Nate Lovdahl

Nate Lovdahl received his BA from the University of Minnesota in 2012 and his MA from McMaster University in 2014, where he wrote a thesis concerning gender in Daoist hagiographical collections. He then spent several years grant writing at a small arts nonprofit in Minneapolis before returning to graduate studies.

At Yale, Nate researches changing notions of Buddhist monastic legitimacy across the Tang and Song. He focuses especially on how the state’s administrative laws and the monastic community’s ordination rituals operated in mutually defining what legitimate monasticism entailed and how one acquired that legitimacy. For much of the Tang, the state and Buddhist community (both lay and monastic) agreed with regard to how one became and recognized a proper nun or monk. Early in the Song, however, the state changed its method for granting legitimacy, creating a tension between (secular) legal and religious perspectives on identifying monastic status. At its most basic, Nate’s project seeks to contribute to studies of religious identity, whether established by religious communities or outside actors. This Chinese example is of particular value because it touches on the inextricably linked roles of such various actors, including especially the state, laity, and monastic community.

Nate’s doctoral research has been supported by several awards, including a Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Dissertation Fellowship in Buddhist Studies and a Fulbright-Hays DDRA Fellowship.