Sacred Shanghai explores the spaces, rituals and communities that form the spiritual fabric of China's largest city.

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.

The authors of this 2004 volume consult Chinese and Western archival materials to examine the Chinese War of Resistance against the Japanese in the Shanghai area. They argue that the war in China was a nationalistic endeavour carried out without an effective national leadership. Wartime Chinese activities in Shanghai drew upon social networks rather than ideological positions and these activities cut across lines of military and political divisions. Instead of the stark contrast between heroic resistance and shameful collaboration, wartime experience in the city is more aptly summed up in terms of bloody struggles between those committed to normalcy in everyday life and those determined to bring about its disruption through terrorist violence and economic control. The volume offers an evaluation of the strategic significance of the Shanghai economy in the Pacific War. It also draws attention to the feminisation of urban public discourse against the backdrop of intensified violence. The essays capture the last moments of European settlements in Shanghai under Japanese occupation.

Until now, China has been scarcely represented in the burgeoning comparative literature on pilgrimage. This volume remedies that omission, discussing the interaction between pilgrims and sacred sites from the tenth century to the present. From the perspectives of literature, art, history, religion, politics, and anthropology, the essays focus on China's most famous pilgrimage mountains as well as lesser known sites.

Research into the print culture of late-Qing and Republican China has revealed a vibrant world of print media. Recent studies have also shown that far from being marginalized, religion in modern China enjoyed widespread popularity and in many cases expanded its field of activity. This book explores how religious ideas and practices in modern China were transformed as a result of their engagement with modern print culture.

Offering an introduction to religion in contemporary China, the essays in this volume consider many diverse themes including religion in urban, rural and ethnic minority settings and the historical, sociological, economic and political aspects of religion on the country as a whole.