Paul R. Katz is Distinguished Research Fellow at the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, and Program Director of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange. His research centers on modern Chinese religious life, with his most recent monograph (Religion in China and its Modern Fate) published in early 2014.

This book stands out for Katz’s utter mastery of secondary literature on religion in Hunan and the Southwest, his use of Western Hunan as a case study to challenge existing models of Chinese religion, and his keen attention to processes of religious transformation through the theoretical innovations of reverberation and trans-hybridity.Megan Bryson, University of Tennessee, USA

• 1. Western Hunan: An Overview 2. Temple Cults 3. Ritual Specialists 4. Ritual Violence and the Judicial Continuum: 5. Female Mediums and Rites of Resistance 6. The Incense Dancing Festival 7. Repaying a Nuo Vow

Paul R. Katz is Distinguished Research Fellow at the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, and Program Director of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange. His research centers on modern Chinese religious life, with his most recent monograph (Religion in China and its Modern Fate) published in early 2014.

This book stands out for Katz’s utter mastery of secondary literature on religion in Hunan and the Southwest, his use of Western Hunan as a case study to challenge existing models of Chinese religion, and his keen attention to processes of religious transformation through the theoretical innovations of reverberation and trans-hybridity.Megan Bryson, University of Tennessee, USA

• 1. Western Hunan: An Overview 2. Temple Cults 3. Ritual Specialists 4. Ritual Violence and the Judicial Continuum: 5. Female Mediums and Rites of Resistance 6. The Incense Dancing Festival 7. Repaying a Nuo Vow