About
Tom Mazanec
Tom Mazanec is assistant professor of premodern Chinese literature and cultural studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received a joint Ph.D. in East Asian Studies and Humanistic Studies from Princeton University in 2017, his M.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 2011, and his B.A. in English and Chinese from Calvin College in 2007.
His research is focused on Chinese Buddhist poetry of the ninth and tenth centuries CE. Other research interests include medieval Chinese poetics, literary theory, translation studies, religious studies, and digital humanities. He’s also an avid collector of bizarre and obscure translations of Chinese poetry into English.
On this website, you’ll find his CV, information on his research projects (including network maps of medieval Chinese exchange poetry), links to Sinological resources, and his blog.
Photo credit: Gala Derroisne.
Publications
Review of Spells, Images, and Maṇḍalas by Koichi Shinohara
Pacific World 18 (2016): 209–218
The Invention of Chinese Buddhist Poetry: Poet-Monks in Late Medieval China (c. 760-960 CE)
Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, June 2017
Guanxiu’s “Mountain-Dwelling Poems”: A Translation
Tang Studies 34.1 (2016): 99–124
Jiǎ Dǎo’s Rhythm, or, How to Translate the Tones of Classical Chinese
Journal of Oriental Studies 49.1 (2016): 27–48Latest Blog Posts
How and Why to Learn Classical Chinese
Recently, a friend asked me how to go about teaching himself classical Chinese. He works for the U.S. State Department and speaks Mandarin very well, but now he wants to […]
Book Review: Spells, Images, and Maṇḍalas by Koichi Shinohara
My review of Spells, Images, and Maṇḍalas by Koichi Shinohara (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014) has recently been published in the Buddhist studies journal Pacific World. From the opening of my […]
Dissertation and New Position
On Tuesday, May 23, 2017, I successfully defended my dissertation, “The Invention of Chinese Buddhist Poetry: Poet-Monks in Late Medieval China (c. 760-960 CE).” In the spirit of scholarly openness, […]