Kenneth DEAN

Kenneth DEAN is Raffles Professor of Humanities and Head of the Chinese Studies Department, National University of Singapore, and Professor Emeritus, McGill University. He is the Religion and Globalization Research Cluster Leader, Asia Research Institute, NUS.

Dean is the author of several books on Daoism and Chinese popular religion, including Ritual Alliances of the Putian Plains : Vol. 1 : Historical Introduction to the Return of the Gods, Vol. 2 : A Survey of Village Temples and Ritual Activities, Leiden : Brill, 2010 (with Zheng Zhenman) ; Epigraphical Materials on the History of Religion in Fujian : The Quanzhou Region, 3 vols., Fuzhou : 2004 (with Zheng Zhenman) ; Lord of the Three in One : The Spread of a Cult in Southeast China, Princeton : 1998 ; Epigraphical Materials on the History of Religion in Fujian : The Xinghua Region ; Fuzhou 1995 (with Zheng Zhenman) ; Taoist Ritual and Popular Cults of Southeast China, Princeton 1993 ; and First and Last Emperors : The Absolute State and the Body of the Despot (with Brian Massumi), Autonomedia, New York. 1992.

He directed Bored in Heaven : A Film about Ritual Sensation (2010), an 80 minutes documentary film on ritual celebrations around Chinese New Years in Putian, Fujian, China. His current project is the construction of an interactive, multi-media database linked to a historical GIS map of the religious sites and networks of Singapore. His most recent publication (with Hue Guan Thye) is entitled Chinese Epigraphy in Singapore : 1819-1911 (2 vols.), Singapore : NUS Press, 2017.

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