Demon Hordes and Burning Boats

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Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 143840848X
Total Pages : 286 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

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Book Synopsis Demon Hordes and Burning Boats by : Paul R. Katz

Download or read book Demon Hordes and Burning Boats written by Paul R. Katz and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1995-11-02 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the few full-length regional studies of popular religion in late imperial China, this book presents the history of the cult of Marshal Wen, a plague-fighting deity whose cult flourished through Chekiang and its neighboring provinces. The author provides a lively account of the rise of Wen's cult during the tumultuous years of the Southern Sung dynasty, as well as its spread during subsequent dynasties. In exploring the roles played by scholar-officials, merchants, and Taoist priests in the growth of Wen's cult, the author pays special attention to the various representations of this deity held by different social groups, and shows that these were constantly interacting in a process he calls "reverberation." His analysis of plague expulsion festivals featuring Marshal Wen reveals that they functioned as rites of affliction designed to both achieve communal purification and resolve social crises. This book draws on a wide variety of sources, including Taoist scriptures and liturgical texts, stele inscriptions, literati writings (including poetry), manuscripts from local archives, as well as popular novels and folktales. The author also supplements his historical research with data gathered during fieldwork in Chekiang and Taiwan

Demon Hordes and Burning Boats

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Author :
Publisher : SUNY Press
ISBN 13 : 9780791426616
Total Pages : 286 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (266 download)

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Book Synopsis Demon Hordes and Burning Boats by : Paul R. Katz

Download or read book Demon Hordes and Burning Boats written by Paul R. Katz and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1995-01-01 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a lively description of how the cult of a popular plague-fighting deity named Marshal Wen arose and spread in late imperial China.

Practicing Kinship

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Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780804742610
Total Pages : 340 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (426 download)

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Book Synopsis Practicing Kinship by : Michael Szonyi

Download or read book Practicing Kinship written by Michael Szonyi and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presenting a new approach to the history of Chinese kinship, this book attempts to bridge the gap between anthropological and historical scholarship on the Chinese lineage. It explores the historical development of kinship in the villages of the Fuzhou region of southeastern Fujian province.

The Dalai Lama and the Nechung Oracle

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 019753337X
Total Pages : 313 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (975 download)

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Book Synopsis The Dalai Lama and the Nechung Oracle by : Christopher Bell

Download or read book The Dalai Lama and the Nechung Oracle written by Christopher Bell and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-05 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tibetan Buddhism and the Dalai Lama enjoy global popularity and relevance, yet the longstanding practice of oracles within the tradition is still little known and understood. The Nechung Oracle, for example, is believed to become possessed by an important god named Pehar, who speaks through the human medium to confer with the Dalai Lama on matters of state. The Dalai Lama and the Nechung Oracle is the first monograph to explore the mythologies and rituals of this god, the Buddhist monastery that houses him, and his close friendship with incarnations of the Dalai Lama over the centuries. In the seventeenth century, during the reign of the Fifth Dalai Lama, the protector deity Pehar and his oracle at Nechung Monastery were state-sanctioned by the nascent Tibetan government, becoming the head of an expansive pantheon of worldly deities assigned to protect the newly unified country. The governments of later Dalai Lamas expanded the deity's influence, as well as their own, by establishing Pehar at monasteries and temples around Lhasa and across Tibet. Pehar's cult at Nechung Monastery came to embody the Dalai Lama's administrative control in a mutual relationship of protection and prestige, the effects of which continue to reverberate within Tibet and among the Tibetan exile community today. The friendship between these two immortals has spanned nearly five hundred years across the Tibetan plateau and beyond.

Demonic Warfare

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Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 0824838459
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (248 download)

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Book Synopsis Demonic Warfare by : Mark R. E. Meulenbeld

Download or read book Demonic Warfare written by Mark R. E. Meulenbeld and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2015-01-31 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revealing the fundamental continuities that exist between vernacular fiction and exorcist, martial rituals in the vernacular language, Mark Meulenbeld argues that a specific type of Daoist exorcism helped shape vernacular novels in the late Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Focusing on the once famous novel Fengshen yanyi ("Canonization of the Gods"), the author maps out the general ritual structure and divine protagonists that it borrows from much older systems of Daoist exorcism. By exploring how the novel reflects the specific concerns of communities associated with Fengshen yanyi and its ideology, Meulenbeld is able to reconstruct the cultural sphere in which Daoist exorcist rituals informed late imperial "novels." He first looks at temple networks and their religious festivals. Organized by local communities for territorial protection, these networks featured martial narratives about the powerful and heroic deeds of the gods. He then shows that it is by means of dramatic practices like ritual, theatre, and temple processions that divine acts were embodied and brought to life. Much attention is given to local militias who embodied "demon soldiers" as part of their defensive strategies. Various Ming emperors actively sought the support of these local religious networks and even continued to invite Daoist ritualists so as to efficiently marshal the forces of local gods with their local demon soldiers into the official, imperial reserves of military power. This unusual book establishes once and for all the importance of understanding the idealized realities of literary texts within a larger context of cultural practice and socio-political history. Of particular importance is the ongoing dialog with religious ideology that informs these different discourses. Meulenbeld's book makes a convincing case for the need to debunk the retrospective reading of China through the modern, secular Western categories of "literature," "society," and "politics." He shows that this disregard of religious dynamics has distorted our understanding of China and that "religion" cannot be conveniently isolated from scholarly analysis.

Middle Imperial China, 900–1350

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108420680
Total Pages : 433 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (84 download)

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Book Synopsis Middle Imperial China, 900–1350 by : Linda Walton

Download or read book Middle Imperial China, 900–1350 written by Linda Walton and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-08-03 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A highly readable and engaging survey of China's history from the tenth through the mid-fourteenth centuries.

Steps of Perfection

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Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 1684173787
Total Pages : 445 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (841 download)

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Book Synopsis Steps of Perfection by : Donald S. Sutton

Download or read book Steps of Perfection written by Donald S. Sutton and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-03-23 with total page 445 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Despite Taiwan’s rise as an economic force in the world, modernity has not led to a Weberian process of disenchantment or curbed religiosity. To the contrary, other factors—social, economic, political—have stimulated religion. How and why this has happened are central issues in this book. One part of Taiwan’s flourishing religious culture is the elaborate and colorful procession of local gods accompanied by troupes of musicians and dancers. Among them are performers with outlandishly painted faces portraying underworld generals who serve the gods and punish the living. Through their performances, these troupes claim to exorcise harmful forces from the community. In conducting fieldwork among these troupes, Donald Sutton confronted their claims to a long history—when all evidence indicated that the troupes had been insignificant until the 1970s—and their assertions of devotion to tradition given the diversity of performances. Concentrating on the stylistic variations in performances, the author describes the troupes as organizations shaped by the “market forces” of supply and demand in the culture of religious festivals. By focusing on performances as the nexus of market and art, he shows how bodily performance is the site where religious statements are made and the power of the gods made visible."

Empire and Local Worlds

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1315429713
Total Pages : 344 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (154 download)

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Book Synopsis Empire and Local Worlds by : Mingming Wang

Download or read book Empire and Local Worlds written by Mingming Wang and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-03-02 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mingming Wang, one of the most prolific anthropologists in China, has produced a work both of long-term historical anthropology and of broad social theory. In it, he traces almost a millennium of history of the southern Chinese city of Quangzhou, a major international trading entrepot in the 13th century that declined to a peripheral regional center by the end of the 19th century. But the historical trajectory understates the complex set of interrelationships between local structures and imperial agendas that played out over the course of centuries and dynasties. Using urban structure, documentary analysis, and archaeological artifacts, Wang shows how the study of Quangzhou represents a Chinese template for civilizational studies, one distinctly different from Eurocentric models propounded by such theorists as Sahlins, Wolf, and Elias.

A Comparative Sociology of World Religions

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Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 0814798047
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (147 download)

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Book Synopsis A Comparative Sociology of World Religions by : Stephen Sharot

Download or read book A Comparative Sociology of World Religions written by Stephen Sharot and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2001-08 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sharot (sociology, Ben-Gurion U. of the Neger) focuses on the differences and interrelationships between religious elites and lay masses. He presents several relevant concepts and theories including a model of religious action based on the work of Max Weber, and a discussion of elites and masses as represented in Weber's comparison of world religions. Coverage encompasses religious action in world religions; Brahmans, Renouncers, and Hinduisim in India; Buddhism and Animism in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia; traditional Catholicism in Europe; Islam and Judaism; Protestants, Catholics and the reform of popular religion; and a comparison of religious elites and popular religions. c. Book News Inc.

Guan Yu

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192525433
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (925 download)

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Book Synopsis Guan Yu by : Barend J. ter Haar

Download or read book Guan Yu written by Barend J. ter Haar and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-06 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Guan Yu was a minor general in the early third century CE, who supported one of numerous claimants to the throne. He was captured and executed by enemy forces in 219. He eventually became one the most popular and influential deities of imperial China under the name Lord Guan or Emperor Guan, of the same importance as the Buddhist bodhisattva Guanyin. This is a study of his cult, but also of the tremendous power of oral culture in a world where writing became increasingly important. In this study, we follow the rise of the deity through his earliest stage as a hungry ghost, his subsequent adoption by a prominent Buddhist monastery during the Tang (617-907) as its miraculous supporter, and his recruitment by Daoist ritual specialists during the Song dynasty (960-1276) as an exorcist general. He was subsequently known as a rain god, a protector against demons and barbarians, and, eventually, a moral paragon and almost messianic saviour. Throughout his divine life, the physical prowess of the deity, more specifically Lord Guan's ability to use violent action for doing good, remained an essential dimension of his image. Most research ascribes a decisive role in the rise of his cult to the literary traditions of the Three Kingdoms, best known from the famous novel by this name. This book argues that the cult arose from oral culture and spread first and foremost as an oral practice.

Rage and Ravage

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Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 0824889363
Total Pages : 553 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (248 download)

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Book Synopsis Rage and Ravage by : Bernard Faure

Download or read book Rage and Ravage written by Bernard Faure and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2021-12-31 with total page 553 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by one of the leading scholars of Japanese religion, Rage and Ravage is the third installment of a milestone project in our understanding of the mythico-ritual system of esoteric Buddhism—specifically the nature and roles of deities in the religious world of medieval Japan and beyond. Bernard Faure introduces readers to medieval Japanese religiosity and shows the centrality of the gods in religious discourse and ritual; in doing so he moves away from the usual textual, historical, and sociological approaches that constitute the “method” of current religious studies. Throughout, he engages theoretical insights drawn from structuralism, post-structuralism, and Actor-Network Theory to retrieve the “implicit pantheon” (as opposed to the “explicit orthodox pantheon”) of esoteric Japanese Buddhism (Mikkyō). In volumes one and two, The Fluid Pantheon and Protectors and Predators, Faure argued against a polarity or dichotomy between buddhas and kami by emphasizing the existence of deities that did not belong to either category, and he rejected the retrospective notion of “hybridity.” The present work makes a similar case about the reified distinction between gods and demons to show that, due to the fluid nature of the Japanese pantheon, these terms do not represent stable identities: Gods can become demons, and demons are sometimes deified. Divine protectors were often former predators, and in some instances they retained their predatory features even after being converted. After emphasizing the demonic aspects of devas as “gods or spirits of obstacles” in the earlier volumes, Faure now focuses on the deva-like or “divine” aspects of deities that have been described as “demonic.” Rage and Ravage and its companion volumes persuade readers that the gods constituted a central part of medieval Japanese religion and that the latter cannot be reduced to a simplistic confrontation, parallelism, or complementarity between some monolithic teachings known as “Buddhism” and “Shinto.” Once these reductionist labels and categories are discarded, a new and fascinating religious landscape begins to unfold.

Heterodoxy in Late Imperial China

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Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 9780824825386
Total Pages : 492 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (253 download)

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Book Synopsis Heterodoxy in Late Imperial China by : Kwang-Ching Liu

Download or read book Heterodoxy in Late Imperial China written by Kwang-Ching Liu and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ten international academics explore heterodoxy dissent challenging the beliefs and meanings of the established norm in late Imperial China. In this process, they trace the origins of the cultural and intellectual protests to aspects of Daoism and Buddhism in the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911)

Journey of a Goddess

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Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 1438467095
Total Pages : 186 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

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Book Synopsis Journey of a Goddess by :

Download or read book Journey of a Goddess written by and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2017-10-27 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First English translations of a novel and two play excerpts based on tales of the goddess Chen Jinggu, an eighth-century shaman and present-day cult deity. This book offers the first translation into English of the Chinese novel Haiyouji, as well as excerpts of a marionette play based on the cult lore of the goddess Chen Jinggu (766–790), a historical shaman priestess who became one of Fujian’s most important goddesses and the Lüshan Sect’s chief deity. The novel, a 1753 reprint of what is possibly a Ming dynasty novel, was both a popular fiction and a religious tract. It offers a lively mythological tale depicting combat between the shaman goddess and a snake demon goddess. Replete with the beliefs and practices of the cult of this warrior goddess, the novel asserts the importance of Shamanism (i.e., local religious beliefs) as one of the four religions of China, along with Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism. To further develop the links between literature and local religion, Fan Pen Li Chen includes translations of two acts from a Fujian marionette play, Biography of the Lady, featuring the goddess. Fan Pen Li Chen is Associate Professor of East Asian Studies at the University at Albany, State University of New York. She is the author of Chinese Shadow Theatre: History, Popular Religion, and Women Warriors; Visions for the Masses: Chinese Shadow Plays from Shaanxi and Shanxi; and the editor and translator of Marionette Plays from Northern China, also published by SUNY Press.

Maoism and Grassroots Religion

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190069406
Total Pages : 241 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis Maoism and Grassroots Religion by : Xiaoxuan Wang

Download or read book Maoism and Grassroots Religion written by Xiaoxuan Wang and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-02 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maoism and Grassroots Religion explores grassroots religious life under and after Mao in Rui'an County, Wenzhou of southeast China, a region widely known for its religious vitality. Drawing from unexplored local state archives, records of religious institutions, memoirs, and interviews, it tells the story of local communities' encounter with the Communist revolution, and its consequences, especially competition and struggles for religious property and ritual space. Rather than being totally disrupted, Xiaoxuan Wang shows, religious life under Mao was characterized by remarkable variety and unevenness and was contingent on the interactions of local dynamics with Maoist campaigns--including land reform, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution. The revolutionary experience strongly determined the trajectories and development patterns of different religions, inter-religious dynamics, and state-religion relationships in the post-Mao era. Wang goes beyond the image of totalistic control and suppression, to show how Maoism is relevant to religious revitalization in the post-Mao era and, more broadly, the modern fate of Chinese religions and secularism in East Asia. Maoism permanently altered the religious landscape in China, especially by inadvertently promoting the localization and even (in some areas) expansion of Protestant Christianity, as well as the reinvention of traditional communal religion. Contrary to the popular image of total suppression and disruption during the Mao years, this book shows that religious changes under Mao were highly complex and contingent on a confluence of political campaigns, local politics and community responses.The post-Mao religious revival had deep historical roots in the Mao years, Wang argues, and cannot be explained by contemporary economic motives and cultural logics alone. This book calls for a new understanding of Maoism and secularism in the People's Republic of China.

India in the Chinese Imagination

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Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN 13 : 0812245601
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (122 download)

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Book Synopsis India in the Chinese Imagination by : John Kieschnick

Download or read book India in the Chinese Imagination written by John Kieschnick and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2014-01-23 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this collection of original essays, leading Asian studies scholars take a new look at the way the Chinese conceived of India in their literature, art, and religious thought in the premodern era.

China

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Publisher : Hong Kong University Press
ISBN 13 : 9888028049
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (88 download)

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Book Synopsis China by : John Lagerwey

Download or read book China written by John Lagerwey and published by Hong Kong University Press. This book was released on 2010-12-01 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last 40 years, our vision of Chinese culture and history has been transformed by the discovery of the role of religion in Chinese state-making and in local society. The Daoist religion, in particular, long despised as "superstitious," has recovered its place as "the native higher religion." But while the Chinese state tried from the fifth century on to construct an orthodoxy based on Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, local society everywhere carved out for itself its own geomantically defined space and organized itself around local festivals in honor of gods of its own choosing-gods who were often invented and then represented by illiterate mediums. Looking at China from the point of view of elite or popular culture therefore produces very different results.--John Lagerwey has done extensive fieldwork on local society and its festivals. This book represents a first attempt to use this new research to integrate top-down and bottom-up views of Chinese society, culture, and history. It should be of interest to a wide range of China specialists, students of religion and popular culture, as well as participants in the ongoing interdisciplinary dialogue between historians and anthropologists.--John Lagerwey is professor of Daoist history at the ?cole Pratique des Hautes ?tudes and of Chinese studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is author of Taoist Ritual in Chinese Society and History and editor of the 30-volume "Traditional Hakka Society Series" as well as the recently published four-volume set Early Chinese Religion.-----

Leprosy in China

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Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231517793
Total Pages : 385 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

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Book Synopsis Leprosy in China by : Angela Ki Che Leung

Download or read book Leprosy in China written by Angela Ki Che Leung and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Angela Ki Che Leung's meticulous study begins with the classical annals of the imperial era, which contain the first descriptions of a feared and stigmatized disorder modern researchers now identify as leprosy. She then tracks the relationship between the disease and China's social and political spheres (theories of contagion prompted community and statewide efforts at segregation); religious traditions (Buddhism and Daoism ascribed redemptive meaning to those suffering from the disease), and evolving medical discourse (Chinese doctors have contested the disease's etiology for centuries). Leprosy even pops up in Chinese folklore, attributing the spread of the contagion to contact with immoral women. Leung next places the history of leprosy into a global context of colonialism, racial politics, and "imperial danger." A perceived global pandemic in the late nineteenth century seemed to confirm Westerners' fears that Chinese immigration threatened public health. Therefore battling to contain, if not eliminate, the disease became a central mission of the modernizing, state-building projects of the late Qing empire, the nationalist government of the first half of the twentieth century, and the People's Republic of China. Stamping out the curse of leprosy was the first step toward achieving "hygienic modernity" and erasing the cultural and economic backwardness associated with the disease. Leung's final move connects China's experience with leprosy to a larger history of public health and biomedical regimes of power, exploring the cultural and political implications of China's Sino-Western approach to the disease.