Date: Tuesday 1 December 

Time: 3:00-4:15PM

Location: AB 3103

Guest Speaker: Lena Scheen, Associate Professor of Global China Studies, NYU Shanghai

Abstract: For centuries, the rural landscape of Pudong, east of Shanghai’s Huangpu River, was dotted with Catholic churches and Daoist temples whose communities lived side by side, sometimes peacefully, sometimes in fierce competition. This lecture explores four centuries of encounters between these communities, arguing that Pudong’s peripheral geographic and administrative position enabled persistent forms of “negotiated noncompliance,” in which religious prohibitions were selectively enforced or circumvented through local accommodation. Under these conditions, Catholic and Daoist institutions became important sources of communal protection and authority, competing over ritual space and legitimacy within a shared religious landscape.

Bio: Lena Scheen is an associate professor of global China studies at NYU Shanghai. Her research explores Shanghai’s contested memory politics, focusing on cultural expression and state and grassroots practices. She is the author of Shanghai Literary Imaginings: A City in Transformation. Her new book on Shanghai’s cultural heritage politics is forthcoming with De Gruyter Brill.