Department of Religious Studies

Beverley Foulks, Visiting Assistant Professor

Ph.D. East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, 2009

bnfoulks@uncg.edu

Areas of Academic Interest

 

• East Asian Religions
• Comparative Religious Ethics
• Religion and Literature
• Buddhism in late imperial and modern China

Personal Statement

As a historian of religion specializing in Chinese Religions - especially late imperial and modern Chinese Buddhism - my intellectual interests include comparative religious ethics, ritual studies, and asceticism. My previous research has focused especially on repentance, theodicy, suffering, and evil, and my current project examines an important but overlooked figure in Chinese Buddhist history, a monk named Ouyi Zhixu (1599-1655) who engaged in a variety of religious practices to try to change his karma, including repentance rituals that are ubiquitous in contemporary China, Taiwan, and Chinese diaspora communities.

Recent Publications

• "Duplicitous Thieves: Ouyi Zhixu's Criticism of Jesuit Missionaries in Late Imperial China." Chung-Hwa Buddhist Journal 21 (2008): 55-76.
• "Trial by Fire: The Theodicy of Toni Morrison in Sula," in Toni Morrison and the Bible: Contested Intertextualities, pp. 7-25. Edited by Shirley A. Stave. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2006.

In Press

• "Super Samskaras: Soteriological Subliminal Impressions in Patañjali’s Yoga Sutra," in Yoga and Ecology: Dharma for the Earth, edited by Christopher Key Chapple. Hampton, Va: Deepak Heritage Books, forthcoming.

Works in Progress

• Book project: Living Karma: The Religious Practices of Ouyi Zhixu (1599-1655)
• "Playing With Karma: A Chinese Buddhist Board Game"
• "Bringing Buddhism into the Classroom: Jiang Qian's (1876-1942) Vision for Education in Republican China"

Presentations

• "Playing with Karma: A Chinese Buddhist Board Game," paper presented at the North American Graduate Student Conference in Buddhist Studies (Berkeley, April 18, 2009)
• "Secularization and Education among Lay Buddhists in the Early Twentieth Century: The Case of Jiang Yiyuan (1876-1942)," paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, sponsored by the Society for the Study of Chinese Religions (Chicago, March 27, 2009).
• "Jack of All Trades, Master for Many: the Autobiography of Ouyi Zhixu (1599-1655)," paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion (Chicago, November 3, 2008).
• "Repentance Rituals for Eliminating Karma," paper presented in Chinese for the Study Group for Specialists in the Humanities, National Taiwan University (Taipei, December 29, 2007).

Upcoming Courses

• REL 111: Introduction to Non-Western Religions
• FMS 142: The Good, The Bad, and The Empty: Eastern Debates About Human Nature