About

Stephanie Balkwill is a professor in the Asian Languages & Cultures Department at UCLA. Her research focuses on the literary and public lives of Buddhist women who lived in what is now China between the 4th and 6th centuries. She investigates whether Buddhist affiliation provided new social and educational opportunities for women in early medieval China and argues that women played an influential role in the early spread of Buddhism throughout East Asia. Currently, she is engaged in two major research projects: one examining the political lives of Buddhist women in the Northern Wei dynasty, proposing that this period offers the earliest known case of women, Buddhism, and political power intersecting in East Asia; and another exploring female-to-male sex transformation narratives in Mahāyāna Buddhist texts within the context of gendered practices in early medieval China. She is working on revisions to her book-length study of Northern Wei Empress Dowager Ling, titled 'Numinous Under Heaven: The Rise and Fall of a Female, Buddhist Regent in 6th Century Luoyang,' which she aims to publish in 2023 with an Open Access series. Additionally, Balkwill is the co-Director of the Buddhist Bodies Collective, a project dedicated to curating and publishing open access, body-centered resources for teaching Buddhism and related humanities topics.

Research topics

• Political Science
• History
• Archaeology
• Computer Science
• Sociology
• Psychology
• Law
• Art
• Philosophy
• Art history
• Theology
• Religious studies
• Gender studies
• Ancient history
• Literature

Selected publications

• Carving Out a Space for Women’s History within Buddhist Studies: New Studies in Epigraphy: Editorial Note

  Hualin International Journal of Buddhist Studies · 2025-10-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Northern Wei: A New Form for Women in East Asia?

  Early Medieval China · 2025-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Remembering China’s Empress Dowager Ling, a Buddhist who paved the way for future female rulers

  2025-03-17

  preprint1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Brought to Court by a Nun

  2024-08-06

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Luminos is University of California Press’ Open Access publishing program for monographs. With the same high standards for selection, peer review, production and marketing as our traditional program, Luminos is a transformative model, built as a partnership where costs and benefits are shared.

  PublisherDOI

• No Salvation in Buddhism

  2024-08-06

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Luminos is University of California Press’ Open Access publishing program for monographs. With the same high standards for selection, peer review, production and marketing as our traditional program, Luminos is a transformative model, built as a partnership where costs and benefits are shared.

  PublisherDOI

• The Women Who Ruled China

  2024-06-10 · 1 citations

  bookOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. In the late fifth century, a girl whose name has been forgotten by history was born at the edge of the Chinese empire. By the time of her death, she had transformed herself into Empress Dowager Ling, one of the most powerful politicians of her age and one of the first of many Buddhist women to wield incredible influence in dynastic East Asia. In this book, Stephanie Balkwill documents the Empress Dowager’s rise to power and life on the throne against the broader world of imperial China under the rule of the Northern Wei dynasty, a foreign people from Inner Asia who built their capital deep in the Chinese heartland. Building on largely untapped Buddhist materials, Balkwill shows that the life and rule of the Empress Dowager is a larger story of the reinvention of religious, ethnic, and gender norms in a rapidly changing multicultural society. The Women Who Ruled China recovers the voices of those left out of the mainstream historical record, painting a compelling portrait of medieval Chinese society reinventing itself under the Empress Dowager’s leadership.

  PublisherDOI

• The Women Who Ruled China: Buddhism, Multiculturalism, and Governance in the Sixth Century

  2024-01-12 · 1 citations

  bookOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In the late fifth century, a girl whose name has been forgotten by history was born at the edge of the Chinese empire. By the time of her death, she had transformed herself into Empress Dowager Ling, one of the most powerful politicians of her age and one of the first of many Buddhist women to wield incredible influence in dynastic East Asia. In this book, Stephanie Balkwill documents the Empress Dowager’s rise to power and life on the throne against the broader world of imperial China under the rule of the Northern Wei dynasty, a foreign people from Inner Asia who built their capital deep in the Chinese heartland. Building on largely untapped Buddhist materials, Balkwill shows that the life and rule of the Empress Dowager is a larger story of the reinvention of religious, ethnic, and gender norms in a rapidly changing multicultural society. The Women Who Ruled China recovers the voices of those left out of the mainstream historical record, painting a compelling portrait of medieval Chinese society reinventing itself under the Empress Dowager’s leadership.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A Girl on the Throne

  2024-08-06

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Luminos is University of California Press’ Open Access publishing program for monographs. With the same high standards for selection, peer review, production and marketing as our traditional program, Luminos is a transformative model, built as a partnership where costs and benefits are shared.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A Woman of Power, Remembered Poorly

  2024-08-06

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Luminos is University of California Press’ Open Access publishing program for monographs. With the same high standards for selection, peer review, production and marketing as our traditional program, Luminos is a transformative model, built as a partnership where costs and benefits are shared.

  PublisherDOI

• Preface

  Columbia University Press eBooks · 2023

  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  DOI

Frequent coauthors

• Macabe Keliher

  1 shared

• Anne Austin

  University of California, Los Angeles

  1 shared

• Luke D. Roberts

  University of California, Los Angeles

  1 shared

• Yanshuo Zhang

  University of California, Los Angeles

  1 shared

• Ross Wong

  University of California, Los Angeles

  1 shared

• Kim Geun-Tae

  University of California, Los Angeles

  1 shared

• Timothy Lee

  Loma Linda University Medical Center

  1 shared

• Brendan O'kane

  University of California, Los Angeles

  1 shared