Dr. Gloria (I-Ling) Chien is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies and the Arnold Distinguished Professor (2025–2028) at Gonzaga University. She teaches courses related to Buddhist meditation, Asian religions in film, and mindfulness. Dr. Chien received her Ph.D. from the University of Virginia and her M.A. from Chung-Hwa Institute of Buddhist Studies at Dharma Drum Mountain in Taiwan.
Dr. Chien’s current projects include writing a monograph on Buddhist film and editing a volume titled Māra: The Enduring Demon in the Buddhist Universe. Her recent publications examine Buddhism and Chinese religions in film. Dr. Chien’s earlier research explores the cultural legacy of the Tibetan Buddhist master Tokmé Zangpo (1295–1369) within the Lojong (mind training) meditation tradition. Inspired by her research in Lojong, she completed a certificate in the Cognitively-Based Compassion Training® (CBCT) contemplation program developed at Emory University. Dr. Chien’s peer-reviewed work addresses studies of Tokmé Zangpo’s life stories and Collected Works, as well as the application of Ignatian and contemplative pedagogies in Buddhist studies classrooms. To promote scholarly discussion on teaching Buddhism in higher education, she co-founded and co-chaired the Buddhist Pedagogy Seminar at the American Academy of Religion (2019–2023).
Dr. Chien started her career at Gonzaga in 2017 and received the 2019–2020 Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence. In the spring of 2018, she taught a CBCT® course entitled “Compassion Meditation and Happiness” to promote emotional well-being in Gonzaga’s students and to enlarge their ethical considerations of others. This course was funded by the Office of the Dean at the College of Arts and Sciences. Her publication based on this course is featured in this 2020 GU news article. For her perspective on mindfulness and Buddhist meditation, please see this 2024 GU magazine article.
Upon request, Dr. Chien became the advisor of the GU student Meditation Club in 2021 and of the Asian American Union in 2024. To share her scholarship and specialties with both academic and public audiences, she has led several workshops—including for the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute—as well as mindfulness sessions for the Spokane Public Library and programs such as the ZoNE Essential Skills Series.
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
2022 – “Employing A Chinese Ghost Story to Teach the Syncretism of Chinese Religions.” Journal of Religion & Film: Vol. 26: Iss. 2 (2022): 1-51.
2020 – “Integrating Contemplative and Ignatian Pedagogies in a Buddhist Studies Classroom.” Religions 11, no. 11: 567 (2020): 1-21.
2020 – “Building the Sanctity of a Tibetan Buddhist Lojong Master through His Hagiography.” International Journal of Buddhist Thought & Culture 30, no. 1 (2020): 167-204.
2020 – “Complementary Teaching Practices: Ignatian Pedagogy and Buddhist-inspired Compassion Meditation.” Teaching Theology & Religion 23, no. 2 (2020): 96-109.
2016 – “Examining the Blo sbyong Component in Thogs med bzang po’s Collected Works.” Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines 37 (2016): 48-68.
Book Chapters
Forthcoming “Chinese Religions and Film,” The Routledge Companion to Religion and Film, 2nd edition, edited by John Lyden. London: Routledge.
Conference Proceedings
English
2025 “Teaching the Korean Film Along with the Gods and Analysing the Text that Combines the Shousheng jing and the Shiwang jing,” Local, Global and Glocal: New Perspectives and Approaches for the Study of Buddhism’s Transborder and Crosscultural Transformation in Asia and Beyond, edited by Ru Zhan and Jinhua Chen (Singapore: World Scholastic Publishers, 2025), 29-90. Note: Publication date is listed as 2024 due to pre-assigned ISBN and copyright.
Chinese
2025 “Yi hanguo dianying yushen tongxing wei jiaocai yu fenxi hanguo shousheng jing yu shiwang jing hekan,” Chinese translation of “Teaching the Korean Film Along with the Gods and Analysing the Text that Combines the Shousheng jing and the Shiwang jing. Hualin International Journal of Buddhist Studies (2024): 275-315. Note: Publication date is listed as 2024 due to pre-assigned ISBN and copyright.
Book Review
2023 Review of Joseph Piccione, Receiving God and Responding, in Breath Meditation: Praying at the Intersection of Christian Trinitarian Spirituality and the Breath Practice of Zen and Mindfulness (Crossroad Publishing Company, 2020) Horizons: The Journal of the College Theology Society 50:1 (2023): 211-13.
Essays
2021 – “Integrating the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm with Buddhist-Inspired Compassion Meditation.” The Wabash Center Journal on Teaching vol. 2 No. 1: 67-73.
2021– “Teaching the Bhikkhuni Ordination Issue through Contemplative and Ignatian Pedagogies.” Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women Newsletter vol. 29: 24-29.
2020 – “Contemplative Exercises and Pedagogy Online.” Religious Studies News (the web magazine of the American Academy of Religion), 1 October.
