Yanfei Sun, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Sociology
Zhejiang University, Hangzhou
Born in 1976 in Zhejiang, China
Studied Sociology at the University of Chicago
Arbeitsvorhaben
Premodern Empires and Religious Toleration: A Historical Comparative Study
Existing studies of empires emphasize the high capacity of premodern empires to stomach and skillfully exploit religious, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversities. They thereby belie the fact that premodern empires displayed vast differences in the handling of religious diversity in their territories – while some empires allowed all kinds of religions to flourish, other empires persecuted heretics and nonbelievers and carried out forced conversion. During my stay at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, I will work on my book manuscript that seeks to map and explain the variations among more than 30 selected premodern Eurasian empires in their level of toleration of different religions. This book manuscript will argue that a premodern empire’s level of toleration of different religions is not primarily determined by the state capacity, geopolitics, or the specific attributes of the religious ecology in that empire, but by the nature of the state religion installed by the premodern empire. It will further argue that an empire tended to be intolerant when its state religion had a zero-sum mentality (zero-sumness) toward other religions and a strong conversion drive (evangelicalness).Zero-sum evangelical state religions could lead to religious wars, inquisitions, religious persecution, and forced conversion. These were commonplace in premodern Europe where Christianity, a quintessential zero-sum evangelical religion, reigned. Yet, it was also in this land of extreme religious intolerance that the modern ideologies of religious liberty were born. The book manuscript will reflect on this great paradox of history.
In the age of secularism, the political influence of zero-sum evangelical religions seemed to have waned. Yet, the zero-sum/evangelical mentality continues to profoundly shape the world we live in, manifesting itself in various secular ideologies and movements, when their advocates still think in a true/false or right/wrong binary mode and strive for hegemony.
Recommended Reading
Sun, Yanfei (2014). “Popular Religion in Zhejiang: Feminization, Bifurcation, and Buddhification.” Modern China 40 (5): 455–487.
— (2017). “The Rise of Protestantism in Post-Mao China: State and Religion in Historical Perspective.” American Journal of Sociology 122 (6): 1664–1725.
— (2019). “Reversal of Fortune: Growth Trajectories of Catholicism and Protestantism in Modern China.” Theory and Society 48 (2): 267–298.
Publikationen aus der Fellowbibliothek
Sun, Yanfei (Dordrecht [u.a.], 2019)
Reversal of fortune : growth trajectories of Catholicism and Protestantism in modern China
Sun, Yanfei (Chicago, Ill., 2017)
The rise of protestantism in post-Mao China : state and religion in historical perspective
Sun, Yanfei (London, 2014)
Popular religion in Zhejiang : feminization, bifurcation, and Buddhification
