The Frederick W. Mote Memorial Lecture: Chinese Literati and their Gods

Like most humans, late imperial (1520-1920) Chinese literati lived in a society that was comprised of more than living humans; they also closely interacted with the dead and various spirits and gods. The increasing availability over the longue durée of ritual techniques to sustain bonds with invisible beings made interpersonal, affective bonds between humans and gods ever more common and significant. The lecture will survey these techniques and their written outcomes, and what they tell us about the lives of the literati.

Vincent Goossaert (PhD, EPHE, Paris, 1997) is Professor of Daoism and Chinese religions at EPHE, PSL. He is co-editor of T’oung Pao, a leading journal in sinology established in 1890. His research deals with the social history of Chinese religion in late imperial and modern times, especially Daoism, religious professions, socio-religious regulations, productions of moral norms, and human-divine sociability. He has published about twenty books, including The Beef Taboo in China : Agriculture, Ethics, and Sacrifice, transl. Barbara Ambros (University of Hawai’i Press, 2025), Making the Gods Speak: The Ritual Production of Revelation in Chinese History (Harvard University Asia Center, 2022), and Heavenly Masters: Two Thousand Years of the Daoist State (University of Hawai’i Press & Chinese University Press, 2021).