Dr. Dominic Steavu

Bild von Dominic Steavu

Internationales Kolleg für Geisteswissenschaftliche Forschung "Schicksal, Freiheit und Prognose. Bewältigungsstrategien in Ostasien und Europa"
Ulrich-Schalk-Str. 3a
91056 Erlangen

Karl Jaspers Centre
Voßstraße 2
Building 4400
69115 Heidelberg, Germany
+49 (0) 6221-54-4383; fax: +49 (0) 6221-54-4490
E-Mail: steavu@asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de
Homepage: Profile page at Heidelberg University

IKGF Visiting Fellow

(Last change of profile by end of stay)

Curriculum Vitae

Dominic Steavu is Assistant Professor of Intellectual History at Heidelberg University's Excellence Cluster, "Asia and Europe in a Global Context." He obtained his doctoral degree from Stanford University in 2010 after an MA at Harvard and a BA at McGill. He specializes in early medieval Daoism and Buddhism. His current research examines how religious and intellectual currents situate the individual in relation to the cosmos and its component. More pointedly, he is interested in how socio-historical contingencies shape this process of composition and ultimately impact the resulting production and circulation of knowledge.

Dominic Steavu is presently investigating the cosmological compatibility that permitted Daoists and Esoteric Buddhists to absorb and elaborate on many of the notions pertaining to the cosmic body and fate (including illness) that were originally developed in Han dynasty sources. He is particularly interested in how these conceptual compatibilities were articulated in prognosticatory techniques such as talismanic or “visionary” divination, which relies on talismans (fu 符) to summon deities in order to inquire about matters of auspiciousness, material wealth, health, destiny, and so on. He is also examining Buddhist and Daoist methods that rely on diagrams (tu 圖) or cosmographs (shi 式) to achieve the same ends.

Recent Publications

  • "The Many Lives of Lord Wang of the Western Citadel: A Note on the Transmission of the Sanhuang wen (Writ of the Three Sovereigns)," Journal of the International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies 13 (March 2009): 109-61.
  • "Recent Publications in Daoist Studies," Cahiers-d'Extrême Asie 17 (2010): 341-55.
  • Review of Robert F. Campany. Making Transcendents: Ascetics and Social Memory in Early Medieval China. Honolulu HI: University of Hawai'i Press, 2009, Arc 38 (2010): 198-201.
  • Review of Catherine Despeux, ed. Médecine, religion et société dans la Chine médiévale. Étude de manuscrits chinois de Dunhuang et de Turfan. 3 volumes. Paris: Collège de France/Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises, 2010, Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie 19 (2012).