Qijun Zheng

• 2026, Visiting Scholar, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge.
• 2025, UCL–PSL Research Internship, University College London (UCL).
• 2023, Master’s 1 and 2 in Religious and Social Sciences (SRS), École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE-PSL), co-accredited with EHESS, under the supervision of Vincent Goossaert; with highest honors.

Courts of the Gods, Courts of the Emperor: Conflict, Crime, and Overlapping Jurisdictions Surrounding Holy Sites in Late Imperial China

Sous la direction de Frédéric Constant et Vincent Goossaert

Who settles disputes that arise in the shadow of temples: the local community, the imperial authorities, or the gods themselves? This dissertation analyzes the tensions and disputes surrounding sacred sites in China from the 17th to the early 20th century. A cross-examination of religious texts and regulations, judicial archives, and narrative sources reveals a dense web of conflict involving a variety of actors (from clerics to pilgrims, including merchants) and a variety of situations (from land disputes to embezzlement of temple funds, from violations of monastic discipline to violence during pilgrimages). By combining the history of religions with legal history, this study reconstructs these specific procedural trajectories (mediation within the temple or by a local, provincial, or central magistrate) in order to understand how the balance between public order, religion, and authority was negotiated under the Qing dynasty.