Faculty Member, Religious Studies
Assistant professor
Thesis Title: Spreading the Dao, Managing Mastership, and Performing Salvation: The Life and Alchemical Teachings of Chen Zhixu
About
I study pre-modern Daoist self-cultivation literature, primarily the inner-alchemical (including sexual-alchemical) texts of the Song and Yuan dynasties, and secondarily texts from the Tang, Ming, and Qing dynasties, and Republican period.
My dissertation (2007) on Chen Zhixu 陳致虛 (1290–1343+) includes two long sections (more structural than historical) on inner alchemy (140 pp.) and on Chen's individual brand of sexual alchemy (180 pp.).
In addition to technical descriptions of inner alchemy, I also analyze the field of alchemy as a competitive market. My primary theoretical approaches are sociology of culture (esp. Bourdieu) and comparative esotericism (i.e., sociology of secrecy), but I also use some classic religious-studies theorists.
My diss. can be downloaded in a non-searchable pdf format from UMI for free; please contact me for a searchable pdf version.
Thanks for your interest!
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