Beata Grant is Professor of Chinese and Religious Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, where she teaches a broad range of courses in classical Chinese literature, popular religious literature, and women in premodern Chinese history, as well as survey courses in Asian religions. In terms of research, her general area of interest lies in the intersection between religion and literature, with a particular focus on women and Buddhism.  She is the author of a number of articles and several books, including Mount Lu Revisited: Buddhism in the Life and Writings of Su Shih, 1036-1101 (Hawai'i University Press, 1994); Daughters of Emptiness: Poems by Chinese Buddhist Nuns (Wisdom, 2003); (with Wilt Idema) The Red Brush: Writings by Women of Imperial China (Harvard Asia Center, 2004); and most recently, Eminent Nuns: Women Chan Masters of Seventeenth-Century China (Hawai'i University Press, 2008).