Nataly Shahaf

Field: Chinese History
Advisor: Eugenia Lean
Email:ns3050@columbia.edu

I am studying modern Chinese intellectual and cultural history with particular focus on the encounters between China and Japan during the late Qing and early Republican periods. I received both my B.A. and M.A. from Tel Aviv University. My Master’s thesis examines the nexus of Buddhism and Neuroscience by tracing the transition and transformation of knowledge along with the practical application of knowledge in relation to the changing social context of the time. I am currently working on the history of art production and distribution, and the visual presentation of religion and women, especially prostitutes. I am interested in the open-ended processes of collecting, printing, publishing, presenting and distributing of art in China vis-à-vis the developments of global networks of technology during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Riga Shakya

Field: Sino-Tibetan History
Advisor: Gray Tuttle
Email: rts2131@columbia.edu

I am a Ph.D candidate in late Imperial Chinese and Tibetan history at the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures (EALAC) at Columbia University. I am broadly interested in Tibetan social and intellectual history, and the history of Sino-Tibetan relations during the Qing dynasty.

My dissertation research probes the relationship between literary text, selfhood and the metropole/periphery relationship by exploring the role of Tibetan lay autobiographical practice and kavya literature in Qing imperial expansion into Inner Asia in the 18th century. Other projects include a longue durée history of the Ganden Podrang’s (1642-1959) management of environmental disaster and a study of Tibetan language standardization and print culture at PRC minority publishing houses (minzu chubanshe) between 1953 and 1966.

My writing can be found in the Asian Review of Books, Comparative Literature Studies at Penn State University and Himalaya: The Journal of the Association of Nepal and Himalayan Studies. I am founding editor of Waxing Moon: Journal for Tibetan and Himalayan Studies supported by the Centre for Digital Research and Scholarship, Columbia Libraries. I also have long running interests in contemporary Chinese and Tibetan film and literature. Film projects I have worked on have shown as part of the Busan, Toronto and Kavrlovy-Vary international film festivals.

Komei Sakai

Field: Japanese Religion
Advisor: D. Max Moerman
Email: ks2602@columbia.edu

Komei Sakai is a doctoral student of pre-modern Japanese religion. He received his B.A. (2013) in East Asian Studies from New York University. His primary research interest is in the religious iconography of Japanese arms and armor from the Kamakura period, with an emphasis on the engraving on sword blades related to the worship of Fudō Myō-ō. He believes that his research will be able to provide a new perspective in the understanding of the samurais’ religious beliefs. He is also interested in the exchange of swords in pre-modern Japan and China.