This talk will be in-person only.

This study investigates the mortuary practices of palace eunuchs by focusing on their relationship with Buddhist institutions in late Ming Beijing. It considers eunuchs across different social strata, from high-ranking officials to lower-level servants, to explore how Buddhism played a role in their lives.

Both in non-specialist scholarship and in popular imagination, Ming eunuchs are portrayed in a negative light as powerful yet Janus-faced imperial agents whose interference in governmental affairs hastened the fall of the Ming dynasty. However, they were also one of the most active patrons of Buddhist institutions during the late Ming period. To address the underrepresentation of their religious lives in traditional historiography, Dr. Pan's research centers on their mortuary practices to see how Buddhism was experienced and expressed in their lives. It further investigates the practices conducted by eunuchs from a range of social strata, ranging from top-ranking officers to those in menial roles whose lives were less documented than their well-educated and powerful counterparts.

Sherry Pan is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies. She earned her PhD in Religious Studies from Brown University, where she completed her dissertation that looks at the understudied religious practices of palace eunuchs in the late Ming period. Her broad research interests include cultural and religious practices relating to death and memory, as well as religion and gender in the Chinese cultural context.

If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact us at chinese.studies@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.