Professor of Religious Studies and IU faculty member since 2011, Michael Ing researches and teaches about what it means to be human in early and medieval China, as well as in traditional Hawai’i. His work delves into questions of vulnerability, resilience, and human relationships.
Recently, Michael completed a translation of an early Chinese text, the Da Dai Liji (co-translated with Naiyi Hsu), and he is working on a monograph on grief and resilience in the work of Tao Yuanming (c. 365 - 427), a fifth-century Chinese poet and intellectual.
His previous roles at IU included terms as director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Religious Studies and interim director of the First Nations Educational and Cultural Center.
An Andrew W. Mellon New Directions Fellowship in 2020 enabled Michael to begin work on Native Hawaiian thought, and he has published two books with Oxford: “The Dysfunction of Ritual in Early Confucianism” (2012) and “The Vulnerability of Integrity in Early Confucian Thought” (2017). He has been a visiting scholar at National Taiwan University, an early career scholar with the University of Chicago’s Enhancing Life Project, and a fellow at IU’s Institute for Advanced Study.
Michael earned a Master of Theological Studies from the Harvard University Divinity School and a Ph.D. in Harvard’s Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations.
The College of Arts