Overview
Yuanyuan Duan earned her Ph.D. in Asian Literature, Religion, and Culture from Cornell University in 2026. She is a historian of religion, specializing in the role of Buddhist rituals and material practices in shaping political authorities across Asia during the Middle Period (800–1400). Her dissertation research, "Esoteric Rituals and Buddhist Sovereignty in Dali, 863–1424 CE," has been concurrently awarded dissertation fellowships from the ACLS/Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation in Buddhist Studies and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation in Chinese studies. Her broader interests include Buddhism and "barbarians," the imagination of bodies in Asian religious traditions, and cross-cultural exchanges along the Silk Roads. At Cornell, she teaches courses on transregional Chinese history, Buddhism, and Chinese language course.
