Copp, Paul

Paul Copp is Associate Professor in Chinese Religion and Thought, East Asian Languages and Civilizations. His first book, The Body Incantatory: Spells and the Ritual Imagination in Medieval Chinese Buddhism, is a study of the nature and history of Buddhist incantatory and amuletic practices in Tang China, centered in archaeological evidence. He is currently writing two books. The first, a study of seals in Chinese religious practice from the Eastern Han through the Northern Song, is tentatively titled “The Ritualist’s Seal: Object, Practice, and Knowledge in Chinese Religion.” The working title of the second, a study of vernacular ritual practice centered in the Dunhuang materials, is “Manuscript, Print, and the Ritualist’s Craft.”