Dominic Steavu
· Associate ProfessorUniversity of California, Santa Barbara · East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies
Active 2008–2026
About
Dominic Steavu is a scholar specializing in the history of Daoism and Chinese Buddhism, with a particular focus on the history of medicine within these traditions. His research explores how material culture and intellectual history reflect and influence religious practices, examining the intersection of therapeutic or bio-spiritual disciplines with external conditions, sociopolitical contexts, and cultural trends. His work investigates themes such as the body, talismans, elixirs, cosmographs, and mushrooms, and how these elements embody and shape spiritual and material realities. He is engaged in projects including a critical annotated translation of The Incapable Master (Wunengzi), a medieval Daoist treatise on political philosophy and environmental ethics, and a study on the role of entheogens like mushrooms and cannabis in ritual contexts linked to visualization practices. His broader research interests encompass tattooing in China and Japan at the crossroads of medicine and religion, ethnomycology, the influence of Daoist and Buddhist imprints in medieval Chinese translations of Christian texts, and the reception of Daoist and Buddhist practices in early modern Europe. Steavu has authored and edited several publications, including books and articles on Daoist studies, the history of ideas, and the history of medicine, contributing significantly to the understanding of East Asian religious and cultural history.
Research topics
- Art
- History
- Archaeology
- Computer Science
- Zoology
- Literature
- Geography
- Ancient history
- Theology
- Biology
- Philosophy
- Medicine
Selected publications
Journal of Chinese History · 2026-04-22
articleOpen access1st authorCorrespondingAbstract This article reconsiders three of the most iconic mushroom catalogues of classical China, which underscored the culinary value of local fungi, in light of indebtedness to medical and self-cultivation literature. Through this re-examination of mycological sources and the imbrication of discourses that they exhibit, mushrooms emerge as richer, more complex, objects of gastronomic interest.
Daoist Meditation as Guided Framework in Psychedelic Self-Care and Therapy
Liverpool University Press eBooks · 2025-10-14
book-chapter1st authorCorrespondingIs There Such a Thing as Chinese Yoga? Indian Postural Therapies in Mediaeval China
Journal of Yoga Studies · 2023 · 1 citations
1st authorCorresponding- History
- Medicine
- Literature
China has an unbroken history of therapeutic stretches, gymnastics, and callisthenic practices—collectively known as daoyin—that date back to the 2nd century BCE. Yet, despite a robust indigenous tradition, an iconic and influential set of eighteen daoyin postures was originally labelled an “Indian massage method” or “Brahmanic callisthenics” when it first surfaced in Daoist texts and medical treatises around the 6th or 7th century. Indeed, those eighteen postures bear a striking resemblance to bodily disciplines associated with traditional physical practices in India. In the first part of the chapter, we examine the earliest Chinese sources of the so-called “Indian massage methods,” namely, the Daoist scripture known as Daolin’s Treatise on Maintaining Life and the physician Sun Simiao’s (d. 682) Essential Emergency Prescriptions Worth a Thousand Gold [Pieces]. In the second part of the paper, we turn to the question of how these foreign practices were “naturalised” and renegotiated as native therapies. In a third section, we will consider the further peregrinations of “Brahmanic callisthenics” by following their traces in European accounts of Chinese self-cultivation techniques. We will seek to untangle the threads connecting Jesuit accounts and mediaeval Sino-Indian methods. We will also succinctly reflect on the reception of biospiritual disciplines in early-modern Europe and their re-circulation in India.
T oung Pao · 2022
1st authorCorresponding- Philosophy
- Theology
- Art
Visions and Dreams in Early and Medieval China: A Few Thoughts on Neutrality and Authorial Voice
Early Medieval China · 2022-01-01
article1st authorCorrespondingVisions and Dreams in Early and Medieval China: A Few Thoughts on Neutrality and Authorial Voice
Early Medieval China · 2022-09-21
article1st authorCorrespondingDe Gruyter eBooks · 2022 · 1 citations
1st authorCorresponding- Computer Science
- Ancient history
- Art
Chapter Four Birds of a Feather Bathe Together: Buddhist Consecration Rituals in Medieval China and their Relation to Daoism was published in Rituals of Initiation and Consecration in Premodern Japan on page 61.
The Writ of the Three Sovereigns: From Local Lore to Institutional Daoism
2019-07-31 · 3 citations
book1st authorCorrespondingIn 648 CE, Tang imperial authorities collected every copy of the Writ of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang wen) from the four corners of the empire and burned them. The formidable talismans at its core were said not only to extend their owners’ lifespan and protect against misfortune, but also propel them to stratospheric heights of power, elevating them to the rank of high minister or even emperor. Only two or three centuries earlier, this controversial text was unknown in most of China with the exception of Jiangnan in the south, where it was regarded as essential local lore. In the span of a few generations, the Writ of the Three Sovereigns would become the cornerstone of one of the three basic corpora of the Daoist Canon, a pillar of Daoism—and a perceived threat to the state.This study, the only book-length treatment of the Writ of the Three Sovereigns in any language, traces the text’s transition from local tradition to empire-wide institutional religion.
University of Hawaii Press eBooks · 2019-09-26
book-chapter1st authorCorrespondingThe Writ of the Three Sovereigns
University of Hawaii Press eBooks · 2019-09-30 · 4 citations
book1st authorCorresponding
Frequent coauthors
- 2 shared
А. В. Андреева
Northern State Medical University
- 1 shared
Anna I. Andreeva
Pedagogical University
- 1 shared
Анна Андреева
- 1 shared
Johannes Quack
University of Zurich
Labs
East Asian Languages & Cultural StudiesPI
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