- x859-985-3186
- richeyj@berea.edu
- Website
- Mon/Wed: 10 a.m. – noon
- AST 135 (Mon/Wed: 8:00 am – 9:50 am)
- GSTR 410 E (Tue/Thur: 1:00 pm – 2:50 pm)
- GSTR 410 F (Mon/Wed: 12:40 pm – 2:30 pm)
Jeffrey L. Richey is Professor of Asian Studies at Berea College, where he has taught courses about Chinese and Japanese intellectual and religious history and culture since 2002. Educated at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (B.A., 1994), Harvard University (M.T.S., 1997), and the Graduate Theological Union’s cooperative program with the University of California at Berkeley (Ph.D., 2000), he has authored and edited numerous scholarly works in the field of East Asian studies. Dr. Richey’s publications include Daoism in Japan: Chinese Traditions and Their Influence on Japanese Religious Culture (Routledge, 2015), The Sage Returns: Confucian Revival in Contemporary China (SUNY Press, 2015), Confucius in East Asia: Confucianism’s History in China, Korea, Japan, and Viet Nam (Association for Asian Studies, 2013), and Teaching Confucianism (Oxford University Press, 2008), as well as many articles in academic journals and encyclopedias. His teaching interests focus on cultural continuity and transformation in East Asia, particularly as seen through popular culture, religious practice, and social values.
- B.A. Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 1994
- M.T.S. Religions of the World, Harvard University, 1997
- Ph.D. Cultural and Historical Study of Religions, Graduate Theological Union, 2000
- Chinese Influences on Japanese Religious Traditions (editor), special issue of Religions, vol. 12 (2021)
- “Daoist Cosmogony in the Kojiki 古事記 Preface.” Religions 12/9 (2021): 761.
- “The Comma at the End of the Silk Road: Magatama and the Development of an Early Eastern Eurasian Ornamental Motif.” Sino-Platonic Papers 299 (March 2020): 1-33.
- “The Power of Fan: Reversal, Rebellion, and Return in the Star Wars Saga.” Unbound: A Journal of Digital Scholarship 1/1 (2019).
- “My Students and Asia: Then and Now.” Education About Asia 23/3 (Winter 2018): 16-20.
- “‘Honor the Power Within’: Daoist Wizards, Popular Culture, and Contemporary Japan’s Spiritual Crisis.” In Ken Koltun-Fromm and Assaf Gamzou, eds., Comics and Sacred Texts: Reimagining Religion and Graphic Narratives (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2018), 172-192.
- “Confucius.” In Tim Wright, ed., Oxford Bibliographies in Chinese Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).
- Daoism in Japan: Chinese Traditions and Their Influence on Japanese Religious Culture (editor and contributor) (London and New York: Routledge, 2015).
- “Society and Culture: Confucianism in East Asia Today.” In Anne Prescott, ed., East Asia in the World: An Introduction (London and New York: Routledge, 2015), 174-184.
- The Sage Returns: Confucian Revival in Contemporary China (co-editor [with Kenneth J. Hammond] and contributor) (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2015).
- “Jackie Chan as Confucian Critic: Contemporary Popular Confucianism in China.” In John M. Thompson, ed., Sacred Matters, Stately Concerns: Essays on Faith and Politics in Asia (New York: Peter Lang Publishing Group, 2014), 169-180.
- “Confucius.” In Kerry Brown, ed., Berkshire Dictionary of Chinese Biography (Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing Group, 2014), 1:44-58.
- Confucious in East Asia: Confucianism's History in China, Korea, Japan, and Viet Nam (Association for Asian Studies, 2013; 2nd revised ed., 2022),
- The Patheos Guide to Confucianism (Denver, CO: Patheos Press, 2012).
- “New Views of Early Japanese Religions.” Religious Studies Review 37/2 (2011): 93-96.
- “I, Robot: Self as Machine in the Liezi.” In Jeffrey Dippmann and Ronnie Littlejohn, eds., Riding the Wind with Liezi: New Scholarship on the Daoist Classic (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2011), 193-208.
- Teaching Confucianism (editor and contributor) (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).
- “Master and Disciple in the Analects.” In David Jones, ed., Confucius Now: Contemporary Encounters with the Analects (Chicago: Open Court Publishing Company, 2008), 243-251.
- “Lost and Found Theories of Law in Early China.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 49/3 (2006): 329-343.
- “A Confucian Pluralist Ethic? Some Clues from the Analects.” International Review of Chinese Religion and Philosophy 6 (March 2001): 39-48.
- “Enduring Myths and Emerging Trends in the Study of Early Chinese Philosophy and Religion.” Asian Studies Newsletter 46/1 (February 2001): 13.
- “Ascetics and Aesthetics in the Analects.” Numen 47 (May 2000): 161-174.