Anna Sun is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Asian Studies at Kenyon College.
Anna Sun’s teaching and research interests include sociology of knowledge, sociology of religion, social theory, and sociology of East Asia. In 2003-04 she was a Mellon Dissertation Fellow at the Institute for Historical Research at the University of London, and in 2005-06 she was a Marilyn Yarbrough Dissertation Fellow at Kenyon College. She received her Ph.D. in sociology from Princeton University in 2008.
As a co-principal investigator of the John Templeton Foundation funded research project “The Empirical Study of Religions in China” (ESRIC), 2006-09, Sun has been studying the revival of Confucianism as a religion in contemporary China, as well as the larger conceptual issues of the classification of Chinese religions.
In 2009-10, Sun was part of the SIAS Summer Institute “Action Theory in Philosophy and the Social Sciences" at the National Humanities Center, working on religion, agency, and action. In 2010-11 she was a member of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
Besides her scholarly publications, Sun's other publications include a collection of short stories in Chinese (2001). Her literary work in English has appeared in Harvard Review (2000), Paideuma: A Journal Devoted to Ezra Pound Scholarship (2000), and The London Review of Books (2004). A MacDowell Colony Fellow in 2001, she is currently a Consulting Editor of The Kenyon Review.
Education
Ph.D. Princeton University
M.A. Princeton University
B.A. UC BerkeleyBook
Confucianism as a World Religion: Historical Concepts and Contemporary Realities (forthcoming)
Current Research Interests
Revival of Confucian rituals in contemporary China (survey research and ethnographic fieldwork); the classification of Chinese religions; the settlement of religious controversies (Confucianism as a case study in understanding how controversies over religions are structured and resolved); prayer as spiritual exercise.
Selected Publications
“To Become a Confucian.”
Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion, ed. Lewis R. Rambo and Charles E. Farhadian, Oxford University Press, 2012.“Confucianism.”
Encyclopedia of Globalization, ed. George Ritzer, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.“Counting Confucians: Who Are the Confucians in Contemporary East Asia?”
Newsletter of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences of National Taiwan University, 2009.“The Fate of Confucianism as a Religion in Socialist China: Controversies and Paradoxes.”
State, Market and Religions in Chinese Societies, ed. Fenggang Yang and Joseph B. Tamney, Brill, 2005.“Mao-ti.”
A review essay, in London Review of Books, July 8th 2004.“The Man That Is Waiting: Remarks on Pound’s ‘The River-Merchant’s Wife’.”
Paideuma, A Journal Devoted to Ezra Pound Scholarship, 29.3, 2000, and Ezra Pound: Critical Assessments, ed. Dorsey Kleitz, E.Sussex: Helms Publication.Selected Academic Services
Committee Member, Section on the History of Sociology, American Sociological Association, 2006-08.
Chair, Committee on Graduate Student Paper Award, Section on the History of Sociology, American Sociological Association, 2005-06.
Courses Taught at Kenyon
SOCY 103 Introduction to Sociology: Society and Culture
SOCY 221 Sociology of Religion: Global Religions in Modern Society
SOCY 249 Knowledge of the Other: Journey to the East
SOCY 361 Classical Social Theory
SOCY 450 French Social Theory
SOCY 465 Sociology of Knowledge
ASIA 490 Asian Studies Senior Seminar: Public Intellectuals in Comparative PerspectiveSelected Recent Conference Presentations
“The Revival of Confucian Rites in Contemporary China.”
The Neo-Confucianism Seminar, Columbia University, May 6, 2011.“The Religious Ecology of Confucius Temples.”
Symposium “Confucian Revival in Contemporary China: Preliminary Reports from the Field,” Center for Philosophy, University of Tokyo, Dec. 2-4, 2010.Invited Participant, “Consultation on Prayer and Prayerfulness.”
Center for the Study of Religion, Princeton University, November 20-21, 2009.“Situation, Action, and Agency: The Good Samaritan Experiment Revisited.”
Social Science History Association Annual Meeting, November 12-15, 2009.“The Revival of Confucianism as a Religion in Contemporary China.”
East Asian Studies, Denison University, September 8, 2009.“The Revival of Confucian Rituals in Contemporary China.”
Purdue University Symposium “Religion and Spirituality in China Today,” April 30-May 2, 2009.“Confusions over Confucians: Who Are the Confucians in East Asia?”
“East Asian Confucianism: Interactions and Innovations,” a conference jointly organized by Rutgers University and National Taiwan University, May 1-2, 2009.“The Cycle of Religious Controversies: The Logic of Evidence in the Settlement of Controversies over Confucianism, 1579-2008.”
Social Science History Association Annual Meeting, November 2008.Discussant, “Author Meets Critics: Eiko Ikegami’s Bonds of Civility: Aesthetic Networks and the Political Origins of Japanese Culture.”
Social Science History Association Annual Meeting, November 2008.“The Chinese Religious Repertoire: A New Approach to the Classification of Chinese Religions.”
Session on “The Nature and Components of Religion,” American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2007.“Is Confucianism a Religion in China?: Intellectual Controversies and Ethnographic Notes.”
American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, November 2006.“How Confucianism Became a World Religion: Max Müller and the Birth of Comparative Studies of Religion.”
Association of Asian Studies Annual Meeting, April 2006.
Contact Information
Prof. Anna Sun
Department of Sociology
Kenyon College
Gambier
OH 43022Email: suna@kenyon.edu
February 2012
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