Title: Ghost, Urbanization and Strangers in China and Hong Kong

Speaker: Andrew KIPNIS (Professor of the Department of Anthropology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong)

Date: Thursday, 10 February 2022

Time: 11-12:30 pm

Mode: Online

Registration Link: https://cloud.itsc.cuhk.edu.hk/mycuform/view.php?id=1465866

Abstract:

Belief in ghosts is often thought of as a thing of the past—an outmoded belief linked to the traditional cultures of rural China. But ghosts stories are commonplace in Hong Kong and other large Chinese cities and evidence of the fear of ghosts can be found in the ways that modern urban people treat death, funeral homes, and cemeteries.  This talk analyzes belief in ghosts as a facet of modern, urban living.

It suggests that traditional Chinese beliefs about ghosts have transformed rather than diminished as China has urbanized and that modern urbanites may harbor more fear of ghosts than anyone did in the past.

Bio:

Andrew B. Kipnis is a professor of anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and coeditor of Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory. In 2016 he published From Village to City: Social Transformation in a Chinese County Seat. His talk draws from his 2021 book: The Funeral of Mr. Wang: Life, Death, and Ghosts in Urbanizing China (U. of California Press, 2021). He has published seven other books and from 2006-2015 he was editor of The China Journal.