Stéphanie Homola

Prof. Dr. Stéphanie Homola

Elite Master Program "Standards of Decision-Making Across Cultures"

Institute for Near Eastern and East Asian Languages and Civilizations
Assistant Professor of Anthropology

Room: Room 02.271
Henkestr. 91, Haus 8
91052 Erlangen

Office hours

Each week We, 09:00 - 12:00,

Positions

2017-present W1 Junior Professorship for Ethnology (Focusing on Asia), Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg

Director of the Elite Master’s Program “Standards of Decision-making Across Cultures” (SDAC)
2016-2017 Visiting Scholar, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin (Department III, Artefacts, Action, and Knowledge) & Erlangen-Nuremberg University (IKGF): joint-project “Accounting for Uncertainty: Prediction and Planning in Asian History”
Post-doctoral Fellow, Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange
Short-term Out-going Post-doctoral Fellow, Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (FMSH) & École française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO)
2014-2016 Research Fellow, Collège de France, Prof. Anne Cheng’s Chair of Chinese Intellectual History
2014 Post-doctoral Fellow, Erlangen-Nuremberg University, International Consortium for Research in the Humanities (IKGF), “Fate, Freedom and Prognostication. Strategies for Coping with the Future in East Asia and Europe”
Since 2013 Associate Research Fellow, Centre d’études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine (CECMC), Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS)

Education

2013 PhD in Social Anthropology, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales

Connaissances du destin: anthropologie des pratiques de divination contemporaines en Chine et à Taïwan (Knowing fate: an anthropology of contemporary divinatory practices in China and Taiwan)
2008 MA in Social Science, major in Anthropology of China, EHESS
2006 BA in Chinese studies, National Institute of Oriental Language and Civilization (INALCO), Paris
2003 MSc, ESSEC Business School, Paris – major in Law

Anthropology of knowledge, anthropology of religion, anthropology of memory, cognitive anthropology, ethnomathematics, arts of memory, divination, destiny, Chinese religions, popular science, history of sinology

Fieldwork: Taipei (Taiwan), Beijing, Kaifeng

Monograph

2023. The Art of Fate Calculation. Practicing Divination in Taipei, Beijing, and Kaifeng. New York; Oxford: Berghahn Books (Asian Anthropologies Series). ISBN  978-1-80073-812-6

Peer-reviewed Articles
  • 2021 “Jeu, divination et cognition. A propos de Jouer de Roberte Hamayon”. Cahier d’Exrême-Asie, 30 (in print).
  • 2021 “Eight Signs Prediction. Ontology, Knowldege, and Computation”. Social Analysis, 65.2, 62-81.
  • 2018 “La fabrique des restes: réflexions sur les procédures aléatoires produisant des restes dans les arts divinatoires chinois” (The Making of Remainders: Reflections on Random Procedures which Produce Remainders in Chinese Mantic Arts). Anthropologie et Sociétés, 42.2/3, 37-68.
  • 2018 “Caught in the Language of Fate: The Quality of Destiny in Taiwan”. HAU Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 8.1/2, 329-342.
  • 2015 “Ce que la main sait du destin: opérations et manipulations dans les pratiques divinatoires chinoises” (What the hand knows about destiny: processes and handlings within Chinese divination). Ethnographiques.org, 31.
  • 2014 “The Fortunes of a Scholar: When the Yijing Challenged Modern Astronomy”. Journal of Asian Studies, 73.3, 733-752.
  • 2014 “Le cas du “dragon chinois”: légende, destin et chance autour d’un jeu divinatoire” (The Case of “Chinese dragon”: Legend, Destiny and Luck in a Divination Game). Etudes chinoises, 33.2, 153-175.
  • 2014 “Les usages de la main dans les calculs divinatoires” (The Uses of the Hand in Divinatory Calculations). Etudes chinoises, 33.1, 113-132.
  • 2013 “Pursue Good Fortune and Avoid Calamity: The Practice and Status of Divination in Contemporary Taiwan”. Journal of Chinese Religions, 41.2, 124-147.
  • 2013 “La relation de maître à disciple en question: transmission orale et écrite des savoirs divinatoires en Chine et à Taïwan” (Interrogating the Master-Disciple Relation: Oral and Written Transmission of Divinatory Knowledge in China and Taiwan). Extrême-Orient, Extrême-Occident, 35, 11-43.
Book Chapters
  • 2022 “The Living Traditions of Divination”, in Michael Lackner and Zhao Lu (eds), Handbook of Divination and Prognostication in China. Leiden: Brill (Handbook of Oriental Studies, vol. 37), 502-536.
  • 2021 “The Encounter of the “Symbolic Chinese Science of the Yijing” with Western Modern Science in Interwar France”. In Benjamin Wai-ming Ng (ed.) The Making of the Global Yijing in the Modern World. Cross-cultural Interpretations and Interactions. Singapore: Springer, 175-195.
  • 2020 “Le Dialogue entre étudiants chinois et sinologues français à l’Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises (1927-1968)”. In Pierre-étienne Will (ed.), Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat et ses successeurs. Deux cents ans de sinologie française en France et en Chine. Paris: Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises, 509-538.
  • 2019 “Reducing Uncertainty through Computation in Chinese Divinatory Arts”. In Dagmar Schäfer, Zhao Lu and Michael Lackner (ed.), Accounting for Uncertainty: Prediction and Planning in Asian History. Berlin: Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Preprint 496), 55-68.
  • 2017 “From jianghu to liumang: working conditions and cultural identity of wandering fortune-tellers in contemporary China”. In Michael Lackner (ed.), Coping with the Future. Theories and Practices of Divination in East Asia. Leiden: Brill (Sinica Leidensa 138), 366-391.
  • 2017 “Selections on Illness Divination from Bodhidharma’s Treasure of the Palm”. In C. Pierce Salguero (ed.), Buddhism and Medecine. An Anthology of Premodern Sources. New York: Columbia University Press, 486-493.
  • 2015 “Judging destiny: doubt and certainty in Chinese divinatory rituals”. In Daniela Berti, Anthony Good and Gilles Tarabout (ed.), Of Doubt and Proof. Ritual and Legal Practices of Judgment. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2015, 39-57-
  • “Les pratiques divinatoires des Chinois en France: migration, globalisation et territoire”. In Vincent Goossaert and Fang Ling (ed.), La religion des Chinois en France. Paris: Éditions du CNRS (forthcoming).
Book Reviews
  • 2021 “LI, GENG. Fate calculation experts: diviners seeking legitimation in contemporary China. vi, 151 pp., bibliogr. Oxford, New York: Berghahn Books, 2019”. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 27, 421-422. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.13514
  • 2018 “Stalk Divination: A Newly Discovered Alternative to the I Ching. Edited and translated by Constance A. Cook and Zhao Lu”. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2017″. T’oung Pao, 104.3/4, 423-427.
  • 2014 “Richard J. Smith, The I Ching: A Biography. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Lives of Great Religious Books)”. Etudes chinoises, 2014, 33.2, 194-197.
  • 2006 “Cheng Ying, in collaboration with Claude Aubert, The Peasants of Mancang: the Chronicle of a Taiwanese village”. China Perspectives, May-June 2006, 65, [online]: http://chinaperspectives.revues.org/640

2019 Alfred-Vinzl Foundation (Grant)
2017 Visiting scholarship, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin
2016-2017 Post-doctoral Fellowship, Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange
2016 Visiting scholarship, International Consortium for Research in the Humanities (IKGF), Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
2016 Short-term Out-going Post-doctoral Fellowship, Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (FMSH) & École française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO), Taipei
2014 Post-doctoral Fellowship, nternational Consortium for Research in the Humanities (IKGF), Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
2013 Ph.D. Dissertation Award (1st prize), French Association of Chinese Studies
2008-2011 Doctoral Fellowship, French Ministry of Education
2011 Fieldwork Grant, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales
2008 Fieldwork Grant, Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient, Taipei
2005-2006 Chinese Language One-Year Scholarship, Taiwanese Ministry of Education, National Chengchi University, Taipei
2002 Chinese Language Grant, ESSEC, Second Foreign Languages Institute, Beijing

2021-2024 Member, DFG Scientific Network “Anthropology and China(s): Co-constructions of Ethnographic and Academic Regions”. Speakers Susanne Brandtstädter, Christof Lammer, Marco Lazzarotti, and Jean-Baptiste Pettier
2012- Research Associate, International Consortium for Research in the Humanities “Fate, Freedom and Prognostication. Strategies for Coping with the Future in East Asia and Europe”, Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), directed by Michael Lackner. http://ikgf.fau.de/.
2017-2018 Member of the Research Program “Accounting for Uncertainty: Prediction and Planning in Asian History”, directed by Dagmar Schäfer and Michael Lackner, MPIWG & IKGF, https://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/research/projects/accounting-uncertainty-prediction-and-planning-asian-history
2014-2017 Member of the Research Program “Techniques, Objets et Patrimoine en Chine, en Corée et au Japon (XVIe-XXIe s.)”, Centre for Studies on China, Korea and Japan-EHESS.
2011-2016 Member of the Research Program “La religion des Chinois en France”, Groupe Sociétés, Religions et Laïcités (GSRL-CNRS), sponsored by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, and Agence Nationale de la Recherche, directed by Fang Ling and Vincent Goossaert. http://www.gsrl.cnrs.fr/la-religion-des-chinois-en-france-anr/.
2012-2016 Member of the Interdisciplinary Research Program “Pratiquer le comparatisme: terrains, textes, artefacts”, EHESS, directed by Cleo M. Carastro, Caterina Guenzi, and Frédérique Ildefonse. https://daimon.hypotheses.org/.

  • June 2021 “Esoteric Practices and the Master-disciple Relationship in the Digital Age”, Online Workshop, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
  • July 2019 Co-Organizer (with Jean-Baptiste Pettier) Workshop “Establishing the Anthropology of China in German-speaking Academic Institutions”, Third meeting of the working group “Anthropology of China” of the German Association of Anthropology (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie), University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
  • June 2019 Co-Organizer (with Alexander Smith) Conference “Rethinking interdisciplinary approaches to decision-making: Choice, culture, and context”, Elite Master’s Program “Standards of Decision-Making across Cultures” & International Consortium for Research in the Humanities, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
  • April 2017 Organizer Internal Workshop “chu 除 (écarter, diviser)”, Research Center on Modern and Contemporary China, EHESS, Paris
  • July 2015 Co-Organizer Panel (with Marta Hanson) “Medical Prognostication, Fate Prediction, and the Body in Early Modern China & Japan”, 14th International Conference on the History of Science in East Asia (ICHSEA), Paris
  • June 2015 Conference Assistant Workshop “Continuities and discontinuities: comparative reflections between China and India”, organized by Prof. Anne Cheng, Collège de France, Paris
  • February 2012 Organizer Workshop for Young Scholars in Chinese Studies: “How to write paper abstracts in English”, French Association of Chinese Studies (AFEC), Paris
  • April 2011 Co-Organizer Ph.D. Students’ Annual Workshop: “Vivre avec son passé: identités et patrimoines en Asie du Nord-est”, Centre for Studies on China, Korea and Japan, EHESS, Paris

  • 04.04.2022 Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris  (Seminar “Les techniques et la culture matérielle, des objets pour les sciences sociales”)
  • 25.03.2022 Aix-Marseille University, IrAsia (Conference “La tradition en Asie: les enjeux de la société contemporaine”)
  • 02.03.2022 National Institute of Oriental Language and Civilization, Paris (Seminar “Société chinoise – approche anthropologique”)
  • 28.06.2021 University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Workshop “Esoteric Practices and the Master-disciple Relationship in the Digital Age”)
  • 16.06.2021 National Institute of Oriental Language and Civilization, Paris (Conference Assises de l’Anthropologie Française des Mondes Chinois)
  • 11.05.2021 University of Münster, Institute of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies (Workshop “The Multidimensional Character of Lots/Sortition – A Transcultural and Diachronic Approach”)
  • 10.12.2019 University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, International Consortium for Research in the Humanities (IKGF) (Conference “Divination in Chinese Religions”)
  • 24.09.2019 University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, IKGF (Conference “Divination and Decision-Making by Lot and Randomization in East Asia and Europe”)
  • 20.06.2019 London School of Economics, Department of Anthropology (Conference “Ontology and Prediction in Divination: Ethnographic and Historical Perspectives”)
  • 03.06.2019 University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, SDAC Elite Master’s Program & IKGF (Conference “Rethinking interdisciplinary approaches to decision-making: Choice, culture, and context”)
  • 12.05.2019 University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (11th Annual Meeting of the Society for Cultural Interaction in East Asia (SCIEA)
  • 07.05.2019 The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (International Conference “Yijing and the World”)
  • 30.10.2018 University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (IKGF Lecture Series)
  • 16.03.2018 Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris (Workshop “Les fabriques du destin: jeux et divination”)
  • 06.09.2017 National Institute of Oriental Language and Civilization (INALCO), Paris (Conference “Assises de l’Anthropologie de la Chine en France”)
  • 27.07.2017 University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, IKGF (Workshop “Accounting for Uncertainty: Prediction and Planning in Asia’s History”)
  • 28.06.2017 Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin (Workshop “Accounting for Uncertainty: Prediction and Planning in Asia’s History”)
  • 21.06.2017 University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, IKGF (International Conference “Mantic Arts in China (II): Handbook series”)
  • 03.05.2017 University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, IKGF (Workshop “Accounting for Uncertainty: Prediction and Planning in Asia’s History”)
  • 26.04.2017 Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris (Seminar “Pratiques, artefacts et mathématiques. Ethnomathématique, anthropologie, histoire”)
  • 28.11.2016 Leipzig University Institute of East Asian Studies & Confucius Institute (Lecture Series)
  • 31.08.2016 Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin (Workshop “Accounting for Uncertainty: Prediction and Planning in Asia’s History”)
  • 28.07.2016 University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, IKGF (Workshop “Accounting for Uncertainty: Prediction and Planning in Asia’s History”)
  • 19.07.2016 University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, IKGF (International Conference “Mantic Arts in China (I)”)
  • 29.06.2016 University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, IKGF (Workshop “Horoscopy across Civilizations – Comparative Approaches to Western, Indian, and Chinese Astrology and Chronomancy”)
  • 25.06.2016 Doshisha University, Kyoto (Association of Asian Studies-in-Asia Conference)
  • 01.06.2016 Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin (Workshop “Accounting for Uncertainty: Prediction and Planning in Asia’s History”)
  • 18.05.2016 Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE), Paris (International Conference “La religion des Chinois de France: Implantations, croyances et pratiques”)
  • 10.05.2016 Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris (Seminar “Sciences et savoirs de l’Asie orientale dans la Mondialisation (XVIe-XXe siècles)”)
  • 14.01.2016 Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris (Seminar “Science, spiritualité et ésotérisme. Approches anthropologiques à partir de l’Inde”)
  • 23.11.2015 American Academy of Religion Annual meeting, Atlanta, (Confucian Traditions Panel: “How the Changes Changed: Yijing Exegesis in Post-Imperial China”)
  • 08.07.2015 14th International Conference on the History of Science in East Asia, EHESS Paris (Panel “Medical Prognostication, Fate Prediction, and the Body in Early Modern China & Japan”)
  • 30.01.2015 Foguangshan Temple, Bussy-St-Georges (Workshop “La religion des Chinois en France”)
  • 28.10.2014 Zürich University (Ethnologiekolloquium)
  • 25.06.2014 University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (IKGF Interdisciplinary Colloquium)
  • 11.06.2014 Collège de France & Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Paris (Conference “Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat et ses successeurs. Deux cents ans de sinologie française en France et en Chine”)
  • 02.06.2014 Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris (Seminar “Approches comparées du destin: le lot, la part, le lien”)
  • 27.05.2014 University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (IKGF Lecture Series)
  • 20.05.2014 French Association of Chinese Studies & Research Center on Modern and Contemporary China, EHESS, Paris (Conference “Destin, chance et jeux de hasard en Chine”)
  • 10.01.2014 National Institute of Oriental Language and Civilization (INALCO), Paris (Seminar “Anthropologie générale de la Chine”)
  • 18.06.2013 Centre for Studies on China, Korea and Japan, EHESS (Ph.D. Fellows’ workshop “Techniques, Objets et Patrimoine en Chine, en Corée et au Japon (XVIe-XXIe)”)
  • 17.04.2013 French Association of Chinese Studies (AFEC), Paris (Young scholars’ conference)
  • 13.04.2013 Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris (Seminar “Les Angles de l’Asie”, with Caterina Guenzi and Marcello Carastro)
  • 12.11.2012 Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris (Seminar “Approches comparées du destin: le lot, la part, le lien”)
  • 06.09.2012 19th Conference of the European Association of Chinese Studies (EACS), Paris
  • 12.07.2012 12th Conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA), Paris X Nanterre University (Panel “Of doubt and proof: ritual and legal practices of judgment”)
  • 14.06.2012 National Institute of Oriental Language and Civilization (INALCO) & French Association of Taiwanese Studies (AFET) (Young scholars in Taiwanese studies’ workshop)
  • 17.02.2012 Rice University, Houston (Conference “Divinatory Traditions in East Asia: Historical, Comparative and Transnational Perspectives”)
  • 08.01.2012 Research Center Sciences, Philosophie, Histoire (SPHERE) & the D. Kim Foundation, Paris Diderot University (Young scholars’ workshop “Science, Technology and Medicine in East Asia, 1850-2000”)
  • 07.04.2011 Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris (Seminar “Anthropologie de la divination dans le monde indien”)
  • 17.04.2009 6th Conference of the European Association of Taiwanese Studies (EATS), Madrid
  • 12.12.2008 Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of the Religious Factor (CEIFR), EHESS (Conference “Figures de l’individualisme dans le religieux contemporain”)
  • 29.05.2008 Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris (Seminar “Anthropologie en Chine: théories et terrains”)
  • 30.04.2008 École française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO) & the French Centre for Research on Contemporary China (Lecture Series)

Lectures and Seminars

SoSe “Individualism and the Changing Moral Landscape in Chinese Society”, SDAC Elite Master’s Program, FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg
SoSe “Contemporary Chinese society and culture through the media”, SDAC Elite Master’s Program, FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg
WiSe “Decision-making across cultures” (Lecture), SDAC Elite Master’s Program, FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg
WiSe “Decision-making across cultures – Interdisciplinary Methodologies: the methodology of the interview in anthropology”, SDAC Elite Master’s Program, FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg
SoSe 2018 “Influences of cultural variances on decision-making processes: an anthropological perspective with a focus on China”, SDAC Elite Master’s Program, FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg
WiSe 2017 “Decision-making across cultures” (Lecture and Seminar), SDAC Elite Master’s Program, FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg
2014-2015 “Conceptions du temps et de l’espace en Inde et en Chine: savoirs, supports et usages contemporains” [Conceptions of time and space in India and China: knowledge, mediums, and contemporary practices], with Caterina Guenzi, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris
2010-2012 Bimonthly Seminar for Ph.D. Students in Chinese studies, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris

Reviewer

Social Analysis, HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, L’Homme, Journal of Chinese Religions, Monumenta Serica, International Journal of Asian Studies, Social History of Medecine, Perspectives Chinoises, Etudes Chinoises, Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident, Nova Religio, Temporalités, Berghahn Books

Editorial board member positions

  • Editorial Board Member, Etudes Chinoises, since 2011.
  • Editorial Board Member, Interdisciplinary Research Program “Pratiquer le comparatisme: terrains, textes, artefacts” (EHESS), 2012-2016
  • Correspondent of Qiao Yi 侨易 journal (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), since 2014
  • Editor of the Monthly Newsletter of the French Association of Chinese Studies, 2012-2014
  • Editor of the Book Review section, Etudes Chinoises, French Association of Chinese Studies, 2012-2014

Memberships

  • Founding member of the International Society for the Critical Study of Divination (ISCSD)
  • Member of the Regional Working Group “Anthropology of China”, German Anthropological Association (DGSKA), https://ethnologiechinas.org/
  • Member of the board of the French Association of Chinese Studies (AFEC), 2011-2014
  • Other past and present professional memberships: The Association for Asian Studies (AAS), International Society for the History of East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine (ISHEASTM), American Academy of Religion (AAR), Réseau Asie & Pacifique (CNRS), Association Française d’Études Chinoises (AFEC), Association Francophone d’Etudes Taïwanaises (AFET).

  • Public Lecture, IKGF Humanities Festival “Was wird werden? Blicke in die Zukunft”, Volkshochschule Erlangen, “To predict is to remember: divination and memorization in China”, October 19, 2021
  • Radio interview, France Culture radio station, “Culture monde” Program, “Superstitions (3/4): Les arts divinatoires, entre science et croyance” [Divinatory arts, between science and belief], June 14, 2017.
  • Exhibition, Member of the Scientific Committee, “Les fils du destin: une installation autour de la notion de destin et des pratiques divinatoires” [The threads of destiny: an installation around the notion of destiny and divinatory practices], EHESS 40th anniversary, EHESS, June 1-18, 2015. https://daimon.hypotheses.org/category/les-fils-du-destin
  • Digital Exhibition, Project Member, “Autophotoscopie Chine-Corée-Japon: les images des chercheurs sur la Chine, la Corée et le Japon” [China-Korea-Japan autophotoscopy: scholars’ pictures on China, Korea and Japan], Centre for Studies on China, Korea and Japan, EHESS, 2015-2017. http://collection.efeo.fr/ws/web/app/collection/expo/17