Stevan Harrell has been visiting Taiwan for study and research since the late 1960s and has conducted anthropological research there on four occasions. Since 1974 he has taught at the University of Washington, where he is now professor of anthropology and director of the honors program. He is author of Ploughshare Village: Culture and Context in Taiwan as well as numerous articles dealing with Taiwanese religion, folk medicine, family organization, economic values, and social change. He has also conducted field research in Sichuan and is coeditor (with Deborah Davis) of Chinese Families in the Post-Mao Era.

Huang Chun-chieh is professor of history (a Mencius scholar) at National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan. He taught Chinese intellectual history at the University of Washington in Seattle (1986-1987). He is author of four books (in Chinese) on Confucianism and four books (also in Chinese) on postwar Taiwan and is coeditor (with Erik Zürcher) of Norms and the State in China (1993).