Based on a decade of fieldwork and a cross-disciplinary approach (anthropology, sociology, history), this book studies the popular revival of Confucianism that has taken place in China since the beginning of the twenty-first century. It does not primarily focus on intellectual or normative discourses but on the reappropriation and reinvention of popular practices in society. After a long twentieth century, during which Confucianism was often considered as ousted from history or confined to philosophical speculations, this book explores the new relations between the sage and the people in realm ... More

Based on a decade of fieldwork and a cross-disciplinary approach (anthropology, sociology, history), this book studies the popular revival of Confucianism that has taken place in China since the beginning of the twenty-first century. It does not primarily focus on intellectual or normative discourses but on the reappropriation and reinvention of popular practices in society. After a long twentieth century, during which Confucianism was often considered as ousted from history or confined to philosophical speculations, this book explores the new relations between the sage and the people in realms such as education, self-cultivation, religion, rituals, and politics. Empirically analyzing cases and narratives of activists involved in this “revival,” it attempts to understand their motivations, aspirations, difficulties, and achievements, as well as their ambiguous relation to Chinese politics. The Confucian revival is analyzed within the broader context of emerging challenges to great modernization narratives that prevailed throughout the twentieth century. Finally, by means of a comparison between state cults carried out in both Mainland China and Taiwan, the book discusses the articulation of the political and the religious and, beyond that, the contemporary fate of the Chinese cosmological tradition.