Beiyin Deng

Beiyin Deng is a Ph.D. Candidate in Religious Studies at Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, U.S. Her research interests include Theravada Buddhism in Myanmar, contemporary Buddhist material culture, transnational Buddhism between China and Southeast Asia, and religion and diplomacy in Southeast Asian and Chinese traditions. 

Her dissertation project, “Seeking Magnificence: Material Enchantment and the Trade of Marble Buddhist Images across the Myanmar-China Border,” investigates contemporary Buddhist craftsmanship in the persisting, yet hitherto unexamined, trade of marble Buddhist images across the Myanmar-China border since the late 1980s, which pursues, negotiates, and promotes a version of magnificence that derives from the religious values of marble, or white jade in vernacular Chinese, and provokes lasting enchantment among Chinese Buddhists.