Dr. HUANG, Weishan 黃維珊 博士

Associate Professor

Chairperson of Department Postgraduate Programme

 

Contact

Office: Room LC842, Library Complex, Hong Kong Shue Yan University, 12, Wai Tsui Crescent, Braemar Hill, North Point, Hong Kong.
Phone: 2104-8237
Email: whuang@hksyu.edu

Academic and Professional Qualifications

Research Fellow                    Max Planck Institute
Ph.D. Sociology                      New School University
M.A. Sociology                       New School University
M.A. Asian Studies                St. John’s University
 

Specialism and Research Interests

Sociology of Religion
Religion in the City
Online Religion
Global Sociology
International Migration and Mobility
Urban Sociology

Course offered in 2024-25

SOC207       Sociological Theories II
SOC339       Sociology of Religion
SOC357       Migration and Mobility (term 2)
SOC 401-2   Honours Project
SOC413       Digitized Media, Culture, and Society
GRS101       Advanced Research Methodology (QualRM Module)
SOC601       Guided Study in Sociology: Social Theories

Course offered in previous years

SOC221B     Applied Qualitative Social Research Methods
SOC311       Sustainable and Innovative Cities in the Contemporary World
 

Selected Publications

[forthcoming] Marian Burchardt, Johannes Becker, Soledad Balerdi, and Weishan Huang. Handbook of Global Sociology: Approaches, Methods, Fields of Research. Oxford University Press. 

2012. Cimino, Richard P., Nadia A. Mian, and Weishan Huang. Ecologies of Faith In New York City, Bloomington, Indiana University Press.

Other refereed Journal papers and book chapters:

(Forthcoming 2025) Weishan Huang. "Buddhist Temple as a Social Abstraction: Urban Planning and Nunnery Relocation in Shanghai." Brill.

(Forthcoming 2025) Weishan Huang. "Sutra-chanting machines," in Chinese Religious Culture in 100 Objects. ed. Adam Yuet Chau. Oxford University Press.

Weishan Huang. 2024. “On Urban Buddhism – a Humanistic, Secularizing, and Universal Buddhism” Review of Religion and Chinese Society.

Weishan Huang. 2023. “Xin in the Discourse on Conversion among Tzuchians in Shanghai”, in From Trustworthiness to Secular Beliefs – Changing Concepts of xin 信 from Traditional to Modern Chinese, ed. Christian Meyer and Philip Clark. Brill. ISBN: 978-90-04-53300-4.

Weishan Huang. 2022. “Secularity and Urban Gentrification: An Spatial Analysis of Downtown Buddhist Temples in Shanghai”, Journal of Space and Culture. 26 (2): 229-241. 

Mayfair Yang and Weishan Huang. 2021. “Buddhist environmentalism and civic engagement in the secular Shanghai” in Chinese Religio-Environmentalism Ethics and Practice, edited by Mayfair Yang. Rowman & Littlefield. Pp. 62-92.

Weishan Huang. 2021 “The Sinicization of Buddhism and its Competing Reinventions of Tradition” in Sinicization of Religion, ed. by Richard Madsen. Brill. pp. 64-85.

Weishan Huang. 2021.“Commentary: Rethinking Religion in Urban Planning in Shanghai”, Journal of Planning Theory & Practice. A Special Issue of Rethinking Religion and Secularism in Urban Planning. ed. Babak Manouchehrifar and John Forester. DOI: 10.1080/14649357.2021.1908078. pp. 32-35.

Weishan Huang. 2019. “Urban Restructuring and the Study of Temple Agencies”, in Buddhism in the Post-Mao China, ed. Ji Zhe, Andre Laliberte, and Garth Fisher, University of Hawaii Press, pp. 370-403.

Weishan Huang. 2019 “Globalization as Tactic -- Legal Practices of the Falun Gong Diaspora,” in Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions III: Religion in Practice in Contemporary China, ed. Paul Katz, Stefania Travagnin, (Berlin: de Gruyter), pp. 233-256.

Weishan Huang. 2018. “The Place of Socially Engaged Buddhism in China - the Emerging Religious Identity in the Local Community of Urban Shanghai,” Journal of Buddhist Ethics, No. 25: 531-568.

Weishan Huang. 2018. “From Structural Separation to Religious Incorporation - A Case Study of a Transnational Buddhist Group in Shanghai, China,” in Asian Migrants and Religious Experience - Transnational Religious Mobility, ed. Bernardo E. Brown, Brenda S.A. Yeoh. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, pp. 129-151.

Weishan Huang. 2017. “Public Buddhist Philosophy: Civil Engagement and Discursive Space among a Religious Group in Shanghai,” in Judging the State: Emerging Publics and the Quest for Justice in Contemporary China. Ed. Susanne Brandtstädter, Hans Steinmüller. Routledge, pp. 124-138. 

Weishan Huang. 2016. “WeChat Together about Buddha: The Construction of Sacred Space and Religious Community in Shanghai through Social Media,” in Religion and Media in China, ed. Stefania Travagnin. Routledge, pp. 110-128.

Weishan Huang. 2016. “The Bodhisattva Comes Out of the Closet: City, Surveillance, and Doing Religion” (Re-published in Chinese).  In Ji Zhe, ed. Daniela Compo, Wang Qiyuan, Ershi shiji Zhongguo fojiao de liangci fuxing (二十世紀中國佛教的兩次復興) Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, pp. 213-232.

Weishan Huang. 2015. “The Blissful Enterprise: Buddhist Cultural Turns in the Workplace in Contemporary Shanghai,” Entreprises et Histoire, 81 (4): 73-91.

Weishan Huang. 2015. “Sustainable Development and Karma Logistics: The Moral Discourse of Reformed Buddhism and Capital-Linked Business Professionals in Shanghai,” in Buddhism in Asian: Revival and Reinvention, ed. Nayanjot Lahiri, Upinder Singh. Manohar, pp. 365-384.

Weishan Huang. 2014. “Buddhist Cosmopolitanism and Public Sphere,” in Cosmopolitanism, Religion and The Public Sphere, ed. Rovisco, Maria, Sebastian C. H Kim. Routledge, pp. 15-31.

Weishan Huang. 2013. “Introduction,” in Ecologies of Faith In New York City: The Evolution of Religious Institutions, ed. Richard Cimino, Nadia A Mian, Weishan Huang. Indiana University Press, pp. 1-14.

Weishan Huang. 2013. “Diversity and Competition: Politics and Conflicts in New Immigrant Communities”, in Ecologies of Faith In New York City: The Evolution of Religious Institutions, ed. Richard Cimino, Nadia A. Mian, Weishan Huang. Indiana University Press, pp. 105-119.

Weishan Huang. 2013. “The Geopolitics of Religious Spatiality and Falun Gong’s Campaign In New York,” in Topographies of Faith, ed. Becci, Irene, Marian Burchardt, José Casanova. Brill, pp. 129-45.

Weishan Huang. 2012. “The Bodhisattva Comes Out of the Closet: City, Surveillance, and Doing Religion,” Politics and Religion Journal VI (2): 199-216.

Weishan Huang. 2011. “Buddhists in Action: Transnational Migration and Religious Cosmopolitanism,” Encounters: An International Journal for the Study of Culture and Society, no. (4): 215-39.

Weishan Huang. 2010. “Immigration and Gentrification - A Case Study of Cultural Restructuring in Flushing, Queens”, Diversities 12 (1): 63-90.

Weishan Huang. 2008. “The Making of a Promised Land - Religious Responses to Gentrification and Neighborhood Ethnic Diversity” CrossCurrents, 58(3):441-455.

*Full publications, please see
Dr. Weishan HUANG’s full publication (https://www.weishanhuang.com/)


Research Projects

As Principal Investigator

• 2023-2025. Understanding the New Solidarities and Public Roles of Transnational Chinese Buddhist Organizations by Movement Organization Theory, funded by Research Grant Council (RGC), Faculty Development Scheme (FDS), January 1, 2023-December 31, 2025. (HK$ 960,925.)
• 2024-2026. Can Buddhism inspire an altruistic economy? A study of entrepreneurs’ beliefs and their economic life. Tzu Chi Foundation. (US$ 5000)
• 2019-2021. Hong Kong Hub, Chinese University of Hong Kong Direct Grant for Research. (HK$ 100,000.)
• 2015-2018. Buddhist Gentrification, funded by Research Grant Council (RGC), General Research Fund (GRF), Research Grants Council, January 9, 2015-August 30, 2018. (HK$ 440,000.)
• 2018. Transnational Lives of Religion in Asia. Research Summer Grant, Office of Academic Link, Chinese University of Hong Kong. (HK$ 115,000.)
• 2016-2018. Religion and Globalization: Global Networks from the East. Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation. (US$ 20,000.)
• 2015-2016. Buddhist Gentrification, Direct Grant for Research, January 5, 2015-August 15, 2016. (HK$ 80,000)
• 2013-2015. Taiwanese Capital-Linked Migrants and Transnational Religious Networks in Shanghai, Research Grant, Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation, July, 2013 – June, 2015. (€ 24,000)

As Collaborator

• 2023-2025. Co-I. Mapping the Networks of Modern Chinese Buddhism: Emerging Patterns and Centralities. Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation. PI: Ji Zhe. (INALCO).
• 2021-2024. Collaborator. Chinese Buddhism in Globalization: States, Communities, and the Practice of Religion. Funded by the US-based Henry Luce Foundation. International research project led by PI David L. Wank (Sophia University) and Ashiwa Yoshika (Hitotsubashi University).
• 2021-2024. Collaborator. Globalizing Sociological Theory: Qualitative Research and Theory Building from the South. German Research Foundation (DFG). International research project led by PI: Marian Burchardt (University of Leipzig) and Johannes Becker (Georg-August University Göttingen).
• 2019-2023. Collaborator. Interfaith in Belt and Road Initiative, RGC General Research Group grant led by PI David Palmer (HKU).

Community Service

2017-2018. Knowledge Transfer Project Fund (KPF) 
Project Title: Social Integration with the 5%: Social Empowerment of Migrant Workers and Intercultural Communication between Migrant Workers and Secondary Students. 


Selected Journal reviewed (Alphabetical arrangement)