• Xun Liu
  • Xun Liu
  • Associate Professor of History
  • Degree: B.A., Huazhong Normal University
  • Additional Degree(s): Ph.D., University of Southern California
  • Rutgers : At Rutgers since 2003
  • Specialty: Late Imperial and Modern China: History of Religion
  • Office: 224 Van Dyck Hall
  • Phone: 848-932-8524

RESEARCH INTERESTS

I am a historian of late imperial and modern China with a particular interest in the history of Daoism and its relationship to Chinese society and culture. I am currently working on a monographic study of the Daoist temples and local society in Nanyang in central China from the mid-17th century to the present. I am interested in the various roles Daoists and their temples play in shaping the structures, institutions, and practices of local culture and society, and how they have changed over time in their interaction with the modernizing state, globalizing economy, and local religious traditions.

COURSES REGULARLY TAUGHT

Undergraduate

  • 508:246 Introduction to Chinese History
  • 508:340 Late Imperial China (900-1800)
  • 508:342 Modern China 1800-Present
  • 508:392 Modern China Thru Film and Fiction
  • 506:402 History Seminar: Daoism and Chinese Society

PUBLICATIONS

Books and book chapters

  • Daoism in Twentieth Century China: Between Eternity and Modernity, Berkeley: Global, Area, and International Archive/University of California Press, forthcoming, 2011 (co-editor)
  • Daoist Modern: Innovation, Lay Practice and the Community of Inner Alchemy in Republican Shanghai, Cambridge: Harvard University Asian Center/Harvard University Press, 2009.
  • 修煉與救國﹕民初上海道教內丹、城市信眾的修行、印刷文化闔團體” 見於 《從城市看中國的現代性》巫仁恕、康豹、林美莉合編. 臺北﹕中央研究院近代史研究所,2010。
  • “Numinous Father and Holy Mother: Late Ming Duo Duo-cultivation Practice” in Internal Alchemy: Self, Society, and the Quest for Immortality, ed. Livia Kohn, Boston: Three Pine Press, 2009.
  • 時代とともにー全真教道士李宗陽と慈禧、同盟会および清末民初(一八九〇年 代~一九三〇年代)南陽における近代化改革ー(Progressing with Times: Quanzhen Daoist Li Zongyang, and Cixi, the Revolutionary Alliance, and Modern Reforms in Nanyang,1890s-1930s ) in 田中文雄、テリー・クリーマン 編『道教と共生思想 [Tanaka and Kleeman, eds. Daoism and Kyosei Philosophy. (2009).
  • “張將軍瘱埋枯骨﹕清初南陽重建中全真道與清廷之合作” [General Zhang Buries the Bones: Early Qing Reconstruction and Quanzhen Collaboration in Mid-Seventeenth Century Nanyang] in Daojia wenhua yanjiu 道家文化研究, Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2008, pp.330-64.

Refereed Articles

  • “Proliferating Learning: Quanzhen Daoist Activism and Modern Education Reforms in Nanyang (1880s-1940s).” Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident, 33(Oct, 2011);
  • “In Defense of the City and the Polity: the Xuanmiao Monastery and the Qing Anti-Taiping Campaigns in Mid-nineteenth Century Nanyang.” T’oung Pao, 95(2009);
  • “General Zhang Buries the Bones: Early Qing Reconstruction and Quanzhen Collaboration in Mid-Seventeenth Century Nanyang.” Late Imperial China, 27.2 (Dec 2006);
  • “Immortals and Patriarchs: The Daoist World of a Manchu Official and His Family in 19th Century China.” Asia Major, 17.2 (2004, actual publication date: spring, 2006);
  • “Visualized Perfection: Daoist Painting, Court Patronage, Female Piety and Monastic Expansion in Late Qing (1862-1908).” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, (June, 2004 issue);
  • “In Search of Immortality: A Study of Travels in Early 20th century Neidan Poems.” Taoist Resources, No. 17, 1997.

Research Notes and Book Reviews in Refereed Journals

  • “Taoists of Peking: 1800-1949, A Social History of the Urban Clerics,” book review, Journal of Asian Studies, 67.2 (May, 2008), pp.687-89.
  • “Profile of a Quanzhen Doctor: Abbot Huang Zongsheng of the Monastery of Eternal Spring in Wuhan,” Journal of Daoist Studies, 1 (2009), pp.154-160.

GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIPS

  • Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation Research Grant, 2011-2013;
  • ACLS American Humanities in China Research Fellowship, 2010-2011;
  • CCKF Joint Research Grant (with Vincent Goossaert), 2007-2010;
  • ACLS-CCKF conference grants (with David Palmer), 2005/2006;
  • Center for Chinese Studies Postdoctoral Fellowship, UC Berkeley, 2005-2006;
  • CNRS Research Grant, CNRS, Paris, Fall, 2004;
  • An Wang Postdoctoral Fellowship, Harvard University, 2002-2003.

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS

  • Association for Asian Studies
  • American Historical Association
  • American Academy of Religion
  • Society for the Study of Chinese Religions