Paul Steven Sangren (, born April 2, 1946) is a socio-cultural anthropologist of

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

and

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

, and is a leading expert in the study of Chinese religion. He is

Hu Shih Hu Shih (; 17 December 1891 – 24 February 1962), also known as Hu Suh in early references, was a Chinese diplomat, essayist, literary scholar, philosopher, and politician. Hu is widely recognized today as a key contributor to Chinese libera ...

Distinguished Professor Distinguished Professor is an academic title given to some top tenured professors in a university, school, or department. Some distinguished professors may have endowed chairs. In the United States Often specific to one institution, titles such ...

of Chinese Studies and Anthropology

Emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

. His research interests include

socio-cultural anthropology Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The portm ...

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

and

ritual A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, b ...

gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...

, practice,

and

Early life

Sangren was born on April 2, 1946, in

Kalamazoo Kalamazoo ( ) is a city in the southwest region of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat of Kalamazoo County. At the 2010 census, Kalamazoo had a population of 74,262. Kalamazoo is the major city of the Kalamazoo-Portage Metropolit ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

. He earned his B.A. from

Woodrow Wilson School The Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs) is a professional public policy school at Princeton University. The school provides an array of comprehensive course ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

in 1968. After Princeton, he joined the

Navy A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral zone, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and ...

and attended the U.S. Naval Officer Candidate School at Newport, Rhode Island. Subsequently, Sangren was commissioned as a

LTJG Lieutenant junior grade is a junior commissioned officer rank used in a number of navies. United States Lieutenant (junior grade), commonly abbreviated as LTJG or, historically, Lt. (j.g.) (as well as variants of both abbreviations), is ...

and served in the

Underwater Demolition Team Underwater Demolition Teams (UDT), or frogmen, were amphibious units created by the United States Navy during World War II with specialized non-tactical missions. They were predecessors of the navy's current SEAL teams. Their primary WWII func ...

Eleven from 1969 to 1972. In 1972, Sangren headed for

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

to pursue his Ph.D. in anthropology under the supervision of

G. William Skinner George William Skinner (; February 14, 1925 – October 26, 2008) was an American anthropologist and scholar of China. Skinner was a proponent of the spatial approach to Chinese history, as explained in his Presidential Address to the Associat ...

. He conducted fieldwork on the

Mazu Mazu or Matsu is a Chinese sea goddess also known by several other names and titles. She is the deified form of the legendary figure Lin Mo or Lin Moniang, a Fujianese shamaness whose life span is traditionally dated from 960 to 987. Re ...

's cult in

between 1974 and 1977. Sangren received his Ph.D. in January 1980.

Academic career

After completing his Ph.D. in 1980, Sangren became an assistant professor of anthropology at Cornell University. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1986 and to Professor in 1992. Sangren was the associate director of Cornell's East Asia Program between 1988 and 1989, and chair of Cornell's Anthropology department between 1997 and 2000. Sangren was named the Hu Shih Distinguished Professor of China Studies in 2017.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sangren, P. Steven American anthropologists American sinologists 1946 births Cornell University faculty Princeton School of Public and International Affairs alumni Stanford University alumni Living people