Tong, Chee Kiong | Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

Tong, Chee Kiong

Tong, Chee Kiong
Research Departments・Position
Social Coexistence
Visiting Research Scholar
Area
Comparative Religion, Chinese Business Networks, Ethnicity in Southeast Asia, New Humanisms
Research Interests / Keywords
Chinese, Southeast Asia, Humanism
Contact
tongck@nus.edu.sg

Tong, Chee Kiong

New Humanisms in Asia

Modernity has often been constructed as the rise of 1) individualism and 2) the idea that rational scientific thought will supplant, or at least reduce, the influence of religion and traditional belief systems. Critics of modernity and modernism, particularly post-modern scholars, have pointed to wars, violence, identity politics, religious conflicts, ethno-nationalism, and environmental issues as failures of modernity to deliver progress. In addition, religious revivalism and the growth of new religious movements in many parts of the world, including Asia, have made us more skeptical about the role of modernity and science. This project seeks to understand the relationships among religion, secularity, spirituality, and modernity in contemporary society. Based on primary fieldwork in various parts of Asia, including Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan, it seeks to develop a model to understand human behavior and social interaction in the modern world by combining the concepts of spirituality and humanism.