Professor of Buddhist and Chinese Studies
About
Research interests:
I work on the history of religion in China, with a particular focus on Buddhism. I have written about and remain interested in the histories, doctrines, and practices of Chan, transregional Buddhist exchange, the confluence of narrative and ritual, relics, pilgrimage and eremeticism, hagiography and autobiography, popular religion, the transmission of Buddhism to the United States, and the modern history of Buddhism in China. Some of this work is available on my website and my Academia page.
My current research is focused on the cultural history of Chinese Buddhism from the late nineteenth through the mid-twentieth century.
Funding:
My research has been generously supported by the Dan David Prize, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation, the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, and the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of Michigan.
Teaching interests:
At Michigan, I teach a range of courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. My regular course offerings include “Introduction the Buddhism,” “Zen Buddhism: History, Culture, and Critique,” “Gods, Ghosts, and Gangsters: Popular Religion in China,” “Buddhism and Death,” and “Zen Masters, Dharma Bums, and Drag Queens: Buddhism in America.” I also teach courses on the reinvention of religion in modern Asia, Qing dynasty and Republican era Buddhism in China, reading Buddhist texts (in Chinese), and systems of self-cultivation in China.
Current status:
I will be on research leave until the fall of 2026.
