David A. Palmer宗树人

Style & Daoist names

David Palmer

Period

Contemporary

Dates

? — ?

Role

AnthropologistSociologist of religionProfessor, University of Hong Kong

Birthplace

Canada

Life

David A. Palmer, a Canadian anthropologist, is a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong, working on contemporary Chinese Daoism, qigong, and the sociology of religion. His book Qigong Fever: Body, Science, and Utopia in China (2007) studies the rise and fall of the qigong movement in the 1980s and 1990s and its relationship to Daoist health practices; his The Religious Question in Modern China, co-authored with Vincent Goossaert (2011), won the Levenson Prize; his Dream Trippers: Global Daoism and the Predicament of Modern Spirituality, co-authored with Elijah Siegler (2017), studies the encounters between Western practitioners and the Daoist priests of Mount Hua; and he co-edited Daoism in the Twentieth Century with Liu Xun. The above is drawn from publicly available academic information.

Contributions & Influence

• Studied the contemporary qigong movement and Daoist health practices
• Co-authored The Religious Question in Modern China
• Studied the transmission of Daoism in the context of globalization

Works

• Qigong Fever
• The Religious Question in Modern China (co-authored)
• Dream Trippers (co-author)
• Daoism in the Twentieth Century (co-editor)