From the Editor

Journal of Chinese Religions 36 (2008) vii From the Editor This issue of the Journal of Chinese Religions contains three new articles on aspects of Chinese religions. The first is Alain Arrault’s comprehensive examination of a fascinating type of wooden statuette that secretes talisman-related texts mainly from Hunan Province. The second is a reflection on the judicial dimension of martial deities by Paul R. Katz, which gets at the broader issue of the porous boundary between law and religion in late imperial Daoism. Rounding out the issue, Charles E. Hammond’s survey mines a collection by the Qing scholar Yuan Mei (recently called “China’s Brillat-Savarin” in The New Yorker, 11/24/08) for stories about and perspectives on interactions between humans and deities. As usual, Philip Clart and Dan Lusthaus have put together a set of reviews of recent literature on Chinese religions in Western languages unmatched in its thoroughness, as well as an innovative set of notes on materials in Chinese. The past three issues have appeared under the auspices of both the Society for the Study of Chinese Religions and the University of Wisconsin’s College of Letters and Sciences and Center for East Asian Studies. We are very grateful for Wisconsin’s support for the journal. For reasons that have to do with the editor’s professional peregrinations, beginning with the next issue, the SSCR will be partnering with the University of California’s Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Center for Chinese Studies. The new contact information for the journal is: JOURNAL OF CHINESE RELIGIONS Center for Chinese Studies 2223 Fulton Street, Room 506 University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA 94720-2328 USA Phone: 510-643-6328 Fax: 510-643-7062 Email: mark.cs@berkeley.edu Finally, I would like to thank Lee Yong-yun for his excellent work as Assistant Editor for the past two issues of the Journal of Chinese Religions. Mr. Lee leaves to complete his dissertation on cosmology and ethics in early China, and the position of Assistant Editor will pass to Wang Yun-ling. MARK CSIKSZENTMIHALYI ...