Creative Evolution

I study religion, gender, and politics in transnational Asia. My research stands at the forefront of the affective turn in religious studies with insights into the interplay of critical religion, multiple empires, and intraminority solidarity.

My first book, Religion, Secularism, and Love as a Political Discourse in Modern China (2025), reveals the religious roots of secular nationalism through the first systematic study of the evolution of ai 愛 (love) as a political discourse in modern Chinese politics. It interrogates secular narratives of (socialist) modernity, offers a fresh perspective on the role of religion and religious affects in contemporary politics, and advances the study of religious affects by pointing out that political efficacy flows through not only bodies and emotions but also specific languages of affects. This book expands not only the discussion of the role of emotions in modern Chinese politics but also the study of affective governance and religious nationalisms around the world today.

I am a member of the Hong Kong-Canada Connections Working Group with the Richard Charles Lee Canada-Hong Kong Library, funded by the Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto.

Most recent publications:

(Under revision) “Feeling Socialist Secularism: A Double-Decolonial Reading of Cogency Theory.” Roundtable on Donovan Schaefer’s Wild Experiment: Feeling Science and Secularism after Darwin, Journal of the American Academy of Religion.

(Under revision) “Religion and Official Politics in Contemporary China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.” Religion Compass.

(Forthcoming) “Filial Piety in East Asia,” for the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Gender and Women’s History.

(Forthcoming) “Enchanted, Decolonial, Transnational: Hong Kong from a Religious (Studies) Perspective.” Handbook of Hong Kong Studies, Brill.

2025 “Sisters, Friends, Strangers: Queering the Political Discourse of Love.” Special issue: Feminist and Queer Critiques of Multiple Empires: The Case of Sinophone Asia, International Feminist Journal of Politics. doi 10.1080/14616742.2025.2510496.

2024 “Double Decolonization: Bridging East Asia and Religious Studies in a Post-Covid World.” Implicit Religion 25.3–4, 399–415.

2024 “Intimate Negotiations: Gender and Sexuality in Twentieth Century Shanghai.” Cambridge World History of Sexualities, vol. III, edited by Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks and Mathew Kuefler, pp. 508–531.

2024 “‘Gods Feast on Holy Smoke, Not Tear Gas!’: Religious Diffusion, Infrapolitics, and Identity Formation in Hong Kong.” Special issue on religion, identity, and social movements in Hong Kong, Journal of Asian Studies (2024) 83 (2): 360–371.

“Diffusion, Polyphony, and Diversity: Introduction to Religion and Social Movements in Hong Kong since 2014.” Special issue on religion, identity, and social movements in Hong Kong, Journal of Asian Studies (2024) 83 (2): 327–333.

2023 “Beyond Sing Hallelujah to the Lord: Diffused Religion and Religious Co-Optations in Hong Kong.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume 90, no. 4 (2023): 937–953.

2023 “‘Eastern Religions are More Spiritual than Western Religions’.” In Stereotyping Religion: Critiquing Clichés, volume II, edited by Craig Martin and Brad Stoddard. London: Bloomsbury.

2023. “Cosmopolitan (Dis)Illusion: Migration, State Policies, and the Mirage of the Shanghai Exception.” Made in China Journal.

2022 “Lost in Žižek, Redeemed in Cloud Atlas: Buddhism and Other Tales of ‘Asian Religions’ in Western Cinema and Affective Circulation.” In Representing Religion and Film: A Critical Introduction, edited by Tenzan Eaghll and Rebekka King. London: Bloomsbury.

2022 “‘So Many Mothers, So Little Love’: Confucian Hegemony, Parental Governance, and the Discourse of Motherly Love in Hong Kong.” Special issue on power and identity, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, volume 34:1–2, pp. 3–24.

2021 “Christianity and Sinophone Trumpism.” Reflexion 42, pp. 243–250.

2020    “Politics of Love: Love as a Religious and Political Discourse in Modern China through the Lens of Political Leaders.” Critical Research on Religion, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 39–52.

Media coverage: Los Angeles Review of Books, Sixth Tone

2017    “Dao of the Go: Contextualizing Spirituality and the “Spiritual Impact” of AI,” special issue on artificial intelligence and religion in Implicit Religion, Vol. 20, No. 3, pp. 233–244.

2017    “The Affective Revolution in Modern China: On Two Seminal Works on the Conceptual History of Love.” Siyi, Issue 6 (Winter 2018), pp. 2–5.

2017    Co-authored with Henrietta Harrison, “Francesco Jovino and Catholic Meditation: The Dissemination of Catholicism in Gansu in Mid-Qing China.” Journal of the Study on Religion and History, Vol. 9, pp. 18–32.

2015    “Alan Turing, Artificial Intelligence and the Reconceptualisation of Human Self-knowledge,” Anthropology Today, Vol. 31, Issue 6, pp. 3–7 (issue cover).

2015    “Spirituality” as Re-Conceptualisation of the Self: Alan Turing and His Pioneering Ideas on Artificial Intelligence,” Culture and Religion, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 269–90.

2013 “Cloud Atlas,” Journal of Religion and Film 17, No. 2 (2013), Article 14.

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