PhD, 1976. University of Michigan. At CU-Boulder since 1980. Founding Chair, Dept. of Oriental Languages and Literatures (now Asian Languages and Civilizations), 1982-95.
Journal of the American Oriental Society, editor for east Asia 1984-2010, general editor of journal and editor of monograph series 2000-2010; Tang Studies Journal, editor 1984-2006; T'oung Pao: International Journal of Sinology, editor (one of three) 2009-2017; Brill's Handbuch der Orientalistik monograph series, China section, editor (one of four) 2015-present; De Gruyter's Library of Chinese Humanities translation series, editor (one of seven), 2015-present.
Numerous grants and awards, including ACLS fellowships (1979, 1985, 1996), CU faculty fellowships (1985, 1992, 2000), President of American Oriental Society (2006-07), Guggenheim fellowship (2007-08), member, Institute for Advanced Study (2008-09), elected member of American Philosophical Society (2018).
Publications:
Books: Meng Hao-jan (1981); Dharma Bell and Dharani Pillar: Li Po’s Buddhist Inscriptions (2002); Studies in Early Medieval Chinese Literature and Cultural History, ed. with D. Knechtges (2003); Studies in Medieval Taoism and the Poetry of Li Po (2009); Essays in Medieval Chinese Literature and Cultural History (2009); A Student's Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese (2014; revised edition, 2017; newly revised and expanded 3rd edition, 2022); Reading Medieval Chinese Poetry: Text, Context, and Culture, ed. (2014); Critical Readings on Tang China, ed., 4 vols. (2018); “At the Shores of the Sky”: Asian Studies for Albert Hoffstaedt, ed. with J. Silk (2020); The Poetry of Meng Haoran (2021).
Eighty-plus articles and book chapters; most recently: “On the Study of Tang Literature,” T’ang Studies (2009); “Daoist Verse and the Quest of the Divine,” in Early Chinese Religion, part 2: The Period of Division (2009); “The Life and Writings of Xu Hui (627-50), Worthy Consort, at the Early Tang Court,” Asia Major (2009); “Literary Criticism and Personal Character in Poetry, ca. 100-300 CE,” in China’s First Empires: A Reappraisal (2010); “Huilin on Black and White, Jiang Yan on wuwei,” Early Medieval China (2012); "Zhang Jiuling and the Lychee," Tang Studies (2012); "A Poetry Debate of the Perfected of Highest Clarity," Journal of the American Oriental Society (2013); "Poetry on the Mysterious: The Writings of Sun Chuo," in Early Medieval China: A Sourcebook (2014); "On Political and Personal Fate: Three Selections from Jiang Yan's Prose and Verse," in Early Medieval China: A Sourcebook (2014); "Heyue yingling ji and the Attributes of High Tang Verse," in Reading Medieval Chinese Poetry (2014); "Farther South: Jiang Yan in Darkest Fujian," in Southern Identity and Southern Estrangement in Medieval Chinese Poetry (2015); "Aid and Comfort: Lu Zhaolin’s Letters,” in The History of Letters and Epistolary Culture in China (2015); “Anthologies in the Tang,” in Oxford Handbook of Classical Chinese Literature (2017); “Recalling Xuanzong and Lady Yang: A Selection of Mid- and Late Tang Poems,” Tang Studies (2017); “The Representation of Mantic Arts in the High Culture of Medieval China,” in Coping with the Future: Theories and Practices of Divination in East Asia (2018); “Translation, or Sinology: Problems of Aims and Results,” Journal of the American Oriental Society (2018); “On Some Verses of Li Bo,” in “At the Shores of the Sky” (2020); "Jiang Yan and Friend," Early Medieval China (2021); "Li Bo and the zan," T'oung Pao (2022); "Unwinding 'Unreeling Yearnings' " and "On 'Far Roaming' Again," both in Qu Yuan and the Chuci: New Approaches (2023); "Li Bo and Hu Ziyang: Companions of the Way," in Religion and Poetry in Medieval China: The Way and the Words (2023).
Research Interests:
Medieval Chinese literature, language, history, and religion from the late Han through Tang periods.