Advisors

Deborah S. Davis is a Professor of Sociology at Yale University. She is currently a member of the National Committee on US China Relations and serves on the editorial boards of The European Journal of East Asian Studies, Social Forces and the new Yale China Health Journal. At Yale she has served as Director of Academic Programs at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization (2001-02), Chair of the Department of Sociology (1992-97), Chair of the Council of East Asian Studies (1991-1992 and 1999-2000), Director of Graduate Studies in East Asian Studies (1984-88) and Sociology (1999-2000). Her publications have analyzed the politics of the Cultural Revolution, Chinese family life, social welfare, class cleavages and occupational mobility. She is currently completing two books: A Home of Their Own, a study of the social consequences of privatization of real estate in Shanghai and Wealth and Poverty in China Today, proceedings from conference held at Yale on how recent Chinese experiences challenge prevailing sociological analysis of inequality and stratification. She also is actively involved in research and advocacy work in response to the AIDS epidemic in China.

GAO Shining is a professor at the Institute of World Religions, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. She received her BA in English Language and literature from Guizhou Teachers' University in 1981, MA in Sociology of Religion from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 1988. Professor Gao has been a visiting scholar or visiting professor at the University of Toronto, Canada, 1992–1993, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000-2001, the University of Aarhus, Denmark, 2002, and the University of Birmingham, UK, 2005. She is the author or co-author of The Marxist Idea of Religion and Its Relevant Trends, Contemporary New Religions, Sociology of Religion, An Exploration of New Religions and over 30 articles about the sociology of religion and Christian Studies. She has also translated more than ten academic books in the same fields.

LI Xiangping is Professor of Religious Studies at East China Normal University in Shanghai, China. He received his Ph.D. in Chinese History from East China Normal University. He was the Director of the Center for Religious Social Research at Shanghai University. He has been a visiting scholar or visiting professor at the Theology School of Boston University, Yokohama Municipal University in Japan, and Buddhism Research Institute, Taisho University in Japan. His numerous publications on history and sociology of religion in China. He has directed several research projects, including “Christianity and Buddhism in Coastal Areas of Modern China,” “Modern Chinese Society and Its Conflict with Traditions of Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism,” and “Theoretical Trends of Thoughts of Contemporary Sociology of Religions in The United States.

Richard Madsen is Professor and Chair of the department of Sociology, and director of the Council on East Asian Studies at the University of California, San Diego. He received an MA in Asian studies and a Ph. D. in sociology from Harvard. He is the author, or co-author of eleven books on Chinese culture, American culture, and international relations. He has also written scholarly articles on how to compare cultures and how to facilitate dialogue among them. His best known works on American culture are those written with Robert Bellah, William Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven Tipton: Habits of the Heart (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1995) and The Good Society (New York, Knopf, 1991). These books explore and criticize the culture of individualism and the institutions that sustain it. Habits of the Heart won the LA Times Book Award and was jury nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. His books on China include Chen Village under Mao and Deng (co-author with Anita Chan and Jonathan Unger) (Berkeley, UC Press, 1992), Morality and Power in a Chinese Village (UC Press, 1984) [winner of the C. Wright Mills Award], Unofficial China (co-edited with Perry Link and Paul Pickowicz) (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989), China and the American Dream (UC Press, 1994), China’s Catholics: Tragedy and Hope in an Emerging Civil Society (UC Press, 1998), and  Popular China: Unofficial Culture in a Globalizing  Society, co-edited with Perry Link and Pickowicz (Boulder, CO: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002). Books on social theory include: Meaning and Modernity, co-edited with William Sullivan, Ann Swidler, Steven Tipton (UC Press, 2002) and The Many and the One: Religious and Secular Perspectives on Ethical Pluralism in the Modern World (Princeton University Press, 2003).

WEI Dedong is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Renmin University of China, Beijing, specializing in Buddhist philosophy and empirical research on religion in China. He earned his BA in Philosophy from Nankai University, his MA and Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies at Renmin University.  He has published numerous articles in scholarly journals on Buddhism, sociology of religion, and philosophy of religion. He is the editor of the Chinese Journal of the Social Scientific Study of Religion.

Robert Weller is Professor and Chair of Anthropology at Boston University and Research Associate at the Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs there.  His present research is concerned with the development of the environmental movement and nature tourism in China and Taiwan in the context of economic growth. He is also looking at the role of local voluntary organizations as mediators between state and society in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China, and he has consulted on poverty and unemployment relief in western China.  He has written numerous books and articles on Chinese political, social, and cultural change, often with a focus on the relations between religion and civic life. His latest book, Ritual and Its Consequences: An Essay on the Limits of Sincerity (Oxford 2008, co-authored with A. Seligman, M. Puett, and B. Simon) has just appeared.  His current research focuses on the role of religion in creating public social benefits in Chinese communities in China, Malaysia, and Taiwan.

ZHUO Xinping is Director of the Institute of World Religions at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He received his M. A. degree in Philosophy from the Department of World Religions at the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 1981 and his Ph.D. degree from Munich University, Germany, in 1987. He was accepted as a permanent member of the German Affiliate of International Association for the History of Religions in 1988. In 2006 he was elected Member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Dr. Zhuo is author of 18 books, over 100 articles and editor of many book series. His major publications include: Theorien uber Religion im heutigen China und ihre Bezugnahme zu Religionstheorien des Westens (in German), Religion and Culture, On the Origin of Religion, Introduction to Religious Studies in the Wes, World Religions and Religious Studies, History of Christianity and Judaism in China, Understanding of Religion, Reinhold Niebuhr, Appreciation of the Bible, On Christianity, Between the Sacred and the Secular, Protestant Theology in Contemporary Western Countries, Catholic Theology in Contemporary Western Countries, Theology in Contemporary Asian, Africa, and Latin America, Development of Contemporary Christian Church, Encounter between Christianity and Chinese Culture: Seeking Commonality, Tolerating Difference.