; the Indonesian Chinese returnees (yin’ni guiqiao) in China and Hong Kong.
I’d be happy to supervise research students in the areas of social and cultural change in contemporary China; Chinese religious and ritual life; Chinese environmentalisms; the local state; urban renewal; China and the overseas Chinese, etc.
Publications
| Monograph |
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| 2006 | Miraculous Response: Doing Popular Religion in Contemporary China (Stanford University Press). Available in both hardcover and paperback. |
| Edited Book |
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| 2011 | Religion in Contemporary China: Revitalization and Innovation (Routledge; published in December 2010) |
| Journal Articles |
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| Under Forth-coming | “Modalities of Doing Religion and Ritual Polytropy: Evaluating the Religious Market Model from the Perspective of Chinese Religious History” (special issue on “Beyond the Religious Market Model” edited by Christian Meyer and Thoralf Klein; in Religion) |
| Forth-coming | “做“善事”还是构建“善世”？―宗教入世与宗教主体化在中国” (“Providing Public Goods or Constructing a Good Public?: Social Engagement and Religious Subjectification in China”) (in Chinese academic journal <宗教人类学> [The Journal of the Anthropology of Religion]) |
| 2010 | “Mao’s Travelling Mangoes: Food as Relic in Revolutionary China” (Past and Present supplement 5 “Relics and Remains”, edited by Alexandra Walsham; pp. 256-75) |
| 2010 | “迷信专业户”？中国宗教实践中的家户型宗教服务供给者 (Chinese version of “Superstition Specialist Households?: The Household Idiom in Chinese Religious Practices”; in Chinese academic journal <学海>2010年03期 (Xuehai 2010, 3: 43-56)) |
| 2009 | “做宗教”的模式 (Modalities of Doing Religion).温 州 大 学 学 报·社 会 科 学 版第22 卷第5 期 2009 年9 月(Journal of Wenzhou University Social Sciences Vol 22, No 5 Sep, 2009: 18-27. |
| 2008 | “Social Heat: The Sensorial Production of the Social” (Ethnos 73(4): 485-504; in special issue The Senses And the Social, edited by Elisabeth Hsu) |
| 2008 | “An Awful Mark: Symbolic Violence and Urban Renewal in Reform-Era China” (Visual Studies 23(3): 195-210) |
| 2007 | “Drinking Games, Karaoke Songs, and Yangge Dances: Youth Cultural Production in Rural China” (Ethnology 45(2): 161-72) |
| 2006 | “Superstition Specialist Households?: The Household Idiom in Chinese Religious Practices” (special issue on religious specialists in Minsu quyi, the Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre, and Folklore 153: 157-202) |
| 2005 | “The Politics of Legitimation and the Revival of Popular Religion in Shaanbei, North-Central China” (Modern China 31(2): 236-78) (also available on JSTOR) |
| Article anthologised in Contemporary Chinese Society and Politics, edited by Andrew Kipnis, Luigi Tomba and Jonathan Unger, Routledge, 2009. | |
| 2004 | “Hosting Funerals and Temple Festivals: Folk Event Productions in Rural China” (Asian Anthropology 3: 39-70) |
| 2003 | “Popular Religion in Shaanbei, North-Central China” (The Journal of Chinese Religions 31: 39-79) |
| Book Chapters in Edited Volumes |
|
| Forth-coming | “關係/來往的“做宗教”模式 (Relational Modalities of Doing Religion): 以臺灣“媽祖遶境進香”為例” 〈媽祖與民間信仰學術論文集〉王見川等編 |
| Forth-coming | “Modalities of Doing Religion” (in Chinese Religious Life: Culture, Society, and Politics, edited by David A. Palmer, Glenn Shive and Philip Wickeri; to be published by Oxford University Press in 2011) |
| Forth-coming | “Transnational Buddhist Activists in the Age of Empires” (in Religious Internationals in the Modern World, edited by Abigail Green and Vincent Viaene; to be published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2011) |
| Forth-coming | “Efficacy, Not Confessionality: Ritual Polytropy at Chinese Funerals” (in Sharing the Sacra: the Politics and Pragmatics of Inter-communal Relations around Holy Places, edited by Glenn Bowman; to be published by Berghahn Books in 2012) |
| 2011 | “Introduction: Revitalizing and Innovating Religious Traditions in Contemporary China” (In Religion in Contemporary China: Revitalization and Innovation, edited by Adam Yuet Chau, Routledge) |
| 2009 | “Expanding the Space of Popular Religion: Local Temple Activism and the Politics of Legitimation in Contemporary Rural China” (in Making Religion, Making the State: The Politics of Religion in Contemporary China, edited by Yoshiko Ashiwa and David Wank, Stanford University Press) |
| Encyclopedia Entries |
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| 2005 | “Hotels,” “Department Stores,” “Domestic Space,” “Home Furbishing” (four commissioned entries in The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture edited by Edward Davis; Routledge) |
| Translations |
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| 1995 | “‘Tracks.’ Translation of selected entries from The Great Dictionary of the Chinese Language" (Two Lines, a literary translation journal, 1995 Spring, pp. 20-32) |
| Book Reviews |
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| 2011 | Review of Spectacle and Sacrifice: The Ritual Foundation of Village Life in North China by David Johnson (Harvard University Asia Center, 2010). Journal of Asian Studies. |
| 2010 | Review of Divine Justice: Religion and the Development of Chinese Legal Culture by Paul R. Katz (Routledge, 2009). Journal of Chinese Religions. |
| 2009 | Review of The Shaolin Monastery: History, Religion, and the Chinese Martial Arts by Meir Shahar (University of Hawaii Press, 2008). The China Journal. |
| 2008 | Review of The Violence of Liberation: Gender and Tibetan Buddhist Revival in Post-Mao China by Charlene E. Makley (University of California Press, 2007). Chinese Cross Currents 6(1). |
| 2008 | Review of Asian Ritual Systems: Syncretism and Ruptures edited by Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern (Carolina Academic Press, 2007). Anthropos. |
| 2007 | Review of Discovering Nature: Globalization and Environmental Culture in China and Taiwan by Robert P. Weller (Cambridge University Press, 2006). Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. |
| 2007 | Review of Chinese Death Rituals in Singapore by Tong Chee-Kiong (RoutledgeCurzon, 2004) and Chinese American Death Rituals: Respecting the Ancestors edited by Sue Fawn Chung and Priscilla Wegars (AltaMira Press, 2005). Journal of Chinese Religions. |
| 2006 | Review of The Sacred Village: Social Change and Religious Life in Rural North China by Thomas D. DuBois (University of Hawaii Press, 2005). Journal of Rural Studies. |
| 2006 | Review of La Vie entre Soi: Les Moines Taoïstes Aujourd’hui en Chine (Life among Themselves: Daoist Monastics in Today’s China) by Adeline Herrou (Société d’Ethnologie, Nanterre, 2005). Anthropos. |
| 2006 | Review of Southern Fujian: Reproduction of Traditions in Post-Mao China edited by Tan Chee-Beng (The Chinese University Press, 2006). The China Journal. |
Current Projects
China Hosting: A Cultural Idiom in Action
Text Acts: The Textographic Fetish in Chinese Religion and Politics
Cherishing Written Characters: Magic, Karma and the Crisis of Chinese Civilisation
(a study and translation of an early 20th century illustrated morality book Xizi zhengyanlu 惜字证验录)
Serial Migration and Cultural Identity: The Indonesian Chinese Diaspora in China and Hong Kong
Recent Presentations at Academic Conferences
| 2011 | “Resonant Body-Persons, Rites of Convergence, Sociothermic Affect, and Collective Effervescence: On Elementary Forces of Sociality” (to be presented at workshop on the legacy of Émile Durkheim’s Elementary Forms of Religious Life, University of Oxford, 8-9 July, 2011) |
| 2011 | “Heritage and Popular Religion in China” (presented at workshop Patrimoine et musées dans le monde chinois contemporain, Université Paris Ouest (Nanterre); June 17, 2011) |
| 2011 | “Efficacy, Not Confessionality: Ritual Polytropy in Chinese Religious Culture” (presented at international conference Christianity in East Asian: Past, Present and Future, Chinese University of Hong Kong; May 26-28, 2011) |
| 2011 | “The Temple Modern: Traditional and Modern Technologies in Chinese Popular Religion” (presented at international conference Ritual as Technology, Technology as Ritual, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany; May 12-14, 2011) |
| 2011 | “The Impact of Maoism on the Chinese Religious Landscape” (presented at workshop “Religion and Communism: Comparative Perspectives”, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen, Germany; 6-7 May, 2011) |
| 2010 | “Merchants Beware!: Commerce and the Practice of Cherishing Lettered Paper (惜字纸) in Early 20th century” (presented at international conference “New Trends in the Study of Chinese Popular Religion(s)” “中国民间信仰、民间宗教研究的新趋势”, University of Leipzig, Germany; 1-2 October, 2010) |
| 2010 | “The formation of Charitable Habitus through Religion” (presented at international conference “Religion and the Charitable Society”, University of Westminster, London, July 1-3, 2010) |
| 2010 | “從‘惜字紙’與‘媽祖進香’看個人修鍊與關係/來往的‘做宗教’模式” (Cherishing Lettered Paper and Mazu Pilgrimage: Self-Cultivational and Relational Modalities of Doing Religion) (presented at international conference “媽祖與民間信仰” (Mazu and Popular Religion), 新港, Taiwan, May 22-23, 2010) |
| 2010 | “The Impact of Secularism and Modernity on the Five Modalities of doing Religion in China” (presented at workshop “Religion, Secularism, and Modernity in Asia”, Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), University of Cambridge, 19 February, 2010) |
| 2009 | “Ritual Polytropy at Chinese Funerals: Implications for the Religious Market Model” (presented at international workshop “Beyond the Market: Exploring Religious Fields in Modern China”, University of Wales, Lampeter, 20-22 November, 2009) |
| 2009 | “Cherishing Lettered Paper: Confucian Local Elites in the Transition to Modernity” (presented at international workshop “Translation and Conflict: Confucianism, the Classics and Chinese/Asian Modernities”, Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), University of Cambridge, 2 July, 2009) |
| 2009 | “Embeddedness: Temples as Social Thickener” (presented at the interdisciplinary workshop “The Revitalization and Invention of Tradition: Destruction and Reconstruction of Religious Sites and Rites in Post-Socialist China,” Center for Interdisciplinary Research, University of Bielefeld, Germany, 6-7 March, 2009). |
| 2009 | “Buddhist Internationals and the Japanese Empire” (presented at the international workshop “Religious Internationals in the Modern World”, University of Oxford, 12-13 January, 2009). |
| 2008 | “The Emperor’s Leftover Dishes and Mao’s Travelling Mangoes: Food as Relic in Late Imperial and Revolutionary China” (presented at the Past and Present conference “Relics and Remains” at the University of Exeter, 10-12 September, 2008). |
| 2008 | “China’s Encounter with the World and Script Fundamentalism as Reflected in the Practice of “Treasuring Written Traces” (presented at the conference “Chinese Religions in the Age of Globalisation” at the University of Cambridge, 3-6 July, 2008). |
| 2008 | “Providing Public Goods or Constructing a Good Public?: Social Engagement and Religious Subjectification in China” (presented at international conference “Engaged Religions and the Public Good in Chinese Societies,” Tsinghua University, Taiwan, 31 May – 2 June, 2008). |
| 2007 | Discussant (Workshop on shentigan and Everyday Life, Organized by Yu Shuenn-Der, Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, held on Yangmingshan, Taipei, Taiwan). |
| 2007 | “Modalities of Doing Religion and Cross-Cultural Applications” (presented at international conference “Religion and Social Integration in Chinese Societies: Exploring Sociological Approaches to the Study of Religion in the Chinese World”, Chinese University of Hong Kong, June 28-30, 2007). |
| 2006 | “Efficacy over Confessionality: Ritual Jamming in Chinese Religious Culture” (presented at the Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealth Annual Meeting, Keele University, April 10-13, 2006). |
| 2006 | “Modalities of Doing Religion and Religiosity” (presented at the international workshop “Is there a North China Religion?” held in Paris, April 8, 2006). |
| 2005 | “The Temple Modern: Techniques and Technologies in Chinese Popular Religion” (presented at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Washington DC, Nov 30-Dec 4, 2005). |
| 2005 | “Massing and the Festive Regime: Red-Hot Sociality in Chinese Popular Religion and Chinese Socialism” (invited participant to the international conference Religion, Modernity, and the State in China and Taiwan, held at UC Santa Barbara, Oct 28-30, 2005). |
| 2005 | “The Sovereign Host: Hosting as a Key Conceptual and Organizational Idiom in Chinese “Religious” Practices” (paper presented at the conference ‘Religion’ in China: Rethinking Indigenous and Imported Categories of Thought, held at the Fairbank Center, Harvard University, on May 21-22, 2005). |
| 2004 | “Overseas Chinese Returnees as Youth” (paper presented at the 5th Conference of the International Society for the Study of Chinese Overseas, held in May 2004 in Elsinore, Denmark). |
| 2004 | “Going Legit: Popular Religion and the Politics of Legitimation in the PRC” (invited participant to the international workshop on The Politics of Religion in Contemporary China, held at Stanford University, April 31-May 2, 2004). |
Other Academic Presentations
| 2010 | “What is a Daoist?: An Anthropologist Looks at a Confused Category” (presented in the Chinese Studies Seminar Series, Institute of Chinese Studies, University of Oxford, June 3) |
| 2009 | “Pigs are Good to Decorate: Technologies of Exuberance in Taiwanese Popular Religious Festivals” (presented in the Senior Seminar Series, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge, Nov 27) |
| 2009 | “Bigger, Brighter, Louder, Weirder: The Making of Giant Pigs and the Production of Exuberance at the Xinpu Hakka Yimin Festival” (presented in the Department of Anthropology, National Taiwan University, Taiwan, Sept 22) |
| 2009 | Panel discussion on “Religion and Politics in China” with Gil Delannoi (Science-Po, Paris), organised by the Religion and Secularism Network, at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge, 22nd May, 2009) |
| 2009 | “Sacred Traces: Respect the Written Word or Die a Horrible Death” (presented in the LSE Department of Anthropology East Asia seminar series, LSE, April 30). |
| 2009 | “Hosting Rituals and the Qing Incorporation of Inner Asian Domains” (presented in seminar series of the Mongolian and Inner Asian Studies Unit, University of Cambridge, March 3). |
| 2009 | “The Kangxi Emperor Sponsors and Hosts an Offering Rite for a Minister’s Deceased Mother” (Text reading seminar at the Research Training Workshop in Old Chinese “Philosophy and Religion,” University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Jan 29 – Feb 1). |
| 2008 | Invited speaker at “Symposium on Religion and the Future of China,” Session on “Religion, Civil Society, and Economic Life,” Council on Foreign Relations, New York, June 11. |
| 2006 | “Performing Sovereignty: Hosting as a Key Conceptual and Organizational Idiom in Chinese Political and Religious Practices” (Seminar, Department of Anthropology, University College London, London, November 29). |
| 2006 | “Hosting in Chinese Religion and Politics: A Cultural Idiom in Action” (Seminar, Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Bristol, Bristol, November 6). |
| 2006 | “The Temple Modern: The Uses of Technologies in Chinese Popular Religious Practices” (Friday Seminar, Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, June 30). |
| 2006 | “Of Temples and Trees: Articulating Environmentalisms in Contemporary Rural China” (Departmental Seminar, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford, Feb 17, 2006). |
| 2006 | “Red and Fiery Sociality at Chinese Temple Festivals” (presented at “Senses of Identity” Seminar Series, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford, Jan 27, 2006). |
| 2005 | “Superstition Specialist Households (mixin zhuanyehu)?: The Significance of the Household Idiom in Chinese Religious Practices” (China Research Seminar, the Institute for Chinese Studies, University of Oxford, Nov 3, 2005). |
| 2004 | “The Awful Mark (chai, Demolish!): Symbolic Violence and Urban Renewal in Reform-Era China” (Director’s Seminar Series, Fairbank Center, Harvard University, Oct 21, 2004). |
| 2004 | “Red-Hot Sociality: Peasant Culture and Temple Festivals in China” (invited speaker for the China Brown Bag Lunch Talks Series, Center for Chinese Studies, UC Berkeley; February 11, 2004). |
Other Activities
Book manuscript reviewer for University of California Press, Harvard University Press, University of Hawaii Press, University of Washington Press, Oxford University Press.
Article manuscript reviewer for Ethnos, Minsu quyi (Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre, and Folklore), Modern China, Journal of Asian Studies, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, The China Journal.
