Emily S. Wu is a Ph.D. candidate in the Area of Cultural and
Historical Studies of Religions at the Graduate Theological Union
in Berkeley, California. She has recently defended her dissertation
entitled "The Utilization of Spiritual Capital by the Practitioners
of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the San Francisco Bay Area," an
ethnographic account on how traditional Chinese medicine has
evolved to adapt to the healthcare needs of the Chinese diasporans
and non-Chinese Americans in California. She is interested in
developing a cross-cultural understanding of the spiritual
dimension of Chinese healing, where while the practices often
address the spiritual needs of the patients, the term "spiritual"
actually has no ready equivalent in the Chinese language. She
received her M.A. in Religious Studies from Boston University,
where her thesis, an ethnographic study on Black Sect Tantric
Buddhism, explored how the Chinese immigrant charismatic leader
disseminates his eclectic Chinese-Tibetan folk Buddhist teaching
through introducing his own brand of fengshui (geomancy) practices
to the American mainstream.
Besides her primary specialization in Chinese religions and
interest in how Chinese spiritual and healing practices evolve in
the North American context, Ms. Wu is also interested in the new
religious movements and how they reflect cross-cultural social and
political discourses in today's globalized world. She has
extensive field experiences with new religious groups in both the
United States and in Taiwan, and has taught a masters level course
on New Religious Movements in the United States at the Graduate
Theological Union.
Ms. Wu is currently having a fantastic time teaching "Religion and
Spirituality in Asia" at the University of San Francisco.
