Rachel Pang
Associate Professor of Religious Studies
Education
- Ph.D. University of Virginia
- Hon. B.A. University of Toronto
Areas of Expertise
- Tibetan Buddhism
- Buddhist life writing, song, poetry
- Non-Sectarianism
- Shabkar
- Buddhist nationalism
Background
At 91ÇÑ×Ó, I teach courses in East Asian religions, Tibetan Buddhism, Chinese religions, Buddhist nationalism, and Buddhism in popular culture.
My research focuses on the non-sectarian movement of nineteenth-century eastern Tibet, Buddhist life writing, Tibetan song and poetry, animal ethics, Buddhist nationalism, and the collected works of Shabkar Tsokdruk Rangdrol (1781-1851). My current book project is entitled Singer of the Land of Snows, on the life and works of Shabkar.
I have published many peer-reviewed articles and book chapters in journals such as a/b: Auto/biography Studies, Himalaya, Numen, Journal of Buddhist Ethics, Journal of Inter-Religious Studies, and Revue d'Etudes Tibétaines. An avid translator, several of my translations of Shabkar™s poems appear in Faults of Meat (2019, ed. Barstow) and Longing to Awaken (2024, eds. Gayley and Townsend) as well as at Lotsawa House [].
Teaching
- REL 180 Intro to East Asian Religions
- REL 280 Chinese Religions
- REL 282 Tibetan Religions
- REL 283 Buddhism in America
- REL 288 The Religious Question in Modern China
- REL 382 Zen Buddhism
- REL 474 The Daodejing and its Interpreters
- WRI 101 Buddhism, Nationalism, and Violence
