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Gareth Breen's research focuses on transnational Christian, Buddhist, and grassroots Confucian networks in China and Taiwan. His forthcoming monograph, 'Sublime Sociality: Ethnographic Theory of Chinese Christianity', describes the transnational and Sino-Taiwanese community of followers of Witness Li (Li Changshou), the son of a Shandong farmer and a prolific author on Christian history. This book offers an ethnographic depiction of the world's largest 'house church' and the indigenous Chinese Christian movements of the twentieth century, which have become globalized in the twenty-first. Breen's subsequent research centers on emerging grassroots academies (shuyuan) that seek to recover the spiritual 'essence' (benti) of 'China' using Confucian, Daoist, Buddhist, Christian, and Islamic concepts and practices. He also explores intersections of artificial intelligence projects with deification and the practice of Chinese medicine in the UK society and culture. Breen received his PhD in Anthropology from the London School of Economics (LSE) in 2020 and teaches various undergraduate and postgraduate courses, including topics in anthropology, medical anthropology, and the study of cultures and ethics.
Department of Economics