Yanfei Sun. Banner for Yanfei Sun vertical bar Religious Change in China after Mao: Toward a New Sociology of Religion

Yanfei Sun | Religious Change in China after Mao: Toward a New Sociology of Religion

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Lecture

Tue, Feb 24, 2026

10 AM – 11:30 AM EST (GMT-5)

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Louis A. Simpson International Building, Room 271

Princeton, NJ 08544, United States

Details

Yanfei Sun. Flyer for Yanfei Sun vertical bar Religious Change in China after Mao: Toward a New Sociology of Religion
This talk presents insights from my new book, Religious Change in Post-Mao China: Toward a New Sociology of Religion. Drawing on two decades of ethnographic, archival, and historical-comparative research, the book examines patterns of religious transformation in post-Mao China. Focusing on five major religions, it addresses key questions about their growth dynamics within a distinct political context: Why did Protestantism expand rapidly while Catholicism lagged behind? How can we account for the profound changes in Chinese popular religion during its post-Mao revival? Why did New Religious Movements, despite their potential, fail to become major players in the religious landscape? And why did the development of Chinese Buddhism diverge from both its Republican-era and post-1949 Taiwanese counterparts? The talk introduces an “institutions-in-context” theory that not only provides answers to these questions but also offers a framework that not only allows me to explain all these questions but has the potential to be used to understand the growth dynamics of religions across the globe.

Where

Louis A. Simpson International Building, Room 271

Princeton, NJ 08544, United States

Speakers

Yanfei Sun's profile photo

Yanfei Sun

Zhejiang University

Yanfei Sun is Associate Professor of Sociology at Zhejiang University. She received her PhD in Sociology from the University of Chicago in 2010 and has held fellowships at Columbia University’s Society of Fellows (2010–2013) and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2023–2024). Her research centers on the sociology of religion and political sociology, with interests in religious change, secularism, and religious nationalism, as well as comparative studies of empires and nation-states. Her work has appeared in the American Journal of Sociology, Theory and Society, Modern China, and leading Chinese sociological journals. Her articles received the Distinguished Article Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion in 2018 and 2020. Her book, Religious Change in Post-Mao China: Toward a New Sociology of Religion, will be published by the University of Chicago Press in January 2026.


Sponsors

Paul and Marcia Wythes Center on Contemporary China. No image description provided

Hosted By

Center on Contemporary China | View More Events
Co-hosted with: Princeton Institute for International & Regional Studies, Center on Contemporary China (OWNER)