Weirong Shen

Weirong Shen received his Ph.D in Central Asian Philology at Bonn University, Germany, and M.A. in History Studies from Nanking University. He is currently a professor at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences at Tsinghua University and a professor at the Department of Chinese at Tsinghua University. He specializes in studies in languages and the history of China’s Western Regions, the Tibetan history of Buddhism, and Sino-Tibetan Buddhism. His major publications are Philological Studies in the History of Tibetan Buddhism (Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 2010), Searching for Shangri-La (China Renmin University Press, 2010), Imagining Tibet: Monks, Living Buddhas, Lamas, and Esoteric Buddhism from a Cross-Cultural Perspective (Beijing Normal University Press, 2015), Text and History: The Formation of Tibetan Buddhist Historical Narratives and the Construction of Sino-Tibetan Buddhist Studies (Peking University Press, China Tibetology Press, 2016), and Return to Philology (Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 2019).