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 finishing his dissertation, tentatively titled "Animal Liberation as Human Endeavor: The Practice of Releasing Lives (fangsheng) in Chinese Religions, 400s–1940s."

Kedao received an MA in Chinese Literature and Culture from Stanford University, where he wrote a thesis that studies 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 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
  • Language Training, Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies
  • Language Training, Center for Japanese Studies, Waseda University
  • Exchange Student, University of Hong Kong

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

  • Chinese Translation of Festival, Feasts, and Gender Relations in Ancient China and Greece Zhou, Y. SDX Joint Publishing. 2023
  • 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
  • Chinese Translation of Benjamin Elman, “Some Comparative Issues in the World History of Science and Technology: Jesuit Learning in Late Imperial China,” Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies 41, no. 1 (2011): 137–170. Zhejiang xuekan Elman, B. 2017