Iris Zhang

Field: East Asian Religion
Advisor: Michael Como
Email: iris.zhang@columbia.edu

Iris Zhang is a PhD candidate in premodern Japanese religions. With an interest in the interplay between speech acts and religious rituals, her research project focuses on the use of chanting practices in late Heian Japan. In her dissertation, she analyzes how lay people perceived ritually formatted language as efficacious and how chanting practices were integrated in the quotidian life of the populace. Her second ongoing project is an extension of her M.A. thesis, which examines the deification of Murasaki Shikibu at Ishiyama Temple near Kyoto, Japan. Iris received her B.A. in Economics with a minor in East Asian Studies from University of California, Los Angeles and her M.A. in EALAC at Columbia before joining the PhD program.