About - David Neil SCHMID

David Neil Schmid

is Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Religious Studies, University of North Carolina, Greensboro. He pursued undergraduate study at Georgetown University, completed a DEA at the École pratique des Hautes Études (Sorbonne), and his Ph.D at the University of Pennsylvania. His research centers on manuscripts and materials from Dunhuang and cognitive approaches to culture. Publications include "The Material Culture of Exegesis and Liturgy and a Change in the Artistic Representations in Dunhuang Caves, ca. 700-1000" (Asia Major, 2006) and " 'Whosoever writes this dhâranï ...': The Ritual Use of Dhâran Lecterns in Medieval East Asia" in preparation for Pacific World. He is completing a monograph on religious culture at Dunhuang, entitled In Praise of The Transfigured: On Buddhist Poems and Paintings in Medieval China which reassesses the use and conceptualization of Pure land imagery in light of quotidian sociality and ritual interaction.