Julius N. Tsai is a historian of religion with research interests in Daoism and Chinese religions. After studies in history at Swarthmore (B.A. 1991), he completed graduate work in theology and religious studies at Harvard (M.Div. 1996) and religious studies at Stanford (Ph.D. 2004), also spending a number of years researching and undertaking fieldwork in Taiwan. His research relates the study of particular communities and traditions to a broader view of human religiosity. This has led to examinations of ritual action; religious biographies; the formation religious identity and the projection of otherness; the nature and function of secrecy in religions; and the relationship between religion and empire.
Journal Articles:
"Reading the Inner Biography of the Perfected Person of Purple Solarity: Religion and Society in an Early Daoist Hagiography," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Series 3, 18:2 (2008): 193-220.
"Learning About Teaching From the Traditions We Teach: Reflections on Teaching From an Undergraduate Buddhism Course," Teaching Theology and Religion, 11:3 (June 2008).
"Opening Up the Ritual Casket: Patterns of Concealment and Disclosure in Chinese Religion," Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art, and Belief, 2.1 (2006): 38-66.
"Identity in the Making: Ritual, Lineage and Redaction in the Jinsuo liuzhu yin," Journal of Chinese Religions, 33 (2005): 61-76.
Other Essays:
"Tao Hongjing," Dictionary of Literary Biography: Classical Chinese Writers: Pre-Tang Era (-598), edited by Curtis Dean Smith (Columbia, SC: Bruccoli Clark Layman, forthcoming).
"Yin and Yang," Encyclopedia of Love in World Religions (ABC-CLIO, 2007), 659-662.
"By the Brush and by the Sword: Daoist Perspectives on the Body, Illness, and Healing," Southern Medical Journal (2006): 1452-1453.
