Publications

Single-author books

2023                 Dreaming and Self-Cultivation in China, 300 BCE – 800 CE. Harvard University Asia Center. Harvard-Yenching Monograph Series 138. 304 pages

2020                 The Chinese Dreamscape, 300 BCE – 800 CE. Harvard University Asia Center. Harvard-Yenching Monograph Series 122. 260 pages

                        * Winner, Joseph Levenson Prize (pre-1900 category) awarded by the Association for Asian Studies

                        * Winner, Médaille Stanislas Julien

2015                 A Garden of Marvels: Tales of Wonder from Early Medieval China. University of Hawaii Press. 164 pages.

2012                 Signs from the Unseen Realm: Buddhist Miracle Tales from Early Medieval China. Kuroda Institute Series in East Asian Buddhism, University of Hawaii Press. 300 pages

2009                 Making Transcendents: Ascetics and Social Memory in Early Medieval China. University of Hawaii Press. 300 pages.

                        * Winner, American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion

                        * Honorable Mention (= runner-up), Association for Asian Studies Joseph Levenson Prize

                        Chinese translation: Xiu xian: gudai Zhongguo de xiuxing yu shehui jiyi 修仙：古代中国的修行与社会记忆. Nanjing: Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 2019,  by Gu Xuan 顾漩

2002                 To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth: A Translation and Study of Ge Hong’s Traditions of Divine Transcendents. University of California Press, Daoist Classics series no. 2. 607 pages

1996                 Strange Writing: Anomaly Accounts in Early Medieval China. State University of New York Press. 524 pages

Co-edited volumes

2018                 Memory in Medieval China: Text, Ritual, and Community, co-edited with Wendy Swartz (lead co-editor). E.J. Brill. 270 pages

2014                 Early Medieval China: A Sourcebook, co-edited with Wendy Swartz (lead co-editor), Jessey Choo, and Lu Yang. Columbia University Press. 720 pages

                        * Selected as Choice Outstanding Academic Title

                        * Chosen as a Best Reference title, Library Journal (March 1, 2015 issue)

Peer-reviewed articles and chapters

(2023)              “Nonhuman Self-Cultivators in Early Medieval China: Re-Reading a Story Type,” Early Medieval China 29

(2023)              “Anecdotes and/as Social Memory: Understanding the Nature of Buddhist Miracle Tales in Early Medieval China,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 45

(2023)              “Shangqing Scriptures as Performative Texts,” in Religion and Poetry in Medieval China: The Way and the Words, edited by Gil Raz and Anna M. Shields, 175-96. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press

2021                 “‘Fojiao ru Zhongguo’ yu zhonggu zaoqi Zhongguo ‘佛教入中國’ 於中古早期中國,” in Xin Xinyang, jiu shehui: Zhongguo yu Luoma de zongjiao zhuanhua 新信仰, 舊社會: 中國與羅馬的宗教轉化, edited by Poo Mu-chou , Harold A. Drake, and Lisa Raphals, 29-57. Taipei: Lianjing, 2021. [= Chinese translation of “‘Buddhism Enters China’ in Early Medieval China” (2017).]

2021                 “The Non-Anthropocentricity of Dreaming in Late Classical and Medieval China,” in Chinese Environmental Ethics: Religious Ontologies and Social Practices, edited by Mayfair M. Yang, 149-67. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield

2020                 “An Ant and a Man, a Rock and a Woman: Preliminary Notes toward an Alternate History of Chinese Worldviews,” in At the Shores of the Sky: Asian Studies for Albert Hoffstädt, edited by Paul W. Kroll and Jonathan A. Silk, 199-210. Leiden: Brill

2019                 “Popular Religion,” in The Cambridge History of Early Medieval China, edited by Albert Dien and Keith Knapp, 579-96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

2019                 “Liuchao shidai jushi jiatingzhong de ‘zhaitang’ chulun 六朝時代居士家庭中的 ‘齋堂’ 初論” [Abstinence halls in lay households in early medieval China], in Shushi chaomai chushi, niudai duoguo jiefen: Fojiao yu dongya zongjiao siyuan de duozhong shehui zuoyong yu gongneng 淑世超邁出世，紐帶多過界分：佛教與東亞宗教寺院的多重社會作用與功能, edited by Chen Jinhua 陳金華 and Wang Li’na 王麗娜, 73-97. [Translated by Ji Yun 紀贇.] Taipei: Xinwenfeng, 2019

2018                 “‘Religious’ as a Category: A Comparative Case Study,” Numen 65:333-76

2018                 “Miracle Tales as Scripture Reception: A Case Study involving the Lotus Sutra in China, ca. 370-750 CE,” Early Medieval China 24:24-52

2018                 “Shangqing jing de biaoyan xingzhi上清經的表演性質” [The performative nature of Shangqing Daoist scriptures], in Daojiao xiulian yu keyi de wenxue tixian 道教修煉與科儀的文學體驗,edited by Timothy W.K. Chan (陳偉強), 25-53. [Translated by Qi Xuanming 戚軒銘 and Chen Weiqiang 陳偉強.] Nanjing: Fenghuang chubanshe

2018                 “Introduction,” co-authored with Wendy Swartz, in Memory in Medieval China: Text, Ritual, and Community (E.J. Brill), 1-9

2017                 “Zongjiao zongzang yu zongjiao kezheng: Fojiao lingyanji yanjiu 宗教總藏與宗教克爭：佛教靈驗記研究.” [Translated by Chen Xingyu 陳星宇 from “Religious Repertoires and Contestation: A Case Study Based on Buddhist Miracle Tales” (2012).] Zhongguo su wenhua yanjiu 中國俗文化研究 13:49-68

2017                 “‘Buddhism Enters China’ in Early Medieval China,” in Old Society, New Belief: Religious Transformation of China and Rome, ca. 1st-6th Centuries, ed. Poo Mu-chou, Harold Drake, and Lisa Raphals, 13-34. Oxford University Press

2015                 “Shenxian zhuan,” in Early Medieval Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, ed. Cynthia Chennault, Keith Knapp, Alan Berkowitz, and Al Dien, 269-74. China Research Monograph, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley

2015                 “Abstinence Halls (Zhaitang 齋堂) in Lay Households in Early Medieval China,” Studies in Chinese Religions 1.2:1-21

2014                 “The Sword Scripture: Recovering and Interpreting a Lost 4th-Century Daoist Method for Cheating Death,” Daoism: Religion, History and Society/道教研究學報 6:33-84

2014                 “Relations with the Unseen World,” in Early Medieval China: A Sourcebook, ed. Wendy Swartz, Robert Ford Campany, Lu Yang, and Jessey Choo, 539-42. Columbia University Press

2014                 “Tales of Strange Events,” in Early Medieval China: A Sourcebook, ed. Wendy Swartz, Robert Ford Campany, Lu Yang, and Jessey Choo, 576-91. Columbia University Press

2012                 “Religious Repertoires and Contestation: A Case Study Based on Buddhist Miracle Tales,” History of Religions 52.2:99-141

2011                 “Chinese History and Writing about ‘Religion(s)’: Reflections at a Crossroads,” in Dynamics in the History of Religions between Asia and Europe: Encounters, Notions, and Comparative Perspectives, ed. Marion Steinicke and Volkhard Krech, 273-94. E.J. Brill

2010                 “Narrative in the Self-Presentation of Transcendence-Seekers,” in Alan K.L. Chan and Yuet-Keung Lo, eds., Interpretation and Literature in Early Medieval China, 133-64. State University of New York Press

2010                 “Seekers of Transcendence and Their Communities in This World (pre-350 A.D.),” in John Lagerwey and Lü Pengzhi, eds., Early Chinese Religion, Part Two: The Period of Division (220-589 AD), vol. 1, 345-94. E. J. Brill

2008                 “Fushi yiwu: Yi Ge Hong wei lie kan xiuxingzhe yu ziran de guanxi 服食异物：以葛洪为例看修行者与自然的关系,” in Daojiao yu shengtai: yuzhou jingguan de neizai zhi dao 道教与生态 : 宇宙景观的内在之道 (Jiangsu: Jiangsu jiaoyu chubanshe 江苏教育出版社), 109-25 [= Chinese translation of “Ingesting the Marvelous” (2001)]

2006                 “Secrecy and Display in the Quest for Transcendence in China, ca. 220 B.C.E.-350 C.E.,” History of Religions 45.4:291-336

2005                 “Two Religious Thinkers of the Early Eastern Jin: Gan Bao 干寶 and Ge Hong 葛 洪 in Multiple Contexts,” Asia Major 3rd series 18 (2005):175-224

2005                 “Eating Better than Gods and Ancestors,” in Of Tripod and Palate: Food, Politics, and Religion in Traditional China, ed. Roel Sterckx, 96-122. Palgrave Press

2005                 “Long-Distance Specialists in Early Medieval China,” in Literature, Religion, and East-West Comparison: Essays in Honor of Anthony C. Yu, ed. Eric Ziolkowski, 109-24. University of Delaware Press

2005                 “The Meanings of Cuisines of Transcendence in Late Classical and Early Medieval China,” T’oung Pao 91:126-182

2005                 “Living off the Books:  Fifty Ways to Dodge Ming 命 [Preallotted Lifespan] in Early Medieval China,” in The Magnitude of Ming:  Command, Allotment, and Fate in Chinese Culture, ed. Christopher Lupke, 129-50. University of Hawaii Press

2003                 “On the Very Idea of Religions (in the Modern West and in Early Medieval China),” History of Religions 42.4:287-319

                        Reprinted in Vincent Goossaert, ed., Critical Readings on Religions of China (Leiden: Brill, 2012), vol. 1, 41-76

2001                 “Ingesting the Marvelous:  The Practitioner’s Relationship to Nature According to Ge Hong (283-343 C.E.),” in Daoism and Ecology: Ways within a Cosmic Landscape, ed. Norman Girardot, James Miller, and Liu Xiaogan, 125-47. Harvard University Press

1996                 “The Earliest Tales of the Bodhisattva Guanshiyin,” in Religions of China in Practice, ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr., 82-96. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

1995                 “To Hell and Back:  Death, Near‑Death, and other Worldly Journeys in Early Medieval China,” in Death, Ecstasy, and Other Worldly Journeys, ed. J. Collins and M. Fishbane, 343-60. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

1994                 “Taoist Bioethics in the Final Age: Therapy and Salvation in the Book of Divine Incantations for Penetrating the Abyss,” in Religious Methods and Resources in Bioethics, ed. P. Camenisch, 67-91. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

1993                 “The Real Presence,” History of Religions 32.3:233-272

                        Partially reprinted in Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom, eds., Sources of Chinese Tradition, v. 1: From Earliest Times to 1600, 2nd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 531-32

1993                 “Buddhist Revelation and Taoist Translation in Early Medieval China,” Taoist Resources 4.1:1‑29

1992                 “Xunzi and Durkheim as Theorists of Ritual Practice,” in Discourse and Practice, ed. F. Reynolds and D. Tracy, 197-231. Albany:  State University of New York Press

                        Reprinted in Readings in Ritual Studies, ed. Ronald L. Grimes (Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Prentice Hall, 1996), 86-103

1991                 “Ghosts Matter:  The Culture of Ghosts in Six Dynasties Zhiguai,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 13:15‑34

1991                 “Notes on the Devotional Uses and Symbolic Functions of Sutra Texts as Depicted in Early Chinese Buddhist Miracle Tales and Hagiographies,” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 14.1:28‑72

1991                 “Useless and Useful Survivals:  A Reply to Robert A. Segal,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 3.1:100‑114

1990                 “Return‑from‑Death Narratives in Early Medieval China,” Journal of Chinese Religions 18:91‑125

1990                 “’Survival’ as an Interpretive Strategy:  A Sino‑Western Comparative Case Study,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 2.1:1‑26

1986                 “Cosmogony and Self‑Cultivation:  The Demonic and the Ethical in Two Chinese Novels,” Journal of Religious Ethics 14:81‑112

1985                 “The Demonology of the Hsi‑yu chi,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 7:95‑115