Aaron K. Reich, PhD

• 2018 — PhD University of Wisconsin–Madison, Chinese Literature and Culture 
• 2015 — MA University of Wisconsin–Madison, Art History
• 2013 — MA University of Wisconsin–Madison, Chinese
• 2012 — MA University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, Asian Religions
• 2006 — BA University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, Religion and Psychology

• 2018–present. Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Saint Joseph’s University
• 2017–2018. Lecturer of Art History, Honolulu Museum of Art School
• 2016–2017. Lecturer of Religious Studies, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa 
• 2016 Spring. Lecturer of Religious Studies, University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh

• 2024 — Faculty Merit Award for Research
• 2024 — Randall M. Miller, Ph.D. Fund Grant
• 2023 — East and Inner Asia Council (EIAC) Research Grant
• 2023 — Faculty Summer Research Grant
• 2022 — Faculty Merit Award for Teaching
• 2021 — Michael J. Morris Grant for Scholarly Research
• 2020 — Teaching Innovation Grant
• 2019 — Faculty Summer Research Grant
• 2018 — Research Grant for Foreign Scholars in Chinese Studies

MONOGRAPH

• In Progress. Materiality and the Making of Ritual Power: Temples and Traditions of the Penghu Islands.

ARTICLES

• In Progress. “Gods in the Making: Spirit Mediums and the Consecration of Deity Statues in Contemporary Taiwan.”
• 2024. “Seven Strands of the Serpent’s Tail: Creativity and Cultural Improvisation in the Making of a Ritual Whip in Contemporary Taiwan.” Asian Ethnology 83, no. 2.
• 2024. “Conceptions of Divinity: Statue Making in Contemporary Taiwan and the Ritual of ‘Embedding the Spirit’ (rushen).” Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief 20, no. 4.
• 2021. “In the Shadow of the Spirit Image: The Production, Consecration, and Enshrinement of a Daoist Statue in Northern Taiwan.” Journal of Chinese Religions 49, no. 2: 265–324.

CHAPTERS IN EDITED VOLUMES

• Under revision. “Joining with Heaven, Piercing through the Earth: Hornets and Centipedes in the Consecration of Deity Statues in Contemporary Taiwan.” In Daniel Burton-Rose and Stuart Young, eds. Devotional Creatures in Chinese Religions. University of Hawai’i Press.  
• 2025. “The Kaiguang Mirror.” In Adam Chau, ed. Chinese Religious Culture in 100 Objects. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2025.

2023 Fall. When Heaven Meets Earth: Experiencing Taiwan’s Sacred Statues

A collaboration of the Nealis Program in Asian Studies and the Department of Art and Art History, this event involved the exhibition of nine sacred statues from Taiwan and the concurrent two-week residency of the statue artist, Chen Zongwei, and two of his apprentices.

REFEREED CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

• 2024 November 24. “Pacifying the Winter Winds: The Talismanic Towers of the Penghu Islands,” to be presented at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Conference in San Diego. Panel: “Daoism in Local Society” (served as Co-Organizer)
• 2024 July 11. “Beyond the Sanctuary: The Production, Consecration, and Exhibition of Chinese Temple Statues in the United States,” presented virtually at the AAS-in-Asia Conference, Yogyakarta. Panel: “The Latent Histories and Manifest Impacts of the Social Lives of Gods and Images: Expectations, Transformations, and Acting out of Type”
• 2024 March 17. “Joining with Heaven, Piercing through the Earth: Hornets and Centipedes in the Consecration of Deity Statues in Contemporary Taiwan,” presented at the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Annual Conference in Seattle. Panel: “Devotional Creatures in Chinese Religions”
• 2023 November 18. “Over the Islands of Penghu: The History of the Penghu Pu’an Tradition and its Ritual Repertoire,” presented at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Conference in San Antonio. Panel: “Daoism in the Ming: Lineage, Locale, and the Critical Place of Daoism in Shaping Ming Culture”
• 2023 March 18. “Gods in the Making: Spirit Mediums and the Consecration of Deity Statues in Contemporary Taiwan,” presented at the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Annual Conference in Boston. Panel: “Mediums, Masks, and Material Bodies: The Life of Images in Asian Religions” (served as Organizer)
• 2022 November 19. “Painting Outside the Lines: Daoism, Spontaneity, and the Formation of the ‘Untrammeled Class’ of Painters in Ninth Century China,” presented at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Conference in Denver. Panel: “Wandering in Realms of the Sacred: Daoism and Landscape Painting in China” (served as Organizer)
• 2022 March 25. “I Want You for the Militia of Spirits: The Canonization of Local Gods and the Department of Thunder in Ming Daoism,” presented at the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Annual Conference in Honolulu. Panel: “Materializing Martial Gods: Thunder Ritual, Material Culture, and the Story of Daoism in Ming China” (served as Co-Organizer) 
• 2019 November 24. “From Carved Statues to Living Images: Professional Sculptors in Contemporary Taiwan and the Ritual of ‘Embedding the Spirit,’” presented at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Conference in San Diego. Panel: “Performing Images: Ritual, Art, and Agency in Chinese Religions” (served as Co-Organizer)
• 2018 November 18 “Summoning the Emissary: The Interwoven Worlds of Late Imperial Thunder Ritual,” presented at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Conference in Denver. Panel: “Vision and Visualization in Art, Alchemy, and Ritual: Exploring Daoist Modes of Perception” (served as Organizer)

INVITED LECTURES

• 2024 March 22. “Gods in the Making: Spirit Mediums and the Consecration of Deity Statues in Contemporary Taiwan,” presented at Swarthmore College for a first-year seminar, ARTH001 (Brought to Life: The Art of Animation in East Asia) 
• 2023 September 14. “Gods in the Making: Spirit Mediums and the Consecration of Deity Statues in Contemporary Taiwan,” presented at the Religious Studies Colloquium at the University of Pennsylvania 
• 2019 July 30. “Chengwei Daojiao zhi shenming: Mingdai daofeng zhi zhengjian ‘Li Zhong daofeng juan’ zhi yanjiu 成為道教之神明：明代道封之證件 「李中道封卷」之研究 [Becoming a Daoist God: Research on The Canonization Scroll of Li Zhong, a Certificate of Canonization from the Ming Dynasty],” presented in Chinese at the Center for Chinese Studies at the National Central Library in Taipei, Taiwan
• 2019 April 10. “Painting Outside the Lines: Daoism and the Formation of the ‘Untrammeled’ Class of Painters in Ninth-Century China,” presented at the Department of Global Interdisciplinary Studies at Villanova University in Philadelphia

INVITED WORKSHOP PRESENTATIONS

• 2019 December 16. “How to Write an Iconographic Talisman: Instructions from a Thunder Ritual (leifa 雷法) Text in the Zangwai daoshu  藏外道書,” presented at a workshop for the Chinese Religious Text Authority (CRTA) in Aussois, France
• 2019 February 13. “Review of Robert Bellah, Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017), Chapter 8: ‘The Axial Age III: China in the Late First Millennium BCE,’’’ presented at the Philosophy of Religion Reading Group at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia

INVITED CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

• 2024 December 5–8. “Enlivening the Stones: Enlivening the Stones: Ritual Practices and Local Histories of the Talismanic Towers of the Penghu Islands,” to be presented at the ASU–Luce Conference on Daoist Epigraphy 
• 2023 October 8. “Pacifying the Winter Winds: The Talismanic Towers of the Penghu Islands,” presented at “Daoism on Cliffs, in Caves, and in Inscriptions,” a Daoist Epigraphy Conference at the Elling Eide Research Center and Preserve in Sarasota, Florida
• 2019 June 21. “Zhen 真: True and Real,” presented at the Critical Terms for Chinese Religious Studies Conference at Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Hong Kong