Bio


Kedao Tong is a PhD candidate in Buddhist Studies in the Department of Religious Studies. His research focuses on the socio-cultural history of Chinese Buddhism and topics related to animals in the Chinese and the broader East Asian contexts. He is currently writing a dissertation on the history of the practice of animal release in Chinese religions from the fifth to the early twentieth centuries.

Kedao received an MA in Chinese from Stanford University, where he wrote a thesis that explores the writing of women’s epitaphs from China’s Northern Dynasties (439-581 AD). Prior to coming to Stanford, he received an Honors BA in East Asian Studies from the University of Toronto. He has also taken up coursework and language training in Hong Kong and Japan, and has a background in editorial work in academic and other settings.

Education & Certifications


  • M.A., Stanford University
  • B.A., University of Toronto

All Publications


  • Revisiting the Xiaoshi Jingang keyi 銷釋金剛科儀: A Textual and Reception History Journal of Chinese Religions Tong, K. 2023; 51 (1): 47-96

    View details for DOI 10.1353/jcr.2023.a899642

  • Pitiful Animals and Perturbed Humans: The Financing of Communal Animal Release in Chinese Buddhism, 1600s–1940s International Journal of Buddhist Thought and Culture Tong, K. 2023; 33 (1): 231-265
  • Review of Melissa Anne-Marie Curley, Pure Land, Real World: Modern Buddhism, Japanese Leftists, and the Utopian Imagination (University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2017); Justin R. Ritzinger, Anarchy in the Pure Land: Reinventing the Cult of Maitreya in Modern Chinese Buddhism (Oxford University Press, 2017). Japan Studies Review Tong, K. 2021; 25: 154-158