About Daigengna Duoer

Daigengna Duoer (pronounced “dye-gain-na” “door“; she/her/hers) is a Ph.D. candidate in the Religious Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her dissertation is a digital humanities project mapping the history of transnational and transregional Buddhist networks connecting early twentieth-century Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, Republican China, Tibet, and the Japanese Empire. Daigengna is a host for the New Books in East Asian Studies Podcast, a channel on the New Books Network. She is also the Editor-in-chief for the Digital Orientalist, an online magazine on digital humanities.

Daigengna Duoer is a Ph.D. candidate in the Religious Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her dissertation is a digital humanities project mapping the history of transnational and transregional Buddhist networks connecting early twentieth-century Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, Republican China, Tibet, and the Japanese Empire.

Daigengna's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Daigengna:

Fabio Rambelli, "Spirits and Animism in Contemporary Japan" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019)

September 2, 2024

Spirits and Animism in Contemporary Japan

Fabio Rambelli
Hosted by Daigengna Duoer

In Japan, a country popularly perceived as highly secularized and technologically advanced, ontological assumptions about spirits (tama or tamashii) s…

Sabine Frühstück, "Gender and Sexuality in Modern Japan" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

October 21, 2022

Gender and Sexuality in Modern Japan

Sabine Frühstück
Hosted by Daigengna Duoer

Gender and Sexuality in Modern Japan (Cambridge University Press 2022) is a new addition to a list of publications by Sabine Fruhstuck, one of the lea…

Robert Barnett et al., "Conflicting Memories: Tibetan History Under Mao Retold : Essays and Primary Documents" (Brill, 2020)

April 13, 2022

Conflicting Memories

Robert Barnett, Benno Weiner, and Françoise Robin
Hosted by Daigengna Duoer

After the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, history under him was retold: for example, the Cultural Revolution was rebranded as “Ten Years of Chaos” and it…

Tao Jiang, "Origins of Moral-Political Philosophy in Early China: Contestation of Humaneness, Justice, and Personal Freedom" (Oxford UP, 2021)

March 24, 2022

Origins of Moral-Political Philosophy in Early China

Tao Jiang
Hosted by Daigengna Duoer

When we think of pre-Buddhism Chinese philosophy, ideas such as filial piety and “the Dao” might come to mind. But what was at stake in the philosophi…

Dagmar Schwerk, "A Timely Message from the Cave" (2020)

February 14, 2022

A Timely Message from the Cave

Dagmar Schwerk
Hosted by Daigengna Duoer

Following the globalization of Tibetan Buddhism in the second half of the twentieth century, Indo-Tibetan Buddhist teachings such as Mahāmudrā have be…

Nicole Willock, "Lineages of the Literary: Tibetan Buddhist Polymaths of Socialist China" (Columbia UP, 2021)

November 17, 2021

Lineages of the Literary

Nicole Willock
Hosted by Daigengna Duoer

What happened to the Buddhist scholars who stayed behind in Tibet and China after the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and thousands of Tibetans fled from the Pe…

Matthew W. King, "In the Forest of the Blind: The Eurasian Journey of Faxian's Record of Buddhist Kingdoms" (Columbia UP, 2022)

October 19, 2021

In the Forest of the Blind

Matthew W. King
Hosted by Daigengna Duoer

What would an “anti-field history” of Buddhist Studies look like? What does the social history of knowledge look like when it both includes and exceed…

A. Castiglioni et al., "Defining Shugendo: Critical Studies on Japanese Mountain Religion" (Bloomsbury, 2020)

April 26, 2021

Defining Shugendo

Andrea Castiglioni, Fabio Rambelli, and Carina Roth
Hosted by Daigengna Duoer

Andrea Castiglioni, Fabio Rambelli and Carina Roth's edited volume Defining Shugendo: Critical Studies on Japanese Mountain Religion (Bloomsbury, 2020…

Uranchimeg Tsultemin, "A Monastery on the Move: Art and Politics in Later Buddhist Mongolia" (U Hawaii Press, 2020)

April 23, 2021

A Monastery on the Move

Uranchimeg Tsultemin
Hosted by Daigengna Duoer

How, and why did a ger (yurt) develop into the largest and most important monastery in Mongolia, and how did it support the authority of its main resi…

Brenton Sullivan, "Building a Religious Empire: Tibetan Buddhism, Bureaucracy, and the Rise of the Gelukpa" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2020)

April 22, 2021

Building a Religious Empire

Brenton Sullivan
Hosted by Daigengna Duoer

How did Geluk Buddhism become the most widespread school of Tibetan Buddhism in Inner Asia and beyond? In Building a Religious Empire: Tibetan Buddhis…

Miriam L. Kingsberg Kadia, "Into the Field: Human Scientists of Transwar Japan" (Stanford UP, 2019)

April 21, 2021

Into the Field

Miriam L. Kingsberg Kadia
Hosted by Daigengna Duoer

How did Japanese academics study their "fields" in places like Manchuria and Inner Mongolia in the transwar decades? How did they transform in the pos…

Simon Wickhamsmith, "Politics and Literature in Mongolia (1921-1948)" (Amsterdam UP, 2020)

March 24, 2021

Politics and Literature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Simon Wickhamsmith
Hosted by Daigengna Duoer

How does revolution literature help to engage Mongolia’s nomadic population with the utopia of a “new society” promised by the Mongolian People’s Revo…

Tansen Sen and Brian Tsui, "Beyond Pan-Asianism: Connecting China and India, 1840s-1960s" (Oxford UP, 2020)

March 22, 2021

Beyond Pan-Asianism

Tansen Sen and Brian Tsui
Hosted by Daigengna Duoer

What were the stories of modern China-India relations in the age of empires? How did India and China engage with each other beyond pan-Asianist and an…

Nadine Willems, "Ishikawa Sanshiro's Geographical Imagination" (Leiden UP, 2020)

March 8, 2021

Ishikawa Sanshiro's Geographical Imagination

Nadine Willems
Hosted by Daigengna Duoer

Ishikawa Sanshirō (1876-1956) was a journalist, intellectual, and self-proclaimed socialist active in early twentieth-century Japan. In Ishikawa Sansh…

Fabio Rambelli, "The Sea and the Sacred in Japan: Aspects of Maritime Religion" (Bloomsbury, 2018)

February 26, 2021

The Sea and the Sacred in Japan

Fabio Rambelli
Hosted by Daigengna Duoer

In The Sea and the Sacred in Japan: Aspects of Maritime Religion (Bloomsbury 2018), Fabio Rambelli invites various fifteen scholars of Japanese religi…

Ji Zhe et al., "Buddhism after Mao: Negotiations, Continuities, and Reinventions" (U Hawaii Press, 2020)

February 24, 2021

Buddhism after Mao

Zhe Ji, Gareth Fisher, André Laliberté
Hosted by Daigengna Duoer

With over 100 million followers, Buddhism in the People's Republic of China now fosters the largest community in the world of individuals who self-ide…

Theresia Hofer, "Medicine and Memory in Tibet: Amchi Physicians in an Age of Reform" (U Washington Press, 2018)

January 29, 2021

Medicine and Memory in Tibet

Theresia Hofer
Hosted by Daigengna Duoer

Medicine and Memory in Tibet: Amchi Physicians in an Age of Reform (University of Washington Press, 2018) is the first full-length ethnography of Tibe…

Bill Sewell, "Constructing Empire: The Japanese in Changchun, 1905-45" (UBC Press, 2019)

January 25, 2021

Constructing Empire

Bill Sewell
Hosted by Daigengna Duoer

What happens to everyday-life in a city when it becomes subsumed into an empire? Who becomes responsible for the everyday building and management of t…

Courtney Bruntz and Brooke Schedneck, "Buddhist Tourism in Asia" (U Hawaii Press, 2020)

December 22, 2020

Buddhist Tourism in Asia

Courtney Bruntz and Brooke Schedneck
Hosted by Daigengna Duoer

This edited volume is the first book-length study of Buddhist tourism in contemporary Asia in the English language. Featuring chapters from diverse co…

Jack Meng-Tat Chia, "Monks in Motion: Buddhism and Modernity Across the South China Sea" (Oxford UP, 2020)

December 9, 2020

Monks in Motion

Jack Meng-Tat Chia
Hosted by Daigengna Duoer

Monks in Motion: Buddhism and Modernity Across the South China Sea (Oxford University Press 2020) is the first monograph in the English language to ex…

Rana Mitter, "China's Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism" (Harvard UP, 2020)

December 8, 2020

China's Good War

Rana Mitter
Hosted by Daigengna Duoer

Although World War II had been largely remembered in the People’s Republic of China as an experience of victimization since its founding in 1949, that…

Suma Ikeuchi, "Jesus Loves Japan: Return Migration and Global Pentecostalism in a Brazilian Diaspora" (Stanford UP, 2019)

October 28, 2020

Jesus Loves Japan

Suma Ikeuchi
Hosted by Daigengna Duoer

In 1990, the Japanese government introduced the Nikkei-jin (Japanese descendant) visa and since then it has attracted more than 190,000 Nikkei Brazili…

Joshua Esler, "Tibetan Buddhism among Han Chinese: Mediation and Superscription of the Tibetan Tradition in Contemporary Chinese Society" (Lexington Books, 2020)

September 24, 2020

Tibetan Buddhism among Han Chinese

Joshua Esler
Hosted by Daigengna Duoer

While Tibetan Buddhism continues to face restrictions and challenges imposed by the state in contemporary China, it has in fact entered mainstream Chi…

Ann-elise Lewallen, "The Fabric of Indigeneity: Ainu Identity, Gender, and Settler Colonialism in Japan" (U New Mexico Press, 2016)

September 17, 2020

The Fabric of Indigeneity

Ann-elise Lewallen
Hosted by Daigengna Duoer

The Fabric of Indigeneity: Ainu Identity, Gender, and Settler Colonialism in Japan (University of New Mexico Press) is a recent addition to the growin…