Ding Kehan

Thesis title: Chan Monastic Tea in Medieval China: A Deconstruction of Chan-tea Culture

Background

Kehan received her master's degree in Chinese studies at Edinburgh in 2018 and started her PhD in the following academic year. Most of her research interests lie in the overlap of Chan Buddhism and medieval Chinese history, including Buddhist monastic rituals, the state administration of Buddhism, the narrative of Chan hagiographies, and the history of tea.

Fellowship & Scholarship

2020   Associate Fellow of Higher Education Academy

2016   China National Scholarship

Responsibilities & affiliations

Tutor in Chinese, LLC, University of Edinburgh

Intern at CAMLab, FAS, Harvard University

Member of Edinburgh Buddhist Studies Network

Undergraduate teaching

Pre-Modern East Asian History and the Forces That Shaped It

Society and Culture in Pre-Modern East Asia

Modern East Asian History B

Conference details

23 June 2023   UK Association for Buddhist Studies Conference 2023: Negotiating Boundaries, University of St Andrews

                              “Tea Samādhi: Material Display and Imagination of Chan Buddhism” (accepted)

14 June 2023   International Conference “Ritual and Materiality in Buddhism and Asian Religions”, Princeton University

                              Thesis Introduction “Buddhist Monastic Tea in Song-Yuan China: A Deconstruction of Chan-tea Culture”

12 Sep 2022    34. Deutscher Orientalistentag (DOT), Freie Universität Berlin

                             “The Musical Signifiers of Buddhist Monastic Rituals in Medieval China” (accepted)

25 Aug 2022    The 24th Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies (EACS), Palacký University Olomouc

                            “The Administration of Buddhism in the Northern Song (960-1127): Inter-Prefectural Restriction and Intra-Prefectural Autonomy”

29 July 2022    International Conference “How Zen Became Chan”, Yale University

                            “The Spatial Orientation of Chan Rituals: Bridging Buddhist Monastic Practices with Chinese State Rites in Medieval China”

13 Aug 2021    Glorisun International Intensive Program on Buddhism: Young Scholars’ Forum, CAMLab, Harvard University

                            “The Syntax of Ritual Formulation in the Song-Yuan Buddhist Monasteries”

3-6 Aug 2020   The Third Middle-Period China Humanities Conference (220-1600), Yale University (cancelled)

                            “Chan Monastic Tea Rituals in Song-Yuan China: A Deconstruction of Chancha”

Ding Kehan. “The Spatial Orientation of Chan Rituals: Bridging Buddhist Monastic Practices with Chinese State Rites in Medieval China”. Journal of Chan Buddhism. (Accepted)

Ding Kehan 丁可含. “Zhonggu Zhongguo Chanyuan yigui de fangwei jiedu” 中古中國禪院儀軌的方位解讀 [An orientational interpretation of medieval Chinese Chan monastic rituals]. In How Zen Became Chan: Pre-modern and Modern Representations of a Transnational East Asian Buddhist Tradition 禪流河東復河西:禪宗跨地域與跨文化傳播的跨學科考察 (Hualin Book Series on Buddhist Studies Vol.5). Edited by Chen Jinhua 陳金華, 303-325. Singapore: World Scholastic Publishers, 2022. ISBN: 978-981-17276-0-3.