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 Davidson, 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 [https://www.lotsawahouse.org/].
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
