About - Anna Sokolova

Anna Sokolova is a senior postdoctoral researcher (FWO) at Ghent University, where she works on the project “Ascending an Altar: Formation of an Invocative Ritual System in Medieval Chinese Buddhism” (2024–27). She previously held a junior postdoctoral fellowship (BOF) at Ghent University (2021–24). She received her PhD in Oriental Languages and Cultures from Ghent University in 2021, with a dissertation on state policy, bureaucracy, and the formation of regional monastic communities in Tang Buddhism. She also holds an MSt in Chinese Studies from the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on the history of medieval Chinese Buddhism, particularly during the Tang dynasty, with special attention to monastic biography and hagiography, lineage formation, monastic-secular social networks, and the regional spread of Vinaya traditions. Her broader interests include Buddhist ritual practices, mortuary culture, and the use of epigraphic and material sources across the Silk Road. She is the author of The Awakening of the Hinterland: The Formation of Regional Vinaya Traditions in Tang China (Brill, 2024) and has published widely in leading journals and edited volumes. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in China, Central Asia, and East Asia and regularly teaches and lectures on Chinese religion and intellectual history.