On 3 September 2026, GCBS PhD researcher Xi DUAN successfully defended his doctoral dissertation, “Materialising Frontier Authority: Institutions, Commemoration and Spatial Order in Late Imperial Menghua.”
The public defence took place at 14:00 in the Aud. Vandenhove, Pavilion Charles Vandenhove (Campus Boekentoren), Ghent University.
The dissertation explores how institutions, commemorative practices, and spatial organisation contributed to the construction and materialisation of authority in late imperial Menghua, in present-day Yunnan. By examining the interplay between institutional structures, commemorative activities, and the organisation of space, the research sheds light on the ways in which authority was established, represented, and made tangible in a frontier region of late imperial China.
Xi Duan’s doctoral research was supervised by Prof. Dr. Ann Heirman (Ghent University), Prof. Dr. Christoph Anderl (Ghent University), and Prof. Dr. Lia Wei (Sorbonne Alliance / INALCO).
The examination committee consisted of Prof. Dr. Jo Steenbergen (chair, Ghent University), Dr. Mathieu Torck (rapporteur, Ghent University), Emeritus Prof. Dr. Timothy H. Barrett (examiner, SOAS, University of London), Prof. Dr. Megan Bryson (examiner, University of Tennessee), Dr. Mariia Lepneva (examiner, Ghent University), and Prof. Dr. Sara Mondini (examiner, Ghent University).
The Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies warmly congratulates Xi Duan on this important achievement and wishes him every success in his future academic career.
