Description:
Shanghai, a dynamic world metropolis, is home to a multitude of religions, from Buddhism and Islam, to Christianity and Baha'ism, to Hinduism and Daoism, and many more. In this city of 24 million inhabitants, new religious groups and older faiths together claim and reclaim spiritual space.
Shanghai Sacred explores the spaces, rituals, and daily practices that make up the religious landscape of the city, offering a new paradigm for the study of Chinese spirituality that reflects the global trends shaping Chinese culture and civil society.
Based on years of fieldwork, incorporating both comparative and methodological perspectives, Shanghai Sacred demonstrates how religions are lived, constructed, and thus inscribed into the social imaginary of the metropolis. Evocative photographs by Liz Hingley enrich and interact with the narrative, making the book an innovative contribution to religious visual ethnography.
Brief description: Benoît Vermander is professor of religious studies and director of the Xu-Ricci Dialogue Center at Fudan University, Shanghai. He is the author of Corporate Social Responsibility in China: A Vision, an Assessment and a Blueprint (World Scientific, 2014), Chine brune ou Chine verte: Les dilemnes de l'état-parti (Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 2007), and Quan qiu hua yu Zhongguo全球化与中国[China and Globalization] (Commercial Press, 2002).
Review Quotes:
"This empirically rich and analytically engaging book shows that Shanghai is not only a cosmopolitan city where East meets West in China, or a thriving metropolis that positions itself as both the home of the revolutionary movement and the cornerstone of Chinese 'modernity, ' but that it is also an important global center in terms of cultural and religious diversity."
-- "Reading Religion"