Civilization, Progress, and the ‘Foul Stench of Religion’: The Concepts of ‘Religion’ and ‘Superstition’ in the Politics of Modern East Asia

About the Book

Using the potential of place as an approach and of places as ethnographic contexts, the authors in this volume investigate the multiple entanglements of “religion” and “modernity” in contemporary settings. The guiding questions of such an approach are: How are modernity and religion spatially articulated in and through places? How do these articulations help us to understand the ways in which religion becomes socially and culturally significant in modern contexts? And how do they reveal the ways in which modernity unfolds within religion? Thus, places are not only understood as neutral locations or extensions, but as spatial modes to mediate properties, contents and processes of religion and modernity. Based on ethnographic and historical research in Southeast and East Asia and featuring reflections on the concepts of religion and modernity respectively, the authors offer a deeper understanding of the articulation of a religious modernity in these regions and beyond.

Information & image source: Brill, Link (25 July 2017)

Biographical Note

Dr. Nikolas Broy (SFB 1199 & Institute for the Study of Religions, Leipzig University, Germany)
Nikolas Broy has been trained in religious studies and Chinese studies at Leipzig University, where he also gained a PhD in religious studies. By combining these two fields of study, his research addresses popular religious sects in modern Chinese societies, Buddhism and violence in East Asia, as well as method and theory of religious studies. He has also studied Japanese at Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto. He held teaching and research positions in Leipzig, at the East Asia Department of the University of Göttingen, and worked at two universities in Hefei (PR China).