GRADUATE RESEARCH COLLOQUIA
SPRING 2026 GRADUATE RESEARCH COLLOQUIA
MONDAY, APRIL 13, 10:00 - 11:00 AM
HUMN 230
Eaton Humanities, 1610 Pleasant St.
PRESENTERS
Genevieve Hauer, M.A. Candidate, Religious Studies
Cementing Celestial Sovereignty: Hagiographic and Photographic Depictions of the Empress Dowager Cixi
While largely remembered in history as a despot who refused to modernize China and led to its downfall, Empress Dowager Cixi’s Buddhist devotion and promulgation is rarely highlighted. How did Empress Cixi’s identity as a Manchu woman in power, in relation to her self-portrayal as a Buddhist goddess, influence her promotion of Buddhism amidst a turbulent political climate?
Through examining the hagiographic account of Princess Der Ling’s time spent with the Empress Dowager, as well as photographic and portrait representations of the Empress Dowager in contrast with historic perceptions of Cixi as a cruel, tyrannical leader through a gendered lens, we gain insight into how Cixi harnessed her religion to exert power both nationally and globally.
Ana Silveria Nedochetko, M.A. Candidate, Religious Studies
Epistemic Figures at the Liminality: The Dakini as a Mode of Knowing
This presentation uses the Tibetan Buddhist text I am currently translating as a point of entry for examining dakini epistemology as a mode of knowing that challenges dominant assumptions about authority, embodiment, and knowledge production. Rather than focusing on textual analysis per se, I explore how dakini figures articulate alternative epistemic frameworks that complicate academic distinctions between symbol, practice, and lived experience.
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