Further Reading
On Sacrifice & Ritual
Chow, Kai-wing. 1994. The Rise of Confucian Ritualism in Late Imperial China: Ethics, Classics, and Lineage Discourse. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Ebrey, Patricia B. 1991. Confucianism and Family Rituals in Imperial China: A Social History of Writing about Rites. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Wilson, Thomas A. “Ritualizing Confucius/Kongzi: The Family and State Cults of the Sage of Culture in Imperial China,” in Thomas A. Wilson, ed., On Sacred Grounds: Culture, Society, Politics, and the Formation of the Cult of Confucius (Institute for East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 2002), 43-94
Wilson, Thomas A. “Sacrifice and the Imperial Cult of Confucius,” History of Religions 41 (Feb. 2002) 3: 251-87
Wilson, Thomas A. “The Ritual Construction of Confucian Gods in Imperial China: The Case of Vast Heaven High God,” History of Religions 61 (Nov. 2022) 2: 193–221
Wilson, Thomas A. “Spirits and the Soul in Confucian Ritual Discourse,” Journal of Chinese Religions 42 (2014) 2: 185–212
On Music & Liturgy
Lam, Joseph. State Sacrifices and Music in Ming China. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998.
Lam, Joseph S.C. “Musical Confucianism: The Case of ‘Jikong yuewu’,” in Thomas A. Wilson, ed., On Sacred Grounds: Culture, Society, Politics, and the Formation of the Cult of Confucius (Institute for East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 2002), 134-172.
Shaughnessy, Edward. “From Liturgy to Literature,” Before Confucius: Studies in the Creation of the Chinese Classics (SUNY, 1997), 165-95.
On Confucius, his Descendants, Confucianism, the Confucian Canon
Agnew, Christopher. The Kong of Qufu: The Descendants of Confucius in Late Imperial Times. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019.
Analects. 1979. Trans. D. C. Lau. Middlesex, Eng.: Penguin Books.
Billioud, Sébastien and Joël Thoraval. “Li jiao: The Return of Ceremonies Honouring Confucius in Mainland China.” China Perspectives 4 (2009): 82-100.
Billioud, Sébastien and Joël Thoraval. The Sage and the People: The Confucian Revival in China. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Clart, Philip. “Confucius and the Mediums: Is there a ‘Popular Confucianism?’” T’oung Pao 89 (2003) 1-3: 1-38.
Csikszentmihalyi, Mark. “Confucian and the Analects in the Han,” Confucius and the Analects: New Essays (Oxford, 2000), 134-62.
Flath, James. Traces of the Sage: Monument, Materiality, and the First Temple of Confucius (Spatial Habitus: Making and Meaning in Asia’s Architecture). Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2016.
Gardener, Daniel K. The Four Books: The Basic Teachings of the Later Confucian Tradition (Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2007).
Gardner, Daniel K. “Ghosts and Spirits in the Sung Neo-Confucian World: Chu Hsi on kuei- shen.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 115 (1995) 4: 598-611.
Henderson, John. The Development and Decline of Chinese Cosmology. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984.
Huang Chin-shing 黃進興. 聖賢與聖徒歷史與宗教論文集 Sheng xian yu sheng tu: lishi yu zongjiao lun wen ji. Taibei: Yunzhen cong kan, 2001.
Huang Chin-shing 黃進興. 優入聖域權力信仰與正當性 Youru sheng yu: quanli, xinyang, yu zhengdang xing. Taibei: Yunchen cong kan, 1994.
Huang Chin-shing. Confucianism and Sacred Space. Jonathan Chin and Chin-shing Huang, trans. New York: Columbia University Press, 2021.
Huang Chin-shing. “The Cultural Politics of Autocracy: The Confucius Temple and Ming Despotism, 1368-1530.” In On Sacred Grounds: Culture, Society, Politics, and the Formation of the Cult of Confucius, 267-296. Thomas Wilson, ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2003.
Kim, Yung Sik. “Kuei-shen in Terms of Ch’i: Chu Hsi’s discussion of Kuei-shen.” Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies n.s. 17 (1985) 1-2: 149-162.
Li Yonghua. Confucian Rituals and Chinese Villagers Ritual Change and Social Transformation in a Southeastern Chinese Community, 1368-1949. Leiden: Brill, 2013.
Lu, Miaw-fen. “Religious Dimensions of Filial Piety as Developed in Late Ming Interpretations of the Xiaojing.” Late Imperial China 27 (2006) 2: 1-37.
Luo Chenglie 絡承烈. Shitou shang de rujia wenxian: Qufu beiwen lu 石頭上的儒家文獻曲阜碑文錄. Jinan: Jilu shushe, 2001.
McMullen, James. The Worship of Confucius in Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2020.
Murray, Julia K. “A Heavenly Aura: Confucian Modes of Relic Veneration.” Journal of the British Academy 2 (2014): 59–99.
Murray, Julia K. “Miraculous Portraits of Confucius: Images and Auspicious Presences.” Ars Orientalis 50 (2021): 78-105.
Murray, Julia K. “The Temple of Confucius and Pictorial Biographies of the Sage.” Journal of Asian Studies 55 (May 1996) 2: 269-300.
Murray, Julia K. “Varied Views of the Sage: Illustrated Narratives of the Life of Confucius.” In On Sacred Grounds: Culture, Society, Politics, and the Formation of the Cult of Confucius, 222-264. Thomas Wilson, ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2003.
Nylan, Michael and Thomas Wilson. Lives of Confucius. New York: Doubleday, 2010.
Yao, Xinzhong. An Introduction to Confucianism (Cambridge University Press, 2000).
RELATED RESEARCH
RECENT NEWS

Thomas A. Wilson’s latest book, Confucian Gods: An Archaeology of Devotional Practice (Oxford University Press, 2026).
On Sacred Grounds, Thomas A. Wilson (2003).

Lives of Confucius, Thomas A. Wilson (2010).

Genealogy of the Way, Thomas A. Wilson (1995).

