Ch'ing-k'un Yang | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born | 1911 | ||||||||
| Died | January 10, 1999 (aged 88–89) | ||||||||
| Spouse | Louise Chin 1914–2006 | ||||||||
| Scientific career | |||||||||
| Fields | Sociology, Religion | ||||||||
| Institutions | University of Pittsburgh | ||||||||
| Academic advisors | Robert E. Park | ||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 楊慶堃 | ||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 杨庆堃 | ||||||||
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Ch'ing-k'un Yang (Chinese: 楊慶堃; pinyin: Yáng Qìngkūn; 1911 – 10 January 1999), better known as C. K. Yang, was an American sociologist who pioneered the application of sociological theory to the study of China. He was known for his contributions to the study of Chinese religion and his argument that religion in China was "diffuse" and present in many aspects rather than being institutionalized in churches.
Yang was born in Guangzhou and educated at Yenching University, where he became interested in the study of sociology, and taught for much of his career at the University of Pittsburgh, where he trained American and Chinese sociologists and used periodic leaves of absence to build sociology programs in Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China.
In 2007, friends and colleagues published a festschrift in his memory, Social Change in Contemporary China: C. K. Yang and the Concept of Institutional Diffusion.[1]