Post-Mao Religious revitalization had surprised most if not all China observers. After all, the Mao years were arguably one of the darkest days for religious communities in China. At the height of the Cultural Revolution, an outside observer once lamented that “religion as an effective force seems to be all but nullified.” Beyond popular perceptions of religious repression and downfall, we in fact know very little so far about religious life under Mao. How has the revolutionary experience reshaped the Chinese religious landscape?
In this talk, based on his recent book and other research, the speaker narrates stories of rural communities’ encounters with the communist revolution in southern Zhejiang. Using data from local state archives, records of religious institutions, oral history as well as field investigation, the talk will present a complex picture of religious life after 1949: moments of suppression, moments of violence, moments of survival as well as moments of reinvention. It shows how the Maoist legacy is crucial to the understanding of religion in China today.
Speaker:
Xiaoxuan Wang, Visiting Assistant Professor, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Xiaoxuan Wang is Visiting Assistant Professor at the Centre for China Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. A social historian of modern China, his work concerns everyday life and the state since the turn of the twentieth century, combing archival research and ethnographical study. His first book: Maoism and Grassroots Religion: The Communist Revolution and the Reinvention of Religious Life in China, was published by Oxford University Press in 2020. He is currently pursuing two research projects: one examines the urban turn of religion in contemporary China, another is a history of Chinese emigration to Europe in the long twentieth century.
