Research Summary

I am currently engaged in researching and publishing on three distinct, but interrelated areas within my field of art history, including traditional Buddhist art of Asia, Buddhist visual culture of the Asian diaspora, and Buddhism inspired contemporary Asian art.

Education

  • PhD, Art History, University of Chicago
  • MA, Art History, University of Chicago
  • BA, Comparative Literature, Brown University

Selected Publications

Book Manuscript

Debts of the Body: Filial Figuration and Chinese Buddhist Art, Late 5th to Early 13thCenturies.

In preparation for review.

Transpacific Visuality: Asian American Buddhism and Visual Culture. In preparation for review. 

In preparation for review.

Peer Reviewed Publications

Journal Articles  

"The Queer Art of Yan Xing: Towards a Global Visual Language of Sex, Desire, and Diaspora." Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art 9:1 and 2 (August 2022): 157-75. Published

“The Buddhist Resistance of Zhang Huan’s Pagoda(2009).” Art Journal Open, published by the College Art Association (7,200 words). http://artjournal.collegeart.orgPublished

“Electric Pagodas and Hyphenate Gates: Folklore, Folklife, and the Architecture of Chinatown,” Amerasia Journal 39: 2 (July 2013): 25-47. Published

 “Family Space: Buddhist Materiality and Ancestral Fashioning in Mogao Cave 231,” The Art Bulletin92: 1-2 (March/June 2010): 61-82. Published

 

Book Chapters

“American Buddhism and Visual Culture.” In The Oxford Handbook of American Buddhism, edited by Ann Gleig and Scott A. Mitchell, New York: Oxford University Press. Forthcoming Autumn 2023.

“Humanistic Buddhism and Contemporary Chinese Art.” In 2019 7th Symposium on Humanistic Buddhism: Humanistic Buddhism and the Future, edited by Miao Fan, et al., 298-311, Fo Guang Shan, Institute of Humanistic Buddhism, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, 2020. Published

“Female Bodily Sacrifice and the Absence of Men: Representing Filial Offspring in Song, Jin, and Liao Tombs,” in Refiguring East Asian Religious Art: Buddhist Devotion and Ancestor Veneration. Chicago: Center for the Art of East Asia, University of Chicago; and Art Media Resources, 2019. Published

“Representing Childhood in Chinese Buddhism: The SujatiJatakain Text and Image.” In Little Buddhas, edited by Vanessa Sasson, 157-182. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. Published

“Folklore and the Visual Culture of Burmese America: Domestic Buddhist Practices and the Dhammananda Monastery,” in Asian American Identities and Practices: Folkloric Expressions in Everyday Life, edited by Jonathan H.X. Lee and Kathleen Nadeau, 15-25. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Rowman and Littlefield, 2014. Published

 

Essays, Catalogs, and Interviews        

“Why Buddhist Art Makes Me Angry” (first in a series of essays on Asian American Buddhism). Lion’s Roar (bi-monthly magazine with largest circulation in the English language). Forthcoming Summer 2023.

“Historiography of Chinese Art.” In Grove Art Encyclopedia, Oxford Art Online. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. 1000-word update of existing entry. Published

“Ancestor Portraits in Mogao Cave 231, Dunhuang, Gansu Province, People’s Republic of China.” Object Narrative, Initiative for the Study of Material and Visual Cultures of Religion, Yale University. Sally Promey, director. Peer reviewed website (posted December, 2013, http://mavcor.yale.edu/conversations/object-narratives/ancestor-portraits-mogao-cave-231). Published

Zhang Huan: 49 Days.Text by Winston Kyan, 5-8. Los Angeles: Blum and Poe, 2011. Published

“Folklore and Asian American Visual Culture.” In Encyclopedia of Asian American Folklore and Folklife(3 vols.), edited by Jonathan H.X. Lee and Kathleen Nadeau, (vol. 1) 54-58. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2011. Published

 “Artist, System, Culture – On the Anthropology of Contemporary Chinese Art: An Interview with Wu Hung,” Yishu: A Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art9, no. 2 (March/April 2010): 65-73. Published

 

Book Reviews

Review of East of the Pacific: Making Histories of Asian American Art, curated by Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander, September 28, 2022 to February 12, 2023, in caa.reviews. Forthcoming Spring 2023.

Review of After Hope, an exhibition of contemporary Asian and Asian American Video Art at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, curated by Abby Chen, Viv Liu, and Padma Maitland, February 1, 2021 to March 31, 2021, in caa.reviews (posted August 18, 2021). http://www.caareviews.org/reviews/3880#.Ymi_2i1h3-YPublished

Review of Authentic Replicas: Buddhist Art in Medieval China, by Hseuh-man Shen. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2018. In Hualin International Journal of Buddhist Studies, 4, no. 2 (2021). https://glorisunglobalnetwork.org/hualin-international-journal-of-buddhist-studies/e-journal/4-2Published

Review of Pattern and Person: Ornament, Society, and Self in Classical China, by Martin J. Powers. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006. In Journal of Asian Studies68, no. 1, (February 2009): 277-278. Published

Review of Reinventing the Wheel: Paintings of Rebirth in Medieval Buddhist Temples, by Stephen F. Teiser. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007. In caa.reviews(posted January 31, 2008: http://www.caareviews.org/reviews/1079). 1,575 words. Published

Review of Mirror of Morality: Chinese Narrative Illustration and Confucian Ideology, by Julia K. Murray. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2007. In Journal of Chinese Religions, no. 35 (2007): 178-180. Published