Report of Religions and Local Society in the Historical, Comparative, and Theoretical Perspectives

It was one of the two major events this summer in celebration of Timothy Brook's retirement from teaching positions, after serving the academia for almost four decades as a leading historian of China.It paid special tribute to one of Brook's earlier monographs, Praying for Power: Buddhism and the Formation of Gentry Society in Late-Ming China (Harvard University Press, 1993), a landmark contribution in the studies of religions and Chinese societies from sociological and regional perspectives.Forty-two presentations, organized in eleven panels, together attested to the long-lasting influence of Brook's pioneering work as well as its high relevance in today's world.Building upon the legacy in China and Buddhism, however, these presentations demonstrated stunning religious, regional, historical, and methodological diversities, ranging from Abrahamic religions to popular beliefs, from Europe to Southeast Asia, from the ancient world to the contemporary, and from anthropological ethnography to digital humanities.This manifested an admirable mode of scholarly production and reproduction: an exemplary study focused on a particular theme and locality inspired the rise of multidimensional explorations across various boundaries

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