Mu-chou Poo was born in Taiwan and is also known by the Chinese name 蒲慕州. His academic interests developed around the comparative study of ancient civilizations, particularly the religious and social histories of ancient Egypt and China. Although he initially considered studying Greco-Roman history and literature, he later turned to Egyptology for graduate study in the United States, where he established the comparative orientation that has characterized his subsequent scholarship.
Poo studied history at National Taiwan University, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1975. He continued graduate study in history at National Taiwan University and undertook graduate work in Egyptology at Brown University before entering The Johns Hopkins University. At Johns Hopkins he received an M.A. in Near Eastern Studies in 1978 and completed a Ph.D. in Egyptology in 1984. His training combined the study of ancient Egyptian civilization with the historical and religious traditions of China, providing the foundation for his later comparative research.
After completing his doctoral training at The Johns Hopkins University, Poo joined the Institute of History and Philology at Academia Sinica in Taipei, where he served as a research fellow from 1984 to 2009 and later continued as an adjunct research fellow. His scholarship during this period addressed ancient Egyptian religion and society, Chinese religious history, burial practices, concepts of death, and the ways ancient societies understood foreigners and cultural difference. In 2009 Poo joined The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He served as Chair Professor of History and Head of the Graduate Division in the Department of History from 2009 to 2017, and he directed the Center for the Comparative Study of Antiquity from 2011 to 2021. He has also held visiting professorships at the University of California, Los Angeles, Columbia University, the Free University of Berlin, the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris, Grinnell College, and The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His later work at CUHK has continued to compare ancient Egyptian and Chinese ideas about religion, ghosts, the afterlife, personal welfare, and everyday life. He is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of History at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Established a comparative research program linking the religious and social histories of ancient Egypt and China.
Directed the Center for the Comparative Study of Antiquity at The Chinese University of Hong Kong from 2011 to 2021.
Led the research project The Imagined Paradise: The Netherworld in Ancient Egypt and China, which received a 2019 Hong Kong Research Grants Council Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship.
(A historical investigation of religious beliefs and goals...)
1998(A comparative study of how ancient Mesopotamian, Egyptian...)
2005The Netherworld in Ancient Egypt and China: An Imagined Paradise
(A comparative study of ideas of the netherworld and imagi...)
2023(Later electronic edition of Poo's study of wine and wine ...)
2014Burial Styles and Ideas of Life and Death: Reflections on the Religion of Ancient China
(A study of burial practices and ideas about life and deat...)
1993(A study of wine, wine offerings, and their religious sign...)
1995Ghosts and Religious Life in Ancient China
(A study of ghosts and their place in the religious life o...)
2022Daily Life in Ancient China
(A study of everyday life in ancient China.)
2018Ancient Religion and Belief
(A study of ancient religion and belief.)
2003Poo's comparative historical approach treats ancient religious ideas as cultural constructions that can illuminate the values and expectations of living communities. He argues that comparison between civilizations can reveal both shared human concerns and culturally specific solutions, while also requiring scholars to examine the assumptions inherited from modern traditions of interpretation.
Poo has participated in academic and public educational bodies concerned with history, humanities, comparative antiquity, and higher-education assessment. His documented service includes editorial-board work for the Journal of Chinese History, participation in Hong Kong's Humanities and Social Sciences Council and history-education committees, and executive-committee service at the Centre for the Study of Islamic Culture at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Editorial board member.
Journal of Chinese History Editorial Board , United Kingdom
Council member.
Humanities and Social Sciences Council, University Grants Committee of Hong Kong SAR , Hong Kong
2013 - present
Executive Committee member.
Centre for the Study of Islamic Culture, The Chinese University of Hong Kong , Hong Kong
2015 - present
Committee member.
Committee on Senior Secondary History, Education Bureau of Hong Kong SAR , Hong Kong
Poo has described intellectual comparison, continuing dissatisfaction with incomplete answers, and the search for better explanations as important principles of his research and teaching. He emphasizes curiosity and personal motivation as necessary for sustaining a long academic career.
Quotes from others about the person
Poo has described comparison as a means of deepening historical understanding and has emphasized that scholarship should not be constrained by preconceived interpretations. In discussing research on the afterlife, he has argued that images of the netherworld reveal ideals and expectations held by living societies.
Poo is married to historian Ping-chen Hsiung, who served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His move to CUHK in 2009 coincided with Hsiung's appointment there and enabled him to shift from a primarily research-based position at Academia Sinica toward university teaching and closer engagement with students.
