Religious culture in 20th century China: bibliography by Barend ter Haar

 Created  4-3-2000, presently carrying out a thorough overhaul as of 9-2-2013.

Criteria:

• For practical purposes I have excluded Taiwan. See however the references in the section Bibliographical work below. I have not included Christianity or Islam in any systematic way, since these are well-covered elsewhere.
• This bibliography also strives to include those works with shorter yet substantial discussions, which are otherwise not included in the customary bibliographies on religious culture. Another feature is shorter or longer annotations on the source value of the various works in question. This bibliography does not replace, but rather supplements other works, such as the four all-important bibliographies by Thompson and Seaman.
• I have only included substantial references, not merely summaries of CCP or GMD ideologically determined  points of view without additional factual information.
• Secondary literature is included as I come across it in various other research projects (or my students do bibliographical work on smaller themes), I have not made specific bibliographical searches for this survey.

Bibliographical work

See the following webpages for help on doing bibliographical searches  concerning religious culture in China in general, as well as other aids to studying Chinese religious culture:

• Chinese religious culture: A research guide.
• http://sun.sino.uni-heidelberg.de/igcs/igphil.htm (this is the section on religion and philosophy of the Internet Guide to Chinese Studies, which brings a large amount of references to websites on Chinese religious culture, esp. on Buddhist, Daoist and Christian traditions). Presently the IGHS is not actively maintained.
• http://sun.sino.uni-heidelberg.de/igcs/igbiblio.htm(this is the section on bibliographies  of the Internet Guide to Chinese Studies, which brings together a number of substantial bibliographies of varying quality on Chinese religious culture and other topics).

Between 1911 and 1949

General

• Timothy Brook, “The Politics of Religion: Late Imperial Origins of the Regulatory State”, in: Yoshiko Ashiwa and David L. Wank, Making Religion, Making the State: The Politics of Religion in Modern China (Stanford: Stanford UP, 2009), pp. 22-42
• Maurice Freedman, Lineage Organization in Southeastern China (The Athlone Press, London, 1958, 1965) and Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung (The Athlone Press, London, 1966, 1971). These two classical works do not only provide relevant information on the constitutive role of religious culture in creating local society, but also shows how one can cull the rich early scholarly, journalistic and literary literature on Chinese society to come to significant insights. By virtue of this approach, these two works also give many useful titles that can be used for studying other aspects of religious culture as well.
• Goossaert, Vincent and David Palmer, The religious question in modern China (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 2012). Fundamental discussions of the way religion as a category came into being and how religious culture in a broader sense was dealt with during the twentieth century. Essential reading.
• Nedostup, Rebecca, Superstitious Regimes: Religion and the Politics of Chinese Modernity (Cambridge, MA [etc.] : Harvard University Press, 2009). Focuses on the regulation and attmepted control of religion in the Republican period.
• Ralph Thaxton, China Turned Rightside Up: Revolutionary Legitimacy in the Peasant World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983). This is a very rich and challenging book.

Red Spears and similar self-defense groups

• Yung-fa Chen, Making Revolution: The Communist Movement in Eastern and Central China, 1937-1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), pp. 100-101 (oath taking), 174, 554 n. 15-17, 314-315, 479-495 (secret societies, Red Spears).
• Joseph W. Esherick, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987).
• Elizabeth J. Perry, Rebels and Revolutionaries in North China, 1845-1945 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1980)
• Tai Hsüan-chih (Dai Xuanzhi), Ronald Suleski trsl., The Red Spears, 1916-1949 (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, 1985)
• Ralph Thaxton, China Turned Rightside Up: Revolutionary Legitimacy in the Peasant World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), pp. 70-78, 83-92, 140-159 and passim.

Local cults in general

•  Kenneth Dean, Taoist Ritual and Popular Cults of Southeast China (Princeton UP, Princeton, 1993).  See below.
• J. Dols, "La vie chinoise dans la province de Kan-sou (Chine)," Anthropos X-XI (1915-1916)
• Prasenjit Duara, Culture, Power, and the State: Rural North China, 1900-1942 (Stanford UP, Stanford, 1988)
• Sidney Gamble, Ting Hsien: A North China Rural Community (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1954) provides useful quantitive information, but his heart nor the hearts of his collaborators were quite clearly not in  religious culture.
• Willem A. Grootaers,  "Les temples villageois de la region au sud-est de Tat'ong (Chansi nord), leurs inscriptions et leur histoire," Folklore Studies IV (1945),
• Willem A. Grootaers, "Temples and History of Wanch'üan (Chahar): The Geographical Method Applied to Folklore," Monumenta Serica XIII (1948),
• Willem A. Grootaers, "Rural Temples around Hsüan-hua (South Chahar): Their Iconography and Their History," Folklore Studies X (1951)
• Willem A. Grootaers, The Sanctuaries in a North-China City: A Complete Survey of the Cultic Buildings in the City of Hsüan-hua (Chahar) (Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques, Vol. XXVI; Bruxelles: Institut Belge des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1995). These four studies by the late Belgian (Flemish) missionary (Schuyt), linguist and ethnographer Grootaers belong to the best detailed studies of local temples in northern China. They are especially noteworthy for their attempt to cover all cults within a given region.
• Mao Yedong, R.R. Thompson trsl., Report from Xunwu (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), pp. 126-129. These passages are especially interesting because they show Mao's awareness of the crucial functions of the local she -cults as a form of self-rule by the local people.
• John Shyrock, The Temples of Anking and their Cults (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste, Paul Geuthner,  1931) . Largely descriptive survey that gives too much general information on the different cults, and sadly too little local information.
• Helen F. Siu, Agents and Victims in South China: Accomplices in Rural Revolution (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1989) T). Both Duara, pp. 209-214 and Siu, pp. 10-11 stress the cultural nexus of traditional local society, especially the role of religious culture therein.
• Michael A. Szonyi, "Village Rituals in Fuzhou in the Late Imperial and Republican Periods," (University of Oxford, D.Phil dissertation, 1995). Extremely important and informative dissertation, to be used together with Dean (1993). Based on extensive fieldwork in the Fuzhou region and very sensitive to the issue of historical change in ritual practice.
• Ralph Thaxton, China Turned Rightside Up: Revolutionary Legitimacy in the Peasant World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), pp.89-90, 105, 121-123, 132,  141-146, 150-155,  192-193, 214. and passim.

• Kang Xiaofei,The cult of the fox : power, gender, and popular religion in late imperial and modern China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006). Wonderful book on the historical and more recent dimensions of fox worship, including some contemporary aspects.
• Li Wei-tsu   "On the cult of the Four Sacred Animals (Szu Ta Men) in the neighbourhood of Peking", Folklore Studies VII (1948) 1-94.
• Takisawa Toshiaki,  Manshû no kaison shinkô (Tôkyô, 1983 reprint). Little-known study on northern Chinese fox cults, based on the author's own fieldwork.
• Yang Nianqun, "Beijing diqu 'Si damen' xinyang yu 'difanmg ganjue'", in: Sun Jiang ed., Shijian, jiyi, xushu (Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin, 2004), pp. 216-282. This is a very rich study with extensive secondary references as well. The author has since also published a booklength study which I have not yet seen.

• Johannes Prip-Moeller, Chinese Buddhist Monasteries: Their Plan and Its Function as a Setting for Buddhist Monastic Life (1937; Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1967).
• Francesca Tarocco, The Cultural Practices of Modern Chinese Buddhism: Attuning the Dharma (London : Routledge, 2007). On republican period buddhism in Shanghnai, including the lay- Buddhist and cartoonist Feng Zikai.
• Ralph Thaxton, China Turned Rightside Up: Revolutionary Legitimacy in the Peasant World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), pp. 89-90, 141-143, 149,155-156, 159, 192-193, 230 (mainly Guanyin and Buddhist festivals)
• Holmes Welch,  The Practice of Chinese Buddhism, 1900-1950 (Cambridge, Mass.; Harvard University Press, 1967). Quite informative on Buddhist practice in the Republican period and by extension to the late imperial period as well. Based on extensive reading and interviewing of people who lived through this time.
• Holmes Welch,  The Buddhist Revival in China  (Cambridge, Mass.; Harvard University Press, 1968). On the institutional history in the broadest sense of Buddhism before 1949.  Based on extensive reading and interviewing of people who lived through this time. A third volume provides similar information on the situation between 1949 and 1966.

• Li Shiyu           , Xiandai huabei mimi zongjiao                           (Chengdu: Studia Serica Monograph, 1948). The last serious monograph on new religious groups before the great and quite bloody clamp-down during the early years of the PRC, by a (Christian) student of the above-mentioned Willem Grootaers.
• David Ownby ed., David Ownby and Qiao Peihua trsl., "Scriptures of the Way of the Temple of the Heavenly Immortals", Chinese Studies in History 29: 3 (1996) 5-101. Brief introduction and extensive translations of texts from and by a northern Chinese religious tradition founded in the mid-nineteenth century, that flourished during the Republican period and still exists (despite persecutions and prohibitions) today.  Analytical publications by the auhtor on this group are underway.

• David Holm, Art and Ideology in revolutionary China (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991)
• David Johnson, "Actions Speak Louder than Words: The Cultural Significance of Chinese Ritual Opera," in: David Johnson ed., Ritual Opera, Operatic Ritual (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989) 1-43
• Marjory Topley, "Some Occasional Rites Performed by the Singapore Cantonese," Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society XXIV: 3 (1951) 120-144

• Franz Eichinger, "Kinderlosigkeit und ihre Bekampfung in der Volksmedizin," Folklore Studies, Supplement 1 (1952) 167-201
• Nagao Tatsuzô             , Shina minzoku shi                 (Tôkyô: Chûgoku minsoku kankôkai, 1940; reprinted by Zhongguo minsu xuehui and Dongfang wenhua shuju, n.p. [Taiwan], n.d.) (3 vols.) Extremely rich survey of folkloric and religious customs and rituals around the Chinese New Year and (getting) children.

Between 1949 and 1976

• Anita Chan, Richard Madsen, and Jonathan Unger, Chen Village: The Recent History of A Peasant Community in Mao’s China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), esp. pp. 87-90, 97 (a village in Guangdong). The absence of religious culture in this book is striking given its well-attested presence before 1949 and the wealth of evidence from other places that this culture continued to flourish elsewhere. It is unclear to me whether this is due to the authors, their informants in general, or the dat eat which the original interviewing was done (largely in 1975-1976, when the CR was still formally on).
• Edward Friedman, Paul G. Pickowicz, and Mark Selden, with Kay Ann Johnson, Chinese Village, Socialist State (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), pp. 5-7, 14-15, 20-26, 114-115, 120-121, 157, 182, 234-238, 254, 268-270 (on the northern Chinese village of Wugong).
• Goossaert, Vincent and David Palmer, The religious question in modern China (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 2012).
• Huang Shu-min, The Spiral Road: Change in a Chinese Village Through the Eyes of a Communist Party Leader (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989). While staying in a village near Xiamen (Amoy) in 1984-1985 Huang Shu-min encountered a local party secretary who was extremely open in telling about the recent history of his village as he had lived through it. The book is written as an interview, with further contextual information by the author. Contains various interesting accounts of geomancy, religious culture and family ('s fates) (esp. pp. 25-39, 102-103), marriage (pp. 99-100), local cult/temple (pp. 28, 151-162), Qingming festival (pp.55-56, in connection with the Great Famine), and 116 (claim to be a dangki), 129 (worship of hungry ghosts).
•  Lynn T. White III, Policies of Chaos: The Organizational Causes of  Violence in China’s Cultural Revolution (Princeton: Princeton UP 1989),  pp.  59, 134-135, 166-167, 211-213,  284-285 (mainly in Shanghai!)

• Holmes Welch, Buddhism under Mao (Cambridge [Mass.], Harvard University Press, 1972). Easily the only source on Buddhism in this period, like its two companion volumes based on extensive reading and interviewing of people who lived through this time.

After 1976

• Stephan Feuchtwang, Popular Religion in China: The Imperial Metaphor (London: Curzon, 2001). This significant book (more) now has a eight chapter that deals with religious culture and way in which post-1949 political culture has continued its demonological dimension.
• Goossaert, Vincent and David Palmer, The religious question in modern China (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 2012).
• Ian Johnson, The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao (Pantheon: New York, 2017). Lively and well0written reporon the author's search for local living religious culutre.
• Andrew B. Kipnis, "The Flourishing of Religion in Post-Mao China and the Anthropological Category of Religion", The Australian Journal of Anthropology 12:1 (2001) 32-46 gives a good introduction to the significance of religion as an analytical phenomenon in post-1976 CHina.
• James Miller comp. and ed., Chinese religions in contemporary societies (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2006) (also as e-book). Intended as a handbook to contemporary Chinese religious life, appropriately defining the topicin a very broad way. Reflects very much the strength and weaknesses of our knowledge, with informative contributions on local religion (Tam Wai Lun, characteristically only on southern China), Buddhism in mainland China (Ven. Jing Yin, too top-down for my taste), Daoist monasticism (Kim Sung-hae, i.e. the Complete Perfection teachings), shamanism on Taiwan (Alison Marshall, also see her dissertation on the topic), body cultivation and Qigong (David Palmer), Protestant Christianity (Francis Ching-wah Yip, fascinating topic), women (Tak-ling Terry Woo), Chinese religious life in America (Jonathan H.X. Lee) and American Daoism (Elijah Siegler), Confucian spirituality (He Xiang and James Miller). Extensive bibliographies for each chapter, and introductory chapters by James Miller.
• Tan Chee-beng ed., Southern Fujian: reproduction of traditions in Post-Mao China (Hong Kong : Chinese University Press, 2006), contains essays on the revival and present situation of religious life in southern Fujian, covering general issue (Tan Chee-bing; Wang Mingming), traditionalism to support identity among a Hui community (Fan Ke), lineage revival (Pan Hongli), religious life in Yongchun (Tang Chee-bing), the cult of Qingshui zushi (Kuah-Pearce Khun Eng), as well as essays on gender issues (Siumi Maria Tam and Ding Yuling).

These works by Human Rights Watch/Asia Watch indicate that religious freedom in only guaranteed, but not practised in any systematic way. They focus on mainstream, more institutionalized traditions, and offer little on local cults and ordinary religious specialists. More information on human rights and new religious groups can be found below.

• Asia Watch. Continuing Religious Repression in China. (New York: Asia Watch, 1993). [AP95.A22y]
• Asia Watch. (Spiegel, Mickey, Mirsky, Jonathan). Freedom of Religion in China. (New York: Asia Watch, 1992).
• Human Rights Watch/Asia. Detained in China and Tibet: a Directory of Political and Religious Prisoners. (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1994). [JX4263.P3 C439 1994]
• Human Rights Watch, China: State Control of Religion (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1997)

• Human Rights Watch (indepedent): http://www.hrw.org/ (successive reports)
• Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (independent): http://www.tfd.org.tw/
• USA State Department, at http://www.state.gov
• Amnesty International (independent): http://www.amnesty.org/

• Chan Kim-kwong and Eric Carlson eds., Religious Freedom in China: Policy, Administration and Regulation (Santa Barbara: Institute for the Study of American Religion/ Hong Kong: HK Institute for Culture, Commerce and Religion, 2005). This book serves as an excellent introduction replacing earlier work by D. McInnes (below).
• Chinese Law and Government 36: 2 (2003) 3-105 translates a number of documents, including rules and regulations, as well as actual instances of religious suppression.
• Stephan Feuchtwang and Wang Mingming,  "The Politics of Culture or a Contest of Histories: Representations of Chines Popular Religion", Dialectical Anthropology 16 (1991) 251-272. On the study of "popular religion"  in the PRC by Chinese scholars, put against the background of Western anthropological approaches.
• Fullton, Bent. "Freedom of Religion in China: the Emerging Civic Discourse." In Randy Kluver, et al. ed. Civic Discourse, Civil Society, and Chinese Communities. (Stamford: Ablex Publ., 1999) 53-66. .
• Hunter, Alan and Don Rimmington, eds. All under Heaven. Chinese Tradition and Christian Life in the People's Republic of China.(Kerk en Theologie in Context ; 17).  (Kampen: Uitgeversmaatschappij J.H. Kok, 1992) [BR1288.A44 1992] This is quite a nice little booklet, based on actual knowledge of the field and not a superficial introduction based on secondary literature. Contents:
• Hunter/Rimmington. "Religion and Social Change in contemporary China." 11-37.
• Kim-Kwong Chan. "A Chinese Perspective on the Interpretation of the Chinese Government's Religious Policy." 38-44.
• Stephan Feuchtwang. "The Old and the New: A Commentary on the Control of Popular Religion in the PRC. 45-54.(based on the author's 1990s fieldwork)
• Bob Whyte. " Some Reflections on Protestant Life in China. 55-68.
• Edmond Tang. "A Year of Confrontations: The Catholic Church in China in 1898." 69-79.
• Feng Chongyi, Gregor Benton. "Chinese Youth Today: The Crises of Belief." 80-90. (essay based on literary works)
• Hunter/Rimmington. "Train up a Child: Attitudes Towards Religion and Atheism among Chinese Students." 91-107 (brief survey study among Chinese students in Great Britain).
• Carver Yu. "The Relevance of Christian Humanism to the Quest for Democracy in China." 108-114.
• George Hood. "What has Changed? - A Vignette of Shantou." 115-121.
• Adrian Hastings. "The Christian-Chinese Encounter." 122-126.
• Francesca Rhys. "When Dusk Disappeared: Religion in a Contemporary Short Story." 127-135.
• "Selected bibliography of English language journals, books, and periodicals." 136-138.
• Luo Zhufeng ed., Religion Under Socialism in China ( PLACE; M.E. Sharpe, 1991.)
• MacInnis, Donald E., Religious Policy and Practice in Communist China: A Documentary History ( London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1967)
• Donald E. MacInnes, Religion in China Today: Policy and Practice (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1989).
• Julian Pas ed., The Turning of the Tide: Religion in China Today (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Branch Royal Asiatic Society and Oxford University Press, 1989)
• David A. Palmer, "China's Religious Danwei: Institutionalising Religion in the People's Republic", China Perspectives 2009:4, pp. 17-30
• Pitman Potter, "Belief in Control: Regulation of Religion in China", in: Daniel Overmyer, ed., Religion in China Today (The China Ian Johnson, The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao (Pantheon: New York, 2017)Quarterly Special Issue) (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003), pp. 11-31
• Ying Fuk Tsang, "New Wine in Old Wineskins: an Appraisal of Religious Legislation in China and the Regulations on Religious Affairs of 2005", Religion, State and Society 34:4 (2006), pp.343-373

• Marianne Bujard, “Le culte du Joyau de Chen : culte historique-culte vivant,” Cahiers d’Extrême Asie 10 (1998), pp. 131-181. Large part of this article is devoted to the current revival of this cult in southern Shaanxi, which dates back to 746B.C. Interesting is her account of the tensions between a local medium-healeress and the Daoist priest.
• Chau, Adam Yuet,Miraculous response : doing popular religion in contemporary China (Stanford, Calif : Stanford University Press, 2006). Detailed fieldstudy with one local cult in northern Shaanxi as its starting point.
• Kenneth Dean, Taoist Ritual and Popular Cults of Southeast China (Princeton UP, Princeton, 1993). This is a wonderful book, but at times almost drowns the reader in information.
• Kenneth Dean, "Transformations of the she (altars of the soil) in Fujian", Cahiers d’Extrême Asie 10 (1998), pp.19-75. After a lengthy historical introduction on the she cult in Fujian, the author turns to the modern era on the basis of his extensive fieldwork in Putian (Xinghua) (pp. 63-72)
• Diane Dorfman, "The Spirits of Reform: The Power of Belief in Northern China", Positions 4: 2 (1996) 253-289. On the charismatic animal cults of northern China and their revival post-1976.
• Stephan Feuchtwang. "The Old and the New: A Commentary on the Control of Popular Religion in the PRC" in: Hunter, Alan and Don Rimmington, eds. All under Heaven. Chinese Tradition and Christian Life in the People's Republic of China.(Kerk en Theologie in Context ; 17).  (Kampen: Uitgeversmaatschappij J.H. Kok, 1992) [BR1288.A44 1992], pp. 45-54. Feuchtwang is well-acquainted with religious culture in Taiwan as well as the PRC (esp. Fujian).
• Stephan Feuchtwang, "Local Identity and Village Identity", in: Tao Tao Liu and David Faure eds., Unity and Diversity: Local Cultures and Identities in China (Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong, 1998),  161-176. On the return of local cults and festivals as the nucleus of local society, based on fieldwork in the early 1990s.
• -------------------------, "What is a village?", in: Vermeer, Eduard B.; Pieke, Frank N.; Chong, Woei Lien, eds. Cooperative and collective in China's rural development: between state and private interests (Armonk, N.Y.; London: M.E. Sharpe, 1998), pp. 46-74. Roughly same theme as above. Subjects
• John Flower and Pamela Leonard, "Defining cultural life in the Chinese countryside: the case of the Chuan Zhu Temple", in: Vermeer, Eduard B.; Pieke, Frank N.; Chong, Woei Lien, eds. Cooperative and collective in China's rural development: between state and private interests ( Armonk, N.Y.; London: M.E. Sharpe, 1998), pp. 273-290. On revival and change of local cult in Sichuan led by local people as part of local society.
• Ikels, Charlotte, "Serving the Ancestors, Serving the State: Filial Piety and Death Ritual in Contemporary Guangzhou", in: Charlotte Ikels ed.,Filial Piety: Practice and Discourse in Contemporary East Asia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), pp. 88-105
• Johnson, David, Spectacle andSsacrifice: The ritual Foundations of Village Life in North China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2009) publishes Johnson's important long term research on local exorcist ritual traditions in northern CHina.
• See also the work by Stephen Jones on northern CHina.
• John Lagerwey, "Dingguang gufuo: Oral and Written Sources in the Study of a Saint," Cahiers d’Extrême Asie 10 (1998), pp. 77-129. After a lengthy historical analysis, the author also discusses recent stories on and rituals around this Hakka deity (pp. 106-127). In the bibliography he refers to further work by himself and others on present-day Hakka religious culture in southwestern Fujian.
• Helen Siu,  "Recycling ritual", In P. Link, R. Madsen and P.Pickowicz eds. , Unofficial China: Popular Culture and Thought in the People's Republic (Boulder: Westview, 1990).
• Helen Siu, "Recycling Tradition: Culture, History, and Political Economy in the Chrysantthemeum Festival of South China", in: Comparative Study of Society and History (1990) 765-794.

• The recent Amnesty International report on the Falun Gong also contains much information on the persecutions of new religious groups.  It can be found here (local site).
• Ann S. Anagnost, "The Beginning and End of Emperor: A Counterrepresentation of the State", Modern China, 11:2 (1985), pp. 147-176. For a different interpretation of its context, stressing its traditional nature, see my own "China's inner demons: the political impact of the demonological paradigm," China Information, Vol. XI, Nos. 2/3 (1996-1997) 54-88.
• Asia Watch comp., Detained in China and Tibet: A Directory of Political and Religious Prisoners (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1994), pp. 250-271, 342-350. Revealing document on the scale of religious persecution, as well as the phenomenon of new religious groups itself.
• Kenneth Dean, Lord of the Three in One: The Spread of a Cult in Southeast China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998).
• Robin Munro, "Syncretic Sects and Secret Societies: Revival in the 1980s", in Chinese Sociology and Anthropology, 21:4 (1989). Translation of PRC documents produced in the course of pesrecuting and controlling new religious groups and so-called secret societies.
• Munro, Robin  "Judicial Psychiatry in China and its Political Abuses", first published in Colombia Journal of Asian Law 14:1 (2001), republished separately as Geneva Initiative in Psychiatry Documents 1 (2001). Details  the abuse of psychiatry for dealing with political and religious dissidents, including an extensive section on the use of psychiatry to suppress the Falun Gong.
• David Ownby ed., David Ownby and Qiao Peihua trsl., "Scriptures of the Way of the Temple of the Heavenly Immortals", Chinese Studies in History 29: 3 (1996) 5-101. Discussion

• Regula Preiswerk, "Budddhismus im heutigen China: Innen- und Aussenansichten der buddhistischen Welt in Shanghai 1995" (MA thesis, Heidelberg University, 1997; based on secondary literature and fieldwork in Shanghai in the summer of 1995).

• Kenneth Dean, Taoist Ritual and Popular Cults of Southeast China (Princeton UP, Princeton, 1993)
• Herrou, Adeline, La vie entre soi: les moines taoïstes aujourd’hui en Chine (Nanterre: Société d’ethnologie, 2005).
• Lagerwey, John. Le continent des esprits: la Chine dans le mirroir du taoïsme (Bruxelles: La Renaissance du Livre,  1991) (there are English and German translations of this work).  Probably the best illustrated introduction to Daoist religious traditions presently available, including many photographs.
• John Lagerwey, "The Pilgrimage to Wu-tang Shan," in: Susan Naquin and Yü Chün-fang eds., Pilgrims and Sacred Sites in China (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1992), 293-332 deals with the Wudang pilgrimage.

• Ole Bruun, Fengshui in China: Geomantic Divination between State Orthodoxy and Popular Religion (Copenhagen: NIAS Press// Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003). On geomancy as thought and practice, including both a historical analysis of geomancy since 1850, an analysis of state attitudes, and several case studies. in the
• David Johnson, "Actions Speak Louder than Words: The Cultural Significance of Chinese Ritual Opera," in: David Johnson ed., Ritual Opera, Operatic Ritual (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989) 1-43. Standard introduction to this topic.
• Stephen Jones, Ritual and music of north China: Shawm Bands in Shanxi (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007) and Ritual and music of north China: Shaanbei (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009) are first of all descriptions of musical specialists in northern China, but also of the local rituals in which they play such a crucial role.
• Stephen Jones, In Search of the Folk Daoists of North China (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010) is yet another book based on extensive fieldwork of living Daoist traditions in northern CHina
• -------------, Daoist priests of the Li family: ritual life in village China (St. Petersburg, FL: Three Pines Press, 2017) and the other books by the same author provide lots of information on the fate of Daoist ritual masters (in northern CHina) during the 20th century. Also see the author's blog for loads of additional information (and growing almost by the day).
• Jo Riley, Chinese Theatre and the Actor in Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Also treats local traditions of exorcist theatre cum  ritual. Whether her analysis of the latter is also applicable to the actorial performance practice of the Beijing Opera (jingju) that she also treats in some detail in this book remains unclear (to me). Otherwise a very challenging book.

• Nancy Chen, "Urban spaces and experiences of Qigong", in Deberah S. Davis (ed.), Urban Spaces in Contemporary China (Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1995).
• Nancy Chen, "Possession and the State: Deviation and Mental Health in the People's Republic of China," (PhD Dissertation, University of California at Berkeley, 1993).
• Nancy Chen, Breathing Spaces: Qigong, Psychiatry, and Healing in China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003).
• Catherine Despeux, "Le qigong, une expression de la modernité chinoise", Jacques Gernet and Marc Kalinowski .comp.,  En suivant la Voie Royale, Mélanges en hommage à Léon Vandermeersch (Paris: École française de l'extrême orient, 1997) 267-281. Important article by the foremost  Western expert on body practices such as taijiquan, qigong and the like, including a useful bibliography of Chinese works and journals on qigong. Contains pertinent remarks on its historical roots and its promotion and further development in the Maoist  and post-Maoist eras.
• Elisabeth Hsu, The Transmission of Chinese Medicine (Cambridge [etc.] : Cambridge University Press, 1999). Rich data on post 1976 teachers, based on fieldwork in the 1980s.
• Evelyn Micollier, "Control and Release of Emotions in Qigong Health Practices", China Perspectives 24 (1999) 22-31 (her PhD deals with these topics as well, but is not publicly available). Excellent contribution with good analytical points and further references to interpretational literature.
• ---------------, "Entre science et religion, modernité et tradition: Le discours pluriel des pratiquants du Qigong," in: J. Benoit ed., Soigner au pluriel. Essays sur le pluralisme médical (Paris: Karthala, 1996), 205-223 (not yet seen)
• Miura Kunio, "The revival of Qi: Qigong in Contemporary China", in Livia Kohn (ed.), Taoist Meditation and Longevity Techniques  (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1989).
• Ots, Thomas, Medizin und Heilung in China : Annäherungen an die traditionelle Medizin (Berlin: Reimer, 1990). (R601.O8y)
• Ots, Thomas,  Stiller Körper - Lauter Leib : Aufstieg und Untergang der jungen chinesische Heilbewegung Kranich-Qigong (PhD dissertation, Hamburg, 1991) (RM727.C54 O46y 1991)  (These two works by Ots contain  good information on traditional Chinese healing, including the practice of Qigong for healing purposes based on  the author's fieldwork experiences)
• Ots, Thomas, "The Silenced Body - The Expressive Leib: on the Dialectic of Mind and Life in Chinese Cathartic Healing",  in: Thomas J. Csordas ed., Embodiment and Experience: The Existential Ground of Culture and Self (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 116-136. Takes up ideas and materials treated in more detail in Ots' dissertation (Ots has had both medical and China studies training).
• Palmer, David, La fièvre du qigong. Guérison, religion et politique en Chine, 1949-1999 (Paris: Editions de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 2004) and the English version Qigong Fever. Body, Science, and Utopia (Columbia University Press: New York, 2007)(This is based on real in-depth research on Qigong movements, especially in the 1990s, including the Zhonggong and the Falun Gong.)
• Penny, Benjamin, "Qigong, Daoism and Science: some contexts for the qigong boom" in M. Lee and A.D. Syrokomla-Stefanowska (eds.), Modernisation of the Chinese Past (Sydney: Wild Peopy, 1993) 166-179. (not seen)
• Jian Xu, "Body, Discourse, and the Cultural Politics of Contemporary Chinese Qigong," The Journal of Asia Studies 58: 3 (1999) 961-991.
• Zhu Xiaoyang and Benjamin Penny eds., "The Qigong Boom", Chinese Sociology and Anthropology 1994, Vol. 27:1. In this issue an interesting bunch of documents is translated (by Paul Lam and John Minford), which throw further light on the religious side of Qigong  movements and their claims of healing.

Christianity and Islam in the PRC

A top-down perspective

• Luo Zhufeng, ed. Religion under Socialism in China (Zhongguo shehui zhuyi shiqi de zongjiao wenti). Translated by Donald E. MacInnis and Zheng Xi'an, with an introduction by Donald E MacInnis, with a foreword by Bishop K. H. Ting. (Armonk; Sharpe, 1991)
• MacInnis, Donald E. Religious Policy and Practice in Communist China: A Documentary History (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1967).
• MacInnis, Donald E. Religion in China Today: Policy and Practice. (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Book, 1989). (German: Religion im heutigen China: Politik und Praxis. Nettetal: Steyler, 1993) ( BL1802.M29 G5)

• Bays, Daniel H., ed. Christianity in China. From the Eighteenth Century to the Present (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996). Not directly relevant to the PRC, but full of very informative and high quality historical contributions on a slightly earlier period. .
• Heyndrickx, Jeroom, ed. Historiography of the Catholic Church. Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Leuven: Ferdinand Verbiest Foundation, 1994).
• Alan Hunter and Kim-Kwong Chan. Protestantism in Contemporary China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
• Richard Madsen, China's Catholics. Tragedy and Hope in an Emerging Civil Society. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). This is very nice book indeed, based on a wealth of written and oral information. It shows how Catholicism is really Catholicisms, and very much part  of the Chinese religious scene, rather than some kind of imposed phenomenon. Contains an excellent bibliography.
• Standaert, N., ed. Handbook of Oriental Studies: Christianity in China, Volume I: To 1800; and R. G. Tiedemann, ed. Handbook of Oriental Studies: Christianity in China, volume II: 1800-Present. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, in press [2000]).

• Dru Gladney  C.,  Muslim Chinese : Ethnic Nationalism in the People's Republic (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Pr., 1991)  (DS731.M87 G53 1991) This is the Western standardwork on Islam in PRC China today.