Andrew B. Kipnis, "The Funeral of Mr. Wang: Life, Death, and Ghosts in Urbanizing China" (U California Press, 2021)

New Books in Sociology · Nov 9, 2021 · 57m

Today I spoke to Professor Andrew Kipnis about his book on social change in urban China from the perspective of funerals. In rural China funerals are conducted locally, on village land by village elders. But in urban areas, people have neither land for burials nor elder relatives to conduct funerals. Chinese urbanization, which has increased drastically in recent decades, involves the creation of cemeteries, state-run funeral homes, and small private funerary businesses. The Funeral of Mr. Wang: Life, Death, and Ghosts in Urbanizing China (U California Press, 2021) examines social change in…