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Faculty and Staff Directory

Elena Valussi

Teaching Professor

Elena Valussi is a Teaching Professor in the History Department at Loyola University Chicago. Her research and publications revolve around the intersection of gender, religion and body practices, Republican discourses on gender and religion, the intellectual history of Daoism, and spirit writing in Chinese history. Recent publications are “Women, Goddesses and Gender Affinity in Spirit-writing”, “Female Alchemy, Health or Immortality?” and “Gender and divination in China”. She was the co-director of a research project on religious diversity in Sichuan province funded by the Taiwanese Chiang-Ching Kuo foundation and has published on the topic of Daoism in Sichuan. Her recent co-edited book is Communicating with the Gods: Spirit Writing in Chinese History and Society, Brill, 2023. She is the recipient of many research fellowships, in Europe and East Asia, most recently at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (2023), University of Venice (2023) and at the Center for Chinese Studies in Taipei, Taiwan (2026). She is the President of the Society for the Study of Chinese Religions, and co-editor of the Daoist Studies Series for Routledge.

Research Interests

Chinese history and religion, gender in China, Daoism, late imperial Chinese intellectual history

Courses Taught

HIST 208: Modern East Asian History

HIST 346C: Christianity in China

HIST 347D: Modern Chinese History through Film

HIST 349A: Gender in East Asian History

Publications/Research Listings

"Women shamans, diviners and spirit mediums in China", in The Legacy of Chinese Shamanism: The Wu and Their Successors, ed. by Johannes Hausen and Mark Offord, Purple Cloud Press, 2025.
"Daoism in Sichuan: Leshan, Emeishan, and Li Xiyue’s Community in the Nineteenth Century", T’oung P’ao,Volume 110 (2024): Issue 5-6 (Dec 2024): 685-745.
Spirit-writing in Chinese History and Society, ed. by Matthias Schumann and Elena Valussi, Leiden, Brill, 2023
"Women, Goddesses and Gender Affinity in Spirit-writing", in Spirit-writing in Chinese History and Society, ed. by Matthias Schumann and Elena Valussi, Leiden, Brill, 2023
‘War, Nationalism and the transmission of Daoist scriptures from China to Taiwan: the case of Xiao Tianshi’, Asia Major, 30.1, 201
'Female Alchemy: Transformation of a Gendered Body'
In Jinhua Jia, Xiaofei Kang and Ping Yao ed., Gendering Chinese Religions: Subject, Identity and Body, SUNY Press, 2014
'The transmission of the cult of Lü Dongbin to Sichuan in the nineteenth century, and the transformation of the local religious milieu', in Daoism Religion, History and Society, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2015
《道教研究學報：宗教、歷史與社會》第四期（2012) Daoism: Religion, History and Society, No. 4 (2012): 1–52. (“Printing and Religion in the Life of Fu. Jinquan Alchemical Writer, Religious Leader, and Publisher in Sichuan”)
“Gender and Sexuality,” co-written with Julia Huang and David Palmer, in David A. Palmer, Glenn Shive and Philip Wickeri, eds., Religion in Chinese Societies: Communities, Practices and Public Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
“Women's Qigong in America: Tradition, Adaptation, and New Trends,” Journal of Daoist Studies, vol. 3 (2010).
“Female Alchemy and Paratext: How to Read Nüdan in a Historical Context,” Asia Major, vol. 21, no. 2 (2008).

“Blood, Tigers, Dragons: The Physiology of Transcendence for Women,” IASTAM Journal of Asian Medicine vol. 4, no. 1 (2008).

“Men and Women in He Longxiang’s Nüdan Hebian (Collection of Female Alchemy),” Men Nannü, ed., Women and Gender in Early and Imperial China. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, vol. 10, no. 1. (2008).