Prof David A Palmer
Professor
9.01, 9/F., The Jockey Club Tower, Centennial Campus
3917 2051
Dr David A Palmer is a Professor jointly appointed by the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong, which he joined in 2008. After completing his Ph.D. at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (School for Advanced Research, Université Paris PSL), he was the Eileen Barker Fellow in Religion and Contemporary Society in the Department of Sociology of the London School of Economics and Political Science, and, from 2004 to 2008, director of the Hong Kong Centre of the French School of Asian Studies (Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient), located at the Institute for Chinese Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Palmer’s interdisciplinary research and teaching is situated at the intersection of anthropology and sociology, and is informed by scholarly traditions in history, religious studies and Sinology. He is best known for his award-winning books The Religious Question in Modern China (Joseph Levenson Award of the Association for Asian Studies and PROSE award of the American Publishers’ Association, co-authored with V. Goossaert) and Qigong Fever: Body, Science and Utopia in China (Francis L.K. Hsu Award of the Society for East Asian Anthropology), both of which have become essential reading for studies on contemporary Chinese society and religion. His latest book Dream Trippers: Global Daoism and the Predicament of Modern Spirituality (co-authored with E. Siegler) was published in 2017 by the University of Chicago Press, and in Chinese by HKU Press. He has also published numerous articles, journal issues and edited volumes on Chinese religion, civil society, Daoism, the Bahá’í Faith, and modern and transnational religious movements. His writings have been published in journals such as Current Anthropology, American Anthropologist, Economy and Society, American Journal of Cultural Sociology, the Journal of Asian Studies and Modern Asian Studies.
He leads the “Asian Religious Connections” research cluster at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences; is co-convenor of the “Culture, Community and Social Equity” research cluster in the HKU Faculty of Social Sciences; and is co-convenor of the HKU Anthropology Research Network. He is currently the President of the East Asian Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.
PhD Anthropology of Religion
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Sorbonne, Paris)MPhil Clinical Psychology / Medical Anthropology
University of Paris-VIIIBA Anthropology and East Asian Studies
McGill University (Montreal, Canada)Anthropology and Sociology of Spirituality and Religion, especially Daoism and Chinese religion; religion in modern and contemporary China; inter-Asian and transnational religious circulations; Baháʼí Faith.
Civil society, volunteering, philanthropy, community engagement and development studies
Cultural and religious interactions on the Belt and Road
Global China, Local Cultures: Chinese Modernity and Soft Power on the Belt and Road. PI, RGC Research Fellowship, 2021-2025.
Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road. Project Coordinator, Hong Kong Collaborative Research Fund (CRF), 2019-2023.
Rituals and Manuscripts of the Lanten Yao (Laos). PI, Hong Kong General Research Fund (GRF), 2021-2024.
Religious Cosmopolitanism in China, 1895-1927. PI, Hong Kong General Research Fund (GRF), 2021-2024.
HK Research Grants Council RGC Research Fellowship, 2021-2025.
HK Research Grants Council Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship, 2019
Edward Bruner Prize for the best book in the Anthropology of Tourism by the American Anthropological Association (Anthropology of Tourism Interest Group); HKU Faculty of Social Sciences Outstanding Research Output Award – Dream Trippers: Global Daoism and the Predicament of Modern Spirituality.
Levenson Award for the best book on Modern China by the Association for Asian Studies; PROSE Award for the best academic book on religion by the American Publishers’ Association – The Religious Question in Modern China
Francis L. K. Hsu award for best book on East Asian Anthropology by the American Anthropological Association (Society for East Asian Anthropology) – Qigong Fever: Body, Science and Utopia in China
Authored books:
Dream Trippers: Global Daoism and the Predicament of Modern Spirituality (University of Chicago Press, 2017, co-authored with Elijah Siegler). Chinese edition, in Open Access: ：《夢道華山：全球道教與現代靈性的困境》。香港：香港大學出版社。
The Religious Question in Modern China (University of Chicago Press, 2011, co-authored with Vincent Goossaert).
Qigong Fever: Body, Science and Utopia in China (Columbia University Press, 2007; released in paperback 2020).
Edited books:
The Civil Sphere in East Asia, ed. by Jeffrey Alexander, David A. Palmer, Agnes Ku and Sunwoon Park (Cambridge University Press, 2019).
Chinese Religious Life (Oxford University Press, 2012; Chinese edition (中國人的宗教生活) at the Hong Kong University Press, 2014), co-edited with Glenn Shive and Philip WIckeri.
Daoism in the 20th Century: Between Eternity and Modernity (University of California Press, 2012), co-edited with Xun Liu. Available in Open Access
Selected recent articles and book chapters:
Civil Society and Development Studies:
Intimate Utopias: anti‑politics in Chinese civil society (with Rundong Ning). American Journal of Cultural Sociology. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41290-024-00220-0
Warriors of the City State: Chin Wan, Chinese Religion, and Hong Kong Localism. Journal of Asian Studies 83:2 (2024): 347–359.
“Ethics of the Heart: Moral Breakdown and the Aporia of Chinese Volunteers” (with Rundong Ning). Current Anthropology 61:4 (2020): 395-417.
“Chinese NGOs at the Interface between Governmentality and Local Society: An Actor-Oriented Perspective” (with Qing Liu). China Information (2020), DOI: 10.1177/0920203X20942094
“Black Bloc against Red China: Tears and Revenge in the Trenches of the New Cold War”. Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 10:2 (2020).
“Neo-Socialist Governmentality: Managing Freedom in the Peoples’ Republic of China” (with Fabian Winiger). Economy and Society 48:4 (2019), pp. 554-578
“The Civil Sphere in the Cultural and Political Transformations of Modern East Asia”, in Jeffrey Alexander, David A. Palmer, Agnes Ku and Sunwoong Park (eds.), The Civil Sphere in East Asia. Cambridge University Press, 2019, pp. 1-17.
“Three Moral Codes and Micro-Civil Spheres in China,” in Jeffrey Alexander, David A. Palmer, Agnes Ku and Sunwoong Park eds., The Civil Sphere in East Asia. Cambridge University Press, 2019, pp. 126-147.
Daoism and Chinese Religion:
Ethnography and Manuscripts: New Approaches to the Study of Yao Religion, Studies in Chinese Religions 《華人宗教研究》 19 (2022) 1-11.
〈《老撾藍靛瑤文庫》：探討文本收集、編目、分類和評估的方法與相關問題〉[The Textual Corpus of the Lanten Yao of Laos: Methodological Issues in the Collection, Classification, Cataloguing and Evaluation of Manuscripts.] (with Guo Huiwen, Joseba Estevez et al.)《華人宗教研究 》Studies in Chinese Religions 19: 25-64.
Isomorphic or poly-ontological pluralism? The implications of Chinese religion for covenantal pluralism.In Chris Seiple and Dennis Hoover eds, The Routledge Handbook of Religious Literacy, Pluralism, and Global Engagement, New York: Routledge, 2021, pp. 120-135.
“Cosmology, Gender, Structure and Rhythm: Marcel Granet and Chinese Religion in the History of Social Theory.” Review of Religion and Chinese Society 6 (2019): 160-187. Chinese version: 〈葛兰言的中国文明研究对法国人类学理论的影响〉载梁永嘉主编：《人类学研究·第17辑》
“Guanyin’s Limbo: Icons as Demi-Persons and Dividual Objects” (with Chip Colwell and Martin Tse). American Anthropologist. Published online first, 23 Aug. 2019.
“Occulting the Dao: Daoist Inner Alchemy, French Spiritism and Vietnamese Colonial Modernity in Caodai Translingual Practice” (with Jeremy Jammes). Journal of Asian Studies 77:2 (2018), 405-428.
Baháʼí Faith:
“The Cosmopolitan Moment in Colonial Modernity: The Bahá’í Faith, Spiritual Networks and Universalist Movements in early Twentieth Century China” (with Zhaoyuan Wan). Modern Asian Studies. Published online first, 2019.Nurturing Inherent Nobility: Insights on Human Dignity from a Bahá’í Perspective (With Temily Tavangar). Religions 14:2 (2022). https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14020250
The Bahá’í Faith and Covenantal Pluralism: Promoting Oneness, Respecting Difference (with Temily Tavangar) The Review of Faith & International Affairs, 19:2 (2021), 29-39.
Toward an Expanded Conception of Power: Exploring the Concept of Moral Empowerment Emerging in the Field of Baháʼí-Inspired Education (with Victor Ali), in Simon Shui Man Kwan ed., Asian Spiritualities and Social Transformation, chap. 5. (2023), Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-2641-1_8.
A Baháʼí Perspective on Conscious Capitalism: Working for Individual, Organizational, and Systemic Transformation(with Joseph McCormick) In Michel Dion & Moses Pava eds., Spirit of Conscious Capitalism : Contributions of World Religions and Spiritualities, chap. 17 (2023). Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10204-2_17.
Religion, Spiritual Principles and Civil Society, in Ben Schewel and Geoff Cameron eds., Religion and Public Discourse in an Age of Transition: Reflections on Baha’i Practice and Thought. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, pp. 37-69.