Congratulations to Kedao Tong on His Appointment to Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion at Oberlin College and Conservatory!

Congratulations to Kedao Tong (PhD '25) on his appointment to Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion at Oberlin College and Conservatory. 

Kedao’s research and teaching focus on the history of Chinese religions, especially Buddhist engagement with nature and animals. His current book project explores the release of living animals in captive or desperate conditions, a widespread practice with strong Buddhist roots, in Chinese and transnational contexts. Building on his recent fieldwork and his dissertation research at Stanford—in a thesis titled "Animal Liberation as Human Endeavor: The Practice of Releasing Lives (fangsheng) in Chinese Religions, 400s–1940s"—this project examines how the practice came to carry diverse ecological, social, and ethical consequences beyond the monastic walls and pursuit of karmic or worldly benefits. 

Kedao has also published and presented on topics ranging from ritual literature on the Diamond Sūtra, Buddhist culture of remembrance, and the art endeavors of Chan/Zen monastics, and he is finishing a multi-year project on the imperially commissioned edition of Baizhang’s Pure Rules (1336–1338), a locus classicus in the history of Buddhist monasticism in East Asia. In addition, Kedao is a steering member of the Religion and Memory Unit of the American Academy of Religion.

Congratulations again to Kedao!