Remembering the Dead in Modern China

Remembering the Dead in Modern China is a groundbreaking interdisciplinary volume that brings together diverse scholarly perspectives to examine the complex and evolving practices of death, dying, and remembrance in modern China, and features original research and thoughtful analysis that makes a significant contribution to the field.

Stephen G. Covell is the Mary Meader Professor of Comparative Religion at Western Michigan University. A Fulbright scholar, he has written extensively on modern Japanese Buddhism. His research interests include self-cultivation traditions, death and dying, and Japanese religions. Stuart H. Young is Associate Professor of East Asian Religions in the Department of Religious Studies at Bucknell University. He is the author of Conceiving the Indian Buddhist Patriarchs in China (2015). A scholar of premodern Chinese religions, his research focuses on rituals of silk production, religious uses of silk, and multispecies dimensions of Buddhism and Daoism. Ying Zeng is Senior Director of Asian Initiatives at Western Michigan University. Her research interests are in Chinese American social history and Asian American Literature.

Introduction 1. The Ritual Politics of Imperial Death in Modern China 2. Brokering Death and Becoming Kin: Grave-Relatives and Urban-Rural Dynamics in the Yangzi Delta, 1821-1911 3. Tender Matters: Remembering Dead and Dying Children in Early Twentieth-Century China 4. Suicidal Communists, Posthumous Punishment, and Politics of Death in Maoist China 5. 6. Ritual Calculations: Omissions and Additions in Chinese Christian Graveside Practices