Welcome to Caifeng Ge 采風閣 (Pavilion of Resting Winds), my study 书斋 on the Internet.
The term “caifeng” originated in the Zhou Dynasty (c. 1046 BC–256 BC) when poetry, in the form of folksongs (ballads) was collected by scholars and compiled by the state. The term is composed of two characters: cai 采 (verb. collecting) and feng 風 (noun. air, wind, style [of the arts], manner, folk songs, and customs). Today, the caifeng practice has been extended to include recording folk art, literature, and local customs.
I have been serving on the Florida State Department’s Folklife Council since 2019 as a council member and as chair (2023-2024), and I have served as past president of the Florida Folklore Society (2018-2019). I also am a Center for Ethnic & Folk Literature & Art Development Distinguished Fellow for facilitating the CEFLA projects on rescuing and safeguarding ethnic and folk cultures. For full work bio, please visit my LinkedIn page. For research and fieldwork details, you are welcome to wander and explore here. :]
Currently an Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department at the University of Central Florida, I specialize in Asian arts and humanities, comparative aesthetics, and performance and heritage studies. My friends call me “Cave Woman” because I conduct research in caves that were hand-carved by Buddhist monks in the Gobi Desert around 1,700 years ago from the 4th to the 14th century. Known as the UNESCO Dunhuang Mogao Caves 敦煌莫高窟, these caves are situated at a strategic point along the Silk Route, at the crossroads of trade as well as religious, cultural, and intellectual influences, and are famous for their statues and wall paintings, spanning 1,000 years of Buddhist art.
In 2016, my first monograph, Dunhuang Performing Arts: The Construction and Transmission of “China-scape” in the Global Context was published by the prestigious Social Sciences Academic Press (SSAP) of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the top think tank in Asia according to Foreign Policy magazine. The book is a part of the Pishu series.
Staging Tianxia: Dunhuang Expressive Arts and China’s New Cosmopolitan Heritage, my new English monograph on the staged Silk Road expressive arts has just been published by Indiana University Press in September, 2024. Please feel free to explore the , including interactive colored diagrams, colored images, fieldwork photos, and video samples.
As a Visiting Research Fellow at the world-renowned Dunhuang Academy, I am collaborating with photographer Sun Zhijun on a new book on museum and heritage studies. I am currently in Türkiye for fieldwork as a Visiting Researcher of Boğaziçi Üniversitesi and Ankara HBV Üniversitesi. I am also working on a monograph on present-day Chinese graphic narrative styles. You are welcome to visit my faculty page for a list of research publications.
For general inquiries or immediate assistance, please contact philosophy@ucf.edu or call 407-823-2273. For letters of recommendation, please see my faculty page for instructions.
Leave a Reply