Wan-Chun Cheng

Wan-Chun Cheng studied the history of medicine at China Medical University (Taiwan) and held research fellowships in Germany at the International Consortium for Research in the Humanities (IKGF) and the DFG-funded Center for Advanced Studies CAS-E, both at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen–Nürnberg (FAU). She currently collaborates with CAS-E on Knowing Hands: Chinese Hand-memory Techniques & Handy Knowledge, a project exploring palm mnemonics in Chinese divination.

Her research centers on the Brahmahoranavagraha (梵天火羅九曜), an early Buddhist astrological text. She examines how its cosmological and ritual knowledge was transmitted, translocated, and creatively transformed across East Asia, exploring how mandala diagrams, textual formulas, and ritualized chanting enabled practitioners to turn complex astral systems into performative, embodied practices.

Cheng combines philological analysis, visual studies, and the study of ritual performance to illuminate the cognitive, material, and embodied dimensions of East Asian esoteric knowledge, showing how theory and practice were continuously reimagined across regions and generations.

Cheng is associated with the research group "Astral Sciences in Trans-Regional Asia" (ASTRA) headed by Anuj Misra.