Mayfair Yang

Mayfair Yang is a Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, holding 50% appointments in Religious Studies and East Asian Languages & Cultural Studies, where she also serves as Department Chair. Her research focuses on Chinese modernity, state-society relations, religious environmentalism, and gender studies. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in Wenzhou, China, and Taiwan, integrating critical theory with Chinese philosophy. Yang has held visiting positions at institutions including Harvard, Princeton, and the Max Planck Institute.

Education: Ph.D. in Anthropology from UC Berkeley, with research training at Peking University and the University of Michigan. Key areas of expertise include Chinese religions, media studies, and environmental ethics. She received the American Ethnological Society Book Prize for Gifts, Favors, and Banquets (1994).

Research interests span religious environmentalism, the interplay between state power and religiosity, and globalizing forces in Chinese history. Recent work emphasizes coastal China’s environmental ethics and ritual economies. She has authored or edited over 20 books and 50 articles, with a focus on cultural anthropology and critical theory.

Grants include a 5-year NSF grant for Wenzhou fieldwork. Teaching includes courses on religious environmentalism, critical theory, and Chinese religions. Yang directs the UCSB Confucius Institute and has produced documentaries on Chinese women’s lives and rural Wenzhou society.