Popular Religion Research Articles

Using Film to Teach about Compressed Modernity in East Asian Religions

Teaching about East Asian religions all too often presents them as artifacts of the premodern past. This can encourage students to assume that modernization has rendered the East Asian past, especially religious traditions, obsolete. Teaching with contemporary East Asian films is a way to remedy that oversight, challenge that assumption, and bring students into contact with East Asian religious cultures as living traditions in modern societies. Since contemporary East Asian societies have been shaped by what Chang Kyung-sup calls “compressed modernity” – a process by which “economic, political, social and/or cultural changes occur in an extremely condensed manner in respect to both time and space,” resulting in “the dynamic coexistence of mutually disparate historical and social elements” such as modernity and tradition (Chang 2010: 320) – films that explore the interplay between such “mutually disparate… elements” can be used as highly teachable “texts” in the classroom. Examples of such films include Jia Zhangke’s Tian zhuding (2013) and Shinkai Makoto’s Kimi no na wa (2016), which juxtapose traditions such as Confucianism, Chinese popular religion, and Shintō with critical views of social reality in contemporary China and Japan, respectively. These and other films depict the ways in which religious traditions continue to inform how contemporary East Asians negotiate and construct identity, memory, and power. Moreover, they show how these countries’ contrasting experiences of compressed modernity produced different kinds of interactions between modernity and tradition, which in turn explains why religion can look so different in these countries today. This paper was part of a panel on “Teaching Asian Religions Through Film” presented at the Association for Asian Studies conference in Honolulu, Hawaii, March 24­–27, 2022. The panel offered concrete examples on how to adopt cinema and TV to discuss Asian religions, culture, and modernity in the classroom and contributed to the developing analysis concerning the use of visual media in Asian studies pedagogy.

"Work for the Night is Coming": How Christian Hymns Frame Human Labor

We examine how popular religion portrays human labor by analyzing work themes in Christian hymns published over five centuries, from 1500 to 2000. Utilizing an emergent qualitative approach, we identify eight themes:Reward follows Work;Work with Dedication;God Provides;Work is Difficult;Work is Holy;Work is Duty;Work in Solidarity; andWitness at Work. A quantitative examination indicates that the themes ofReward follows Work,Work with Dedication, andGod Providesoccur most frequently.Reward follows WorkandWork with Dedicationdecline in the second half of the twentieth century whileWork in Solidarityrises, suggesting increased attention to global labor justice. Historically, hymns broadcast the Protestant Work Ethic. Today, they herald several underexplored dimensions of workplace religion.

Christians, Jews, and Magic in the Sasanian Realm: Between Confrontation and Cooperation


 This essay focuses on one particular aspect of Jewish-Christian relations during the Sasanian period, namely various types of interaction between the two religious groups in the domain of magic. For that purpose, two distinctive bodies of textual evidence are examined: hagiographical literature produced by Syriac Christians, and Aramaic magic bowls, Jewish as well as Christian. Illuminating and complementing each other, the two corpora shed light on the dual dynamics of competition and cooperation between Jews and Christians in the field of popular religion.

The Cross and Land Politics in Zimbabwe: The Forgotten Side of the Church

Since 1500, Christianity is the major and official religion in Zimbabwe while African Traditional Religion remains the popular religion among Zimbabweans. Such a scenario is comparable to the ancient Israelite religion; Yahweism (monotheism) being the official religion while Polytheism being the popular religion amongst the Israelites. Christianity as a religion did not bring with it land to Zimbabwe. This study will explore the position of Christianity in relation to land and land politics in Zimbabwe. Christianity is a foreign religious ideology to Zimbabwe. The advent of Christianity does not mean that Zimbabweans were short of religion. African Traditional Religion (ATR) is the indigenous religion to Africans including Zimbabweans. Christianity is of great interest in this study because it is embraced by the majority of Zimbabweans (Ruzivo, 2008, p. 28). The arrival of Christianity dates back to the 14th century. It was introduced to Zimbabwe by the missionaries. The article highlights and chronicles the less emphasized issue of religion and land politics in Zimbabwe. In this case, the religion in question is Christianity and land politics or politics of land in Zimbabwe.

An international turn: Rebuilding Chinese temple networks in Indonesia 20 years after the Suharto era

AbstractThe transnationalization of Chinese temples is producing new spatial imaginaries and adding cosmopolitan dimensions to Chinese Indonesian identities in the post‐Suharto era. In 1999, the Indonesian state legally‐sanctioned Chinese Popular Religion after decades of prohibition, ushering in a period of Chinese religious revival nationally backed by constitutional legitimacy. The recent emergence of transnational temple networks is providing a further form of cultural legitimacy based on symbols and statuses that circulate in a broader cosmopolitan transnational social sphere. Using case studies of three temples in Singkawang, Indonesia, each with a different form of international network, this paper shows how the transnational circulation of religious teachings, people, ideas, donations and deities can provide the raw materials for expressions of cultural identity which are locally rooted and embedded in specific ethnic politics of belonging. Forging transnational religious connections has the potential to develop into long lasting and formal institutional platforms of exchange, however, it often begins with informal, spontaneous and idiosyncratic encounters.

Karksi kihelkonna pühapaigad: mõningaid tähelepanekuid

This article gives a brief review about some of the most characteristic sacred natural places in Karksi parish based on place lore. These are: cemeteries/barrows, sandstone outcrops (so-called “Hells”) and places connected with Pell – a being of folk belief in Karksi parish (Mulgimaa). Vanapagan (“The Old Heathen”, also known as “The Old Devil”) can be seen as very popular supernatural being in Karksi’s oral tradition, which has historically been connected with many places in Karksi. Karksi parish can be seen as a centre of Pell tradition as most accounts of belief and customs that are referring to vernacular cult originate from Karksi. Unfortunately, most of its special sacrificial sites have been destroyed – like many other sacred places in Karksi. Both landscape and folklore can be seen as dynamic phenomenons connected and dependent on each other. Changes in landscape make changes in place lore. Natural sacred places preserve the values of the present and the past. They are essential phenomenons from the perspectives of historical memory, folklore, popular religion, and archaeology. Oral tradition can be significant and, even more, primary prerequisite considering protection of and both – physical and cultural – continuity of these kind of places.

Kirchliche Räume zwischen Religion und Populärkultur

This article discusses the role of popular culture in religious events, focusing on built space and atmosphere using the example of a young Catholic initiative in Germany. While the topic “religion and popular culture” has received much scholarly attention, a focus on popular cultural atmospheres and their adaption in religious contexts remains a research gap. In order to analytically outline the relationship between religion and popular culture, the author proposes a differentiation and systems-theoretical approach while referring to the concept of “popular religion” (Hubert Knoblauch). The article first introduces the concepts of “popular culture,” “popular religion” as well as “atmosphere” and then discusses, on the basis of a case study and empirical surveys, the relationship between popular cultural and religious elements in the spatial and atmospheric setting of the initiative under investigation. Eventually, the author suggests that talk of a “dissolution of boundaries” (Entgrenzung) between religion and popular culture is only partially accurate because distinctions between religious and non-religious domains continue to be made both in the field and in analytical reconstruction.

Performative secularism: school-sponsored prayer in China's National College Entrance Exam

ABSTRACT This article examines the role of religion in China’s National College Entrance Exam, the Gaokao. In Chinese schools, religion is officially banned and branded superstition. But some Gaokao-preparatory high schools sponsor pilgrimages to pray for exam success, invite ritualists to exorcize ghosts, and tolerate discussions of karmic merit, euphemistically termed “character” (renpin). Based on two years of ethnographic fieldwork in rural and urban schools in Fujian Province, this article argues that such practices help people maintain self-efficacy while revealing secularism to be a performance. Hypercompetition in the post-Mao era (1977–present) has created a perceived disconnect between effort and reward, and to restore that balance, people appeal to local gods and cosmic reciprocity. But elites must pay deference to secular ideals while quietly pursuing local practices in what sociologist Erving Goffman terms the backstage. Such Janus-faced obeisance has analogs in the imperial era. By analyzing secularism as a performance with early modern genealogies, this article advances understanding of Chinese regime legitimacy, adds to ethnographies of secularism’s lived experience in Asia, and helps to account for why popular religion continues to flourish despite more than a century of suppression.

Geoffrey Chaucer in Context. The Oxford Handbook of ChaucerThe Oxford Handbook of Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer in Context. The Oxford Handbook of ChaucerThe Oxford Handbook of Chaucer

A History of Cultic Images in China: The Domestic Statuary of Hunan by Alain Arrault, trans. Lina Verchery

Reviewed by: A History of Cultic Images in China: The Domestic Statuary of Hunan by Alain Arrault, trans. Lina Verchery Mario Poceski A History of Cultic Images in China: The Domestic Statuary of Hunan by Alain Arrault, trans. Lina Verchery. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 2020. Pp. x + 188. $60.00 hardcover. An important part of religious life in China is the veneration and supplication of various deities, who are typically represented in the form of statues or paintings. These ubiquitous objects of worship can be found in various temples and shrines across China (and other areas where traditional Chinese culture is present), as well as in the homes of individual families and places of business. They are associated with a wide range of beliefs, practices, and traditions. Some of them are primarily linked with one of the three teachings—Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism—which over the centuries have exerted enormous influences on various facets of Chinese life, within and outside of the religious sphere. There are also many deities associated with what scholars often label popular religion (also referred to as common or folk religion), a heuristic category that covers a diffuse plethora of beliefs and practices, local as well as national in scope. Well-known examples of such deities are the ubiquitous earth god (tudi gong 土地公) and kitchen god (zaoshen 灶神). Additionally, objects of cultic adulation include the images of various saints (such as prominent Buddhist monks or Daoist masters) and ancestors. Among the key features of Chinese religious life, past and present, are the manifold points of intersection among the various systems of belief and ritual, which occasionally give rise to distinctive types of religious hybridization. In relation to the cultic use of images, the embrace of a pluralistic outlook and the blurring of boundaries among distinct religions are manifested in the common placement and worship of some of the same deities in a variety of contexts and across a [End Page 145] spectrum of diverse traditions. For instance, a statue of Guanyin 觀音, the Buddhist bodhisattva who embodies the virtue of compassion, can be found in innumerable temples belonging to Buddhism, Daoism, and popular religion, as well as in shrines located in family residences, often alongside the statues of other deities with dissimilar origins or associations. The same goes for Guandi 關帝 (or Guan Yu 關羽), the widely worshiped god of war (who also performs several other ancillary roles, depending on context). The comprehensive history of cultic images in China is yet to be written. Alain Arrault's noteworthy book is a valuable step in that direction, even if its scope is much more limited than what its title indicates. While this book makes constructive contributions to scholarship, it is not a history of Chinese cultic images in any meaningful sense. The subtitle helps clarify its scope a bit, by pointing out that the book is only about the domestic statuary of Hunan. But the book is even more limited than this purported subject, as much of its focus is primarily on three collections of statues from Hunan, produced from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. While these collections represent important sources of information about local religious beliefs and practices, as well as the social and cultural contexts that have framed them over the centuries, they do not necessarily cover everything that needs to be known about Hunanese statuary, not to mention the long, rich, and complex history of Chinese cultic images. Arrault's book overlaps with the works of several other scholars. It can be viewed as part of a growing trend within European and American academic circles toward the exploration of local religion and society in Hunan. Its closest predecessor is Patrice Fava's pioneering Aux portes du ciel: La statuaire taoïste du Hunan (2014), which can be read in close conjunction with it.1 Both books are written by French scholars with years of fieldwork experience in Hunan, much of it dedicated to studying the consecrated statues and the various objects placed inside them, which include documents that shed light on their provenance and usage. Other new publications, with a somewhat similar focus on Hunan and local religion, include David J. Mozina's...

The Jiankang Empire in Chinese and World History by Andrew Chittick

Reviewed by: The Jiankang Empire in Chinese and World History by Andrew Chittick Keith N. Knapp The Jiankang Empire in Chinese and World History by Andrew Chittick. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. xi + 411. $90.00 hardcover, $89.99 e-book. Andrew Chittick has written the first English work that provides a full overview of the Six Dynasties (Liuchao 六朝), comprising Wu 吳 (220–280), Eastern Jin 晉 (318–420), Liu Song 劉宋 (420–479), Southern Qi 齊 (479–502), Liang 梁 (502–557), and Chen 陳 (557–589). This bold, pioneering, and insightful book concludes that we should refer to these polities as the Jiankang 建康 empire, since they had the same city (present-day Nanjing) as their capital and shared numerous characteristics. Chittick's book furnishes a penetrating analysis of the Jiankang empire, covering its linguistic complexity, political culture, frontier policy, military affairs, economic trends, and popular religion, as well as its piety in Buddhism. This meticulously researched volume contributes tremendously to our understanding of the Six Dynasties. Anyone who wants to learn about Jiankang society and culture should begin with this book, a treasure trove of information that challenges us to rethink nearly all assumptions about the era: Chittick asks whether inhabitants of these six southern regimes were "Chinese," whether these states resembled regimes in the Central Plains, and whether large numbers of northern refugees had swamped the south; he questions the mistaken assumption that the Jiankang empire had little historical importance. Chittick intriguingly suggests that we [End Page 151] should view these southern regimes as more akin to Southeast Asian kingdoms than to polities in the Chinese heartland. Given the book's extensive scope and boldness, Chittick readily acknowledges that he intends to open up some debate. In that spirit, I offer some disagreement that in no way diminishes the outstanding significance of his work. The Jiankang Empire reframes our interpretation of the six southern regimes and their historical impact. Chittick rightly points out that, except for their cultural achievements, these states have been viewed as a historical afterthought. Chittick seeks to shed a different light on these regimes and provide them with a new name. Since these regimes shared the same capital and many similar features, we should recognize their mutual characteristics by calling them the Jiankang empire, rather than referring to them as six different entities. Demographically, the Jiankang empire was one of the world's most populous empires in its day. Economically, it was a commercial powerhouse that actively encouraged trade. Its merchant-friendly culture inspired the economic policies of subsequent states, including the southern kingdoms in the tenth century and the Song dynasty (960–1279). Politically, despite frequent regime changes, the empire enjoyed much peace and prosperity. According to Chittick, the Jiankang empire has been marginalized through the lenses of the modern Chinese nation-state. Since the Sui (581–618) conquered the south and "reunited" China, the Jiankang empire was a historical dead end. The problem for Chittick is that the concept of "China" did not exist until later. Sure, the word Zhongguo 中國 (central states) existed during the early medieval period, but it specifically meant the Yellow River Valley at that time. Indeed, as Chittick argues, we should view the landmass associated with present-day China from a larger perspective, by using Victor Lieberman's notion of "exposed zones" and "protected rimlands zones": exposed zones were subject to pastoral nomadic invasions, whereas protected rimlands were not.1 Hence, Chittick proposes that we conceive of early medieval East Asia as divided by the Huai 淮 River into two zones, a Sino-steppe exposed zone and a Sino-Southeast Asia protected rimland. [End Page 152] In terms of language, agriculture, foodways, and political characteristics, Chittick asserts that the Jiankang empire had much more in common with Southeast Asian kingdoms than regimes in the Sino-steppe zone. Jiankang emperors, like their Southeast Asian counterparts, were rarely able to hand down the throne to their chosen successor. They were "men of prowess" (pp. 173–74) who relied on their individual and charismatic qualities, which created short-term networks of clients rather than lasting institutions. Moreover, the administrative system that Jiankang emperors ruled over operated like the mandala systems of Southeast Asian states, where the...

The Poetics of Sensational Forms

Abstract This article seeks to analyze the drift of elements of Azorean popular religion into the domain of art orchestrated by two Azorean artists, Catarina Branco and Sofia de Medeiros. The change brings unlikely marriages into fruition, uniting the humor of pop art and the solemnity of the arches of the high choir in a church, the spirit of revelry and a sign of the cross, representing the unfathomable—death, the dread of emptiness to the feeling of unity in communitas. The presentation, together with the strangeness of decontextualization provoked by this change, invoke the walk of the visitor, during which different senses are awakened, in which the poetic imagination of the observer is called forth to complete the different meanings. In this thesis I shall argue that the elements of popular religiosity carried by these artists into the domain of art constitute sensory arrangements, in the sense given to this term by Meyer, providing structure to a collective religious experience particular to Azorean culture where the sacred intertwines with the profane. The mediation of the transcendent through these sensory arrangements leads, on one hand, to contamination and reciprocal intensification of the spheres of art and religion and, on the other hand, to a renewed look at the contemporaneous and its connection to the spiritual.

Types of Intermediaries in Popular Religion

Types of Intermediaries in Popular Religion

Towards Creating an Anthology of Socotri Fairy Tales in Russian

The article features six fairy tales from the island of Socotra in Russian translation. The publication marks the beginning of a large-scale project of creating an anthology of Socotri folklore in Russian, initiated by the present authors in 2021. The first of its kind in the history of Semitic philology, the anthology is intended for a broad Russian readership, but also for specialists interested in folklore traditions and popular religion of today’s Southern Arabia. The samples of Soqotri oral literature presented in this paper were collected by the participants of the Russian-Yemeni working group. They have previously been published in the Corpus of Soqotri Oral Literature in transcription, English and Arabic translations, as well as in the Arabic-based graphic system developed in 2014 by the Russian-Yemeni team led by Acad. Vitaly Naumkin.

The Vizier as Intermediary in the Popular Religion During the New Kingdom

The Vizier as Intermediary in the Popular Religion During the New Kingdom

Wechat и трансформация буддийских практик в современном Китае

Within the framework of this article, the authors attempt to identify the main trends in the mediatization of Buddhist practices in modern China. Religion in the PRC is a special area of ​​governmental policy, the national and party elites pay serious attention to the institutionalization of religious communities. The religious sphere has always occupied a special place in the life of Chinese society. Religious syncretism allows the development of various currents, but they all are subordinated to public goals. Chinese Buddhism is currently one of the most popular religions in China in terms of the number of followers. Changes in the social life of modern society also affect religious practices. Based on the results of the study, the authors reveal that Chinese Buddhists, under the influence of certain factors, gradually begin to change their usual practices. One of the main tools and at the same time a form of digital Buddhism is the Chinese messenger WeChat (微信).

Crafting political gestures of locality: The transposition of artisanal traditions in the artwork of Catarina Branco

This article seeks to shed light on the transposition of traditional crafts related to the popular religion of the Azores into the secular context of art in the works of Catarina Branco, taking two of the artist’s exhibitions – Fez-se Luz, 2012, and Alminhas, 2013 – as case studies. The research first shows how this transposition leads to the cross-fertilization of the religious and artistic domains, imbuing art with greater spirituality and introducing reflections concerning contemporary issues, such as emigration and the position of women into the context of religion. Second, I discuss how the contingent nature of craft in art is used as a disruptive element that liberates the imagination, thought and feelings, dismantling hierarchies between the manual and the intellectual, the masculine and the feminine, as well as those between religion, art and craft, through embodied gesture. Religion is here understood in its wider sense as a form of mediation of the transcendent (). I argue that these works can be seen as a political gesture, which highlights the past of women who lived in anonymity, simultaneously preserving and renewing traditional crafts that are dying out while also deconstructing the false dichotomy between the manual and the intellectual or spiritual. The act of papercutting gives physical form to the experiences of Azorean women, while at the same time addressing questions relevant to the human condition, including migration and the eternal search for transcendence. Through its inevitable polysemy, this act reveals meanings that have been hidden by habit, allowing the viewer to rediscover them.

Five Great Families and Telepathy: Folk Religion and Buddhism in Neo-Dongbei Fiction by Zheng Zhi

The 2010s has witnessed the visibility of literature based on China’s Northeast (Dongbei), exemplified by literary works composed by Zheng Zhi, Ban Yu and Shuang Xuetao, viz. the ‘three masters of Dongbei Renaissance’. In a 2020 novella anthology, Zheng Zhi expatiates upon a veritable cornucopia of representations of folk religion (aka popular religion) and established religions via depictions concerning shamanism, Buddhism and Christianity. In a narrative entitled Xian Zheng ‘Divine Illness’, Zheng Zhi manifests animal worship as a form of folk religion, by means of painting a vivid portrait of shamanic practices pertaining to ‘five major deity families’ that denotes fox, weasel, hedgehog, snake and rat spirits. In a narrative entitled Taxintong ‘Telepathy’, Zheng Zhi depicts Buddhist practices, the preponderant motivations for which are analogous to those for folk religion in contemporary Dongbei, namely, physical wellbeing and psychological solace.

Book Review: Anna Niedźwiedź and Kaja Kajder, eds., Mapy miasta: Dziedzictwa i sacrum w przestrzeni Krakowa / Maps of the City: Heritages and the Sacred within Kraków’s Cityscape.

The book Maps of the City is the result of an exhibition at The Seweryn Udziela Ethnographic Museum in Kraków that was held between November 2017 and February 2018. As the subtitle makes clear, the exhibition focused on the place of heritage and the sacred within Kraków’s cityscape, together with the relationship between the two, both for the city’s residents and visitors. The latter group includes pilgrims. The curator of the exhibition was Anna Niedźwiedź, a cultural anthropologist at Jagiellonian University and author of The Image and the Figure: Our Lady of Częstochowa in Polish Culture and Popular Religion (2010). She is also one of the editors of the book. This richly illustrated volume is no mere catalogue of a museum exhibition. The editors, together with their team of anthropologists, have written essays based on original research that forms the basis of the exhibition and the chapters of the book. What we have in the end is a book that is both for the broader reading public and the scholar, and due to its bilingual form, both for Polish and English readers.

The “Vexed” Status of Guru Images: Visuality, Circulation and Iconographic Conflicts

ABSTRACT In 2007, the Dera Sacha Sauda (DSS) guru Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insan wore an attire similar to calendar image of tenth Sikh guru, Guru Gobind Singh, and performed a ritual baptism, which became controversial. This article will show how this controversy opens up two significant issues: first, questioning the egalitarian ethos of caste equality upheld by the Sikh religion, and second, with regard to authenticity of religious practice – of what is deemed Sikh and non/un-Sikh practices. The controversy became the fulcrum for questions of visuality and material practices around imageries of Sikh gurus in the domain of popular religiosity and visual culture. This historically relates to the much-debated status of images around gurus in contemporary Punjab. The image and ritual become a crucial site of conflict with regard to questions of Sikh identity, religion and caste. Questions of iconoclasm, authenticity and representation have emerged around the images—largely audio-visual in nature--of the Sikh gurus. In this article I will analyse music video/s that engages with the genre of Sikhi (Sikh principles or faith) highlighting crisis in Sikh identity through lyrical and visual references, for instance to the institutions of popular religion, such as Deras. I then mainly argue that the DSS event cannot be grasped without understanding the modes of engagement and ritual practices around images of Sikh gurus. Such an analysis will not only underline contestations around the ‘vexed’ status of images comprising both Sikh and Dera gurus but will also critique the normative understanding of Sikh identity and religion.