JI Zhe is a Post-doctoral Fellow at the Groupe Sociétés, Religions, Laïcités, and Resident Research Fellow in the Nantes Institute for Advanced Studies (2009-2010) in France. He received his PhD in sociology from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris) in 2007. He has published articles on Chinese Buddhism, Confucianism, youth religiosity and sociological theory of religion in various journals including Perspectives Chinoises, Social Compass, Cahiers internationaux de sociologie and Nova Religio. Based on his doctoral thesis, his book on modern changes in Chan Buddhism will be published by the Editions de l’EHESS (in the “En temps & lieux” series, 2010, Paris). He guest-edits a special issue of the French academic annual Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident, which focuses on religion as educative space in modern and contemporary China (forthcoming in 2011). His current research is on Buddhism and Confucianism in the post-Mao era, and Chinese secularism.