Tran Khai Hoai, PhD
College of Arts and Sciences
Senior Lecturer
UNESCO Chair, VinUniversity
Research Scientist - History and Cultural Heritage
Biography
Trần Khải Hoài joined VinUniversity in 2022 as a lecturer of Vietnamese History and Culture. Previously, Hoài studied and taught at Cornell University. Much of his research revolves around cultural history and heritage studies. As a UNESCO Chair research scientist of historical and cultural heritage, Hoài studies the intersections of environmental and cultural changes in the Mekong Delta. His work on deltaic cultural heritage includes indigenous Buddhist-Daoist traditions as well as maritime history and religious landscapes of southern Vietnam.
In addition, Hoài has contributed to researching and preserving Vietnam’s classical literature and intellectual history. Formerly, he served as the curator of the Vietnamese Nôm Preservation Foundation’s digital archive of Vietnamese Hán Nôm held at Vietnam National Library. His Hán Nôm research includes so-called “southern Nôm” such as his full translation of an esoteric Buddhist Nôm text from the Mekong Delta.
Hoài’s ongoing projects explore the history of Sino-Vietnamese Taijiquan (T’ai Chi Ch’uen) diplomacy, a Vietnamese epic tale about a female buddha from Korea, and riverine and maritime culture in southern Vietnam.
- Coastal and Maritime Cultures
- Cultural heritage studies
- Sino-Vietnamese (Hán Nôm) studies
- Religion in Vietnam and China
- Daoism and Buddhism studies
- Martial arts studies
- Environmental history
- Ecological humanities
- Vietnamese history
- Vietnamese literature and culture
- Traditions of East Asian thought
- Buddhist traditions and modernities
- “Punting through a Shallow World: Master Buddha’s Watery Eschatology amidst the Rising Tides of Climate Change in the Mekong Delta.” Yin-Cheng Journal of Contemporary Buddhism, 1, no. 2 (May 2025), https://doi.org/10.15239/ycjcb.01.02.05.
- “Magic and Memory: Considering an Itinerant Doctor’s Account of Living Buddhism during the Republic of Vietnam,” Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia, 35 (Mar 2023): https://kyotoreview.org/issue-35/magic-and-memory-during-the-republic-of-vietnam/.
- “Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace.” Asian Philosophical Texts: Exploring Hidden Sources, edited Takeshi Morisato. Mimesis, 2020.
- “Views from the South” and “Lessons from the South.” Essays for Dr. Ben Judkin’s blog for the academic study of Traditional Chinese Martial Arts, Kung Fu Tea, Nov. 15, 20, 2020, https://chinesemartialstudies.com.
- Dharma Mountain Buddhism and Martial Yoga, Frederick, MD: Chua Xa Loi, 2007, 2010.
- “Thần Quyền: An Introduction to Spirit Forms of Thất Sơn Martial Arts.” Journal of Asian Martial Arts 13, no. 2 (2004): 64-79.
- PhD of Vietnamese Literature, Religion, and Culture (Cornell University)
