Buddhism, literature, and music in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, from the medieval period to the present.
About
My research focuses on handwritten materials—bark-paper documents, palm-leaf manuscripts, and stone inscriptions—and their performative realization in speech, chant, and song. I have long worked with Thai, Khmer, Lanna, Lao, Pali, and Sanskrit sources, and more recently with those in Tai Khün, Tai Lue, Shan, and Vietnamese. In the field of Khmer literature, I authored Until Nirvana’s Time: Buddhist Songs from Cambodia (Shambhala Publications, 2022) and co-edited a major anthology, Out of the Shadows of Angkor: Cambodian Poetry, Prose, and Performance through the Ages (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2022). Recent publications include articles on Theravada nuns, Khmer epigraphy, Thai literary history, and Vietnamese Buddhist translation.