Natasha Heller

Natasha Heller an associate professor in the department of Religious Studies, with a focus on Chinese religion and Buddhism. Her work focuses on two time periods: the tenth through fourteenth century and the modern era. Women and gender are also ongoing concerns in her research. Her second book Literature for Little Bodhisattvas considers both how gender roles are represented within picturebooks but also how religious education is a form of gendered affective labor. She has also written on the goddess Mazu, gender in Chan/Zen koans, and mothers in Buddhist education. She is currently co-editing  (with Megan Bryson, University of Tennessee, Knoxville) a teaching anthology of texts on women and gender in Chinese religion. Her most recent research has turned to plant humanities, and religion and the environment in East Asia.