Tyler Phan

Tyler Phan received his Ph.D. from University College London (UCL) in 2017. Before his Ph.D., he earned his M.A. in Religions of Asia (now M.A. in Buddhist Studies) from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (SOAS) in 2013. His research focus is in medical anthropology and science and technology studies (STS) with a relationship among religion, ontology, bodies, post-colonialism, and race in Asia and North America. His previous research included a cross-country ethnography of Chinese medicine in the United States, examining the historical marginalization of Asian/Asian Americans through policy and legislation, which resulted in his Ph.D. dissertation called "American Chinese Medicine" and finishing his monograph called When White People Took Our Medicine as well as the comic book series A People’s History of Acupuncture in America.

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He has also been engaged with a postcolonial discourse on whiteness and religion in the search for “Eastern” enlightenment as well as the role of “practice” in almost a decade-long research project called "Counter Culture Orientalism." The work examines members of the 1960s and 1970s counterculture who were jaded by the mid-20th century’s model of religion and ventured “East” throughout Asia to explore heterogenous practices of what the members viewed as a homogenous “enlightenment.”

Outside of Pitt, he is the director of the Goldman Institute of Social Research where he chairs Critical Dharma, a study group examining critical theory and contemplative thought. Recently, he has helped oversee the joint partnership with over a dozen groups in Western Pennsylvania called the Braddock Food Collaborative, which focuses on creating accessible foodway systems distribution throughout Braddock and North Braddock. Additionally, he runs an underground comic book press with world renowned artist Frank Santoro called Phantoro Press (Hype Pup Jr.). He is also a coffee roaster and tea trader with beverage companies in both the East and West Coast of the United States.

Lastly, Dr. Phan is also a fifth-generation Vietnamese medical practitioner and has been practicing acupuncture and herbalism for more than the past two decades. He opened Pittsburgh’s first community acupuncture clinic in 2010 and has worked as an acupuncturist serving people throughout the world. He has taught workshops on traditional medicine, meditation, as well as anthropological research on astrology (“Western,” Vedic, Lunar, etc.), numerology, eight characters destiny charts (ba zi), and geomancy for the past fifteen years.

Big thanks to our sponsor The Apricot Grove!