Grassroots Charisma: Four Local Leaders in China

by Feuchtwang,Stephan

• ISBN13: 9780415244183
• ISBN10: 0415244188
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-09-21
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This book relates the stories of four leaders under very different political regimes and compares Chinese notions of respect and inspiration with their equivalents in other religious and political histories of colonial and post-colonial modernity, thereby producing a thorough re-working of the idea of charisma.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	viii
Preface	ix
Introduction	1	(9)
Gender and religious authority in China	2	(1)
Mingming and Stephan	3	(2)
The structure and content of the book	5	(1)
States and local histories	6	(1)
Retelling other people's stories	7	(1)
The authority of religion and its politics	8	(2)
Charisma	10	(13)
Max Weber on charisma	11	(2)
Two anthropologists on Western charisma	13	(2)
Other traditions of charisma	15	(5)
The juncture of times and historicity	20	(3)
PART I Meifa	23	(56)
Meifa and its festivals in southern Fujian	25	(17)
Fa Zhu Gong	25	(4)
Reconstructing the history of Meifa	29	(1)
An annual cycle and its wider world	30	(4)
The economy and organisation of festival ritual	34	(1)
Twentieth-century adaptations	35	(5)
A local history	40	(2)
Revolution, fortune and respect: Darkface (Wansheng)	42	(21)
The pivot of Wansheng's story	43	(4)
Being a good cadre	47	(6)
The Cultural Revolution and the cult of Mao	53	(3)
The turning point	56	(2)
Towards rehabilitation	58	(5)
Revitalisation of Meifa's identity	63	(16)
Authority and force	73	(2)
On the language of respect	75	(4)
PART II Shiding	79	(78)
Shiding and its temple	81	(13)
The General	83	(2)
Interlude	85	(3)
The Immortal	88	(2)
The tension between temple management and public festivals	90	(3)
A place in its own authority	93	(1)
Writing and inspiration: the story of Dark Wood (Wumu)	94	(23)
Spirit-writing	95	(1)
A career of charisma	96	(3)
The ritual of writing	99	(4)
Canonisation	103	(4)
Inspiration with many authors	107	(5)
One and many dictators	112	(1)
Creation in a field of intentions	113	(4)
The location of face: Lin Qingbiao	117	(8)
Custom reform	118	(1)
Post-war revitalisation	119	(1)
A rough tongue and an upright character	120	(2)
Face, place and story	122	(3)
Reform and refinement: Gao Bineng	125	(17)
A good official	125	(3)
Gao Bineng's version of the Immortal	128	(1)
A change of authority	129	(7)
A new face for Shiding	136	(4)
Politics, religion and personal authority	140	(2)
Gao Bineng at ninety: charismatic authority and the new politics of Taiwan	142	(15)
Self-composition	142	(3)
The politics of Taiwan and its martyrs	145	(3)
A politics of culture and community	148	(5)
Authority and respect in Shiding	153	(4)
PART III Conclusions	157	(17)
Charisma in Shiding and Meifa	159	(6)
Shiding and Meifa as places in politics of culture	161	(4)
The dispersal of charisma under a national canopy	165	(9)
A final word	172	(2)
Notes	174	(20)
References	194	(6)
Index	200