LIN Mei-rong

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(Aug 1, 1992)

Lin Mei-rong, research fellow at the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, received her B.A. and M.A. from the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at the National Taiwan University. She went on to the University of California at Irvine and took her Ph.D. in anthropology in 1983 with a dissertation on Chinese kinship terms.

LIN's current interests lie in the relationship between religion and social organization, and interactions between rural religion and folk performance art among Han Chinese on Taiwan. She has published extensively on various aspects of local and regional cults of folk religion in Taiwan, and is now conducting two exhaustive surveys: one of opera and martial art organizations in central Taiwan, and the other of village temples in Kaohsiung County in south Taiwan. For a year beginning October 1992, LIN will become a visiting research professor for one year at the Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa in the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. Her research topic there will be the social anthropological study of the relationship between religion, kinship, and territorial organizations.

Recent Publications

• "The social-histoncal approach to the study of local musical groups and martial arts groups within the religious sphere of Changbua Matsu" (Chinese article).
• Taiwanese Society and Religion, 1993 (Chinese language only).
• "Ts'ao-t'un Chen Tsu "pu Yu Kuan Chi Tsu te Wen Shu" [Written records of ancestor worship ceremony in genealogy books]. Research Materials of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica 3 (1990), 181-194.
• "Chang-hua Ma-tsu Hsin Yang Ch'uan suo Piao Hsien te T'ai Wan Jen Tsung Chiao Wen Hua" [Taiwan's religious culture as revealed in the belief sphere of Chang-hua Matsu]. Modem Academic Research 3 (1990), 193-220.
• "Chang-hua Nan-yao Kung te Yao Ch'ien" [Medicine oracles used in Nan-yao Matsu Temple]. Research Materials of the Institute of Ethnology Academia Sinica 5 (1991), 39-65.
• "Yu Chang-hua Ma-tsu Yu Kuan te Ch'uan Shuo, Ku Sh, yu Yen yu" [Legends, stories and proverbs concerned with Changhua Matsu]. Field Materials of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, 2 (1990), 107-112.
• "Chang-hua Ma-tsu te Hsin Yang Ch'uan" [Belief sphere of Chang-hua Matsu], Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, 68 (1989), 41-104.
• "Yu Chi Szu Ch'uan Tao Hsin Yang Ch'uan: T'ai Wan Min Chien She Hui te Ti Yu Kou Ch'eng yu Fa Chan" [From ritual community to belief sphere: territorial composition and development of Taiwan folk society], in Yen-hsen Chang, ed., Proceedings of the Third Symposium on Chinese Oceanic Development (Taipei: Institute for the Three Principles of People, Academia Sinica, 1988), 95-125.
• "Yu Ti Li yu Nien Ch'ien lai k'an T'ai Wan Han Jen Ts'un Chuang te Min un Kung T'ung T'i" [Communal fate in Taiwanese village with evidence from local geomancy and year oracles]. Taiwan Folkways 38:4 (1988), 123-143.
• "Chien Chieh 'T'ai Wan te Mm Chien Tsung Chiao yu Kuo Chia Ch'uan T'ung'" [Indirect introduction to Seiwert's folk religion and national tradition in Taiwan]. Taiwan: A Radical Quarterly in Social Studies 1:2-3 (1988), 36 1-369.
• "Yu Chi Szu Ch'uan Lai K'an Ts'ao-t'un Chen te Ti Fang Tsu Chih" [Ritual community as a form of local organization: a case study from Tsaotun Township]. Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, 62 (1987), 53-114.
• "T' u Ti kung Miao: Chu Lao te Chili Piao: I Ts'ao-t'un Chen Wei li" [Earth god temple as indicator of settlement: examples from Tsaotun]. Taiwan Folkways 37:1 (1987), 53-81.
• T'ai Wan Min Chien Hsin Yang Yen Chiu Shu Mu [Bibliography of Taiwanese folk beliefs] Taipei: Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, 1990.