Chinese Art, Buddhist Art, Silk Road Studies
BA, International Christian University, Tokyo
M. Phil., Chinese University of Hong Kong
PhD, Harvard University, 1995

Specializing in Buddhist art of medieval China, Dorothy Wong’s research addresses topics of art in relation to religion and society, and of the relationship between religious texts/doctrine and visual representations. In addition to many articles on a wide range of Buddhist art topics, she has published Chinese Steles: Pre-Buddhist and Buddhist Use of a Symbolic Form (2004; Chinese edition 2011), Hōryūji Reconsidered (editor and contributing author, 2008), China and Beyond in the Mediaeval Period: Cultural Crossings and Inter-regional Connections (co-editor with Gustav Heldt, and contributing author, 2014), Buddhist Pilgrim-Monks as Agents of Cultural and Artistic Transmission: The International Buddhist Art Style in East Asia, ca. 645–770 (2018), and Miraculous Images in Asian Traditions (editor and contributing author, vol. 50 of Ars Orientalis, 2020), Dynamics of Inter-regional Exchange in East Asian Buddhist Art, 5th-13th Century (editor and contributing author) (2022). 

Dorothy Wong previously has taught at Florida State University from 1995 to 1997. As Visiting Professor, she has also taught at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Eötövs Loránd University, Budapest, and the Centre of Buddhist Studies at the University of Hong Kong. A former editor of the Asian art magazine Orientations, she currently serves on the editorial board of Buddhist Art of China. She has received fellowships from the American Association of University Women, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, the Whiting Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and the National Humanities Center. Currently she is working together with about two dozen international scholars researching the topic of “miraculous images” in global perspectives, trying to understand what “miracles” mean in different cultures and how and when people ascribe material objects with spiritual agency.