Vietnam

Spirits Offering Protection: The Cult of General Đoàn Thượng in Vietnam in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The article discusses the changes that have occurred in the ceremonies of the spirits cult in village communities of Vietnam during the COVID‑19 pandemic and offers a case study of General Đoàn Thượng’s (1181–1228) cult. I compare two ceremonies: commemoration of the General’s spirit in the temple in his native village in Hải Dương province on May 1, 2018 (my own fieldwork) and a closed ceremony in the same temple which were broadcasted on the Internet on April 8, 2020.

From Revived Traditions to Modern Practices: The Religious Boom in Post-Secular Vietnam in an Anthropological Perspective

This article gives a review of two books examining the religious situation in “post-secular” Vietnam. The book of American anthropologist Shaun Malarney “Culture, Ritual, and Revolution in Vietnam” (2002) offers a research of the transformations of religious practices and morality caused by the 1945 communist revolution: the author shows the polyphony of understanding of morality and ritual in Vietnamese society. The edited volume “Religion, Place and Modernity: Spatial Articulation in Southeast Asia and East Asia” (Ed. by M. Dickhardt and A.