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Scholar

Angela Zito

Angela Zito, Associate Professor, NYU–jointly appointed in Anthropology and Religious Studies.  Chair of the Department of Religious Studies. Co-founder and Director of the Center for Religion and Media.  BA Penn State in East Asian Studies/minor in Journalism. MPhil and PhD, University of Chicago, East Asian Language and Civilizations.  Trained in history, Sinology and cultural anthropology, wrote a dissertation on imperial ritual under the Qianlong Emperor later published as Of Body and Brush: Grand Sacrifice as text/performance in 18th c China. This has led to an abiding interest in the imperial and later Chinese state forms as they continue to seek to influence the styles of personhood of their subjects and citizens.  I associate religious life with practices, performances, modes of embodiment and their mediation through things.  After an excursion into Chinese independent documentary as a form of the ethical activist uses of media, I am returned to a project on the Party-state’s revitalization and instance on filiality as both  piety and propaganda.   Writing a book on its various media forms including posters, televisions talk shows, museums and films.