About

I am a PhD. candidate pursuing my doctorate in East Asian Languages and Civilizations (Chinese) in the School of International Letters and Cultures at ASU.  My research interest lays in modes of practice of religious Daoism during the latter half of the first millennium of the Common Era (including issues of ritual practice, identity, community, and interactions with Buddhism).

My research goal is to help untangle the complex connections between Daoist ritual practices in the Tang dynasty (618-907 CE) with their later expressions in the Northern and Southern Song dynasties (960-1279 CE).  In particular, I am concerned with the rise of a new class of practitioner, the “ritual masters of summoning and interrogation” (kaozhao fashi 考召法師), itinerant ritual specialists who specialized in healing and exorcism through the mastery of a series of daemonifugic rites.  I am also interested in the expression of religious elements in the poetry and prose of the period, in particular how such works reimagine and recreate earlier narratives to fit contemporary religious and secular concerns.