{"product_id":"stating-the-sacred-religion-china-and-the-formation-of-the-nationstate-9780231193566","title":"Stating the Sacred Religion China and the","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eStating the Sacred\u003c\/i\u003e offers a novel approach to nation-state formation, arguing that its most critical element is how the state sacralizes the nation. Focusing primarily on China, Michael J. Walsh argues that the foundational role of the sacred makes all nation-states religious states.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs an anatomy of sacralization, territorialization, and violence, \u003ci\u003eStating the Sacred \u003c\/i\u003eilluminates state formation in China through brilliant exposition, dwelling in vivid details, historical depths, and current controversies, but also through uncovering brutal truths of state formation in the modern world. This book is a major contribution to our understanding of how the sacred works in the modern and how the modern works the sacred. -- David Chidester, author of \u003ci\u003eEmpire of Religion: Imperialism and Comparative Religion\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eStating the Sacred\u003c\/i\u003e, Michael J. Walsh parses what China's postcoloniality and South African apartheid have in common: the sacredness of violence. Drawing upon a wealth of theoretical insight from Schmidt on political theology, Bataille on sacrifice, to Agamban on profanation, and Barthes on myth, Walsh is especially insightful on how the Chinese avowedly atheist party-state adroitly rules through its stringent and energetic containment of religion, channeling those energies into policies on territorial sovereignty and citizenship itself. These tactics range beyond patriotic Christian organizations and registering all the clergy everywhere, to policing reincarnation among the Tibetan Buddhist and reeducation of Uyghur Muslims in camps. For Walsh, this sense of 'religion,' shared by China with many other places, becomes the modern repository of violence and mythos that he finds fundamental to any nation-state formation. -- Angela Zito, coeditor of \u003ci\u003eDV-Made China: Digital Subjects and Social Transformations after Independent Film\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecommended. * Choice *\u003cbr\u003e[A] brilliant analysis of contemporary China. * Reading Religion *\u003cbr\u003eThis is an innovative study that gives particular consideration to the role of the sacred in the formation of the PRC state, and to nation-states more generally. * Journal of Church and the State *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePreface\u003cbr\u003e1. Territory\u003cbr\u003e2. Constitution\u003cbr\u003e3. Religion\u003cbr\u003e4. Reincarnation\u003cbr\u003e5. Contact\u003cbr\u003e6. Nativity\u003cbr\u003eGlossary\u003cbr\u003eNotes\u003cbr\u003eBibliography\u003cbr\u003eIndex","brand":"Columbia University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49400343527767,"sku":"9780231193566","price":72.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780231193566.jpg?v=1730470445","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/stating-the-sacred-religion-china-and-the-formation-of-the-nationstate-9780231193566","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}