Dan Smyer Yü is Kuige Professor of Ethnology, School of Ethnology and Sociology and the National Centre for Borderlands Ethnic Studies in Southwest China at Yunnan University. He received his doctoral degree in anthropology from the University of California at Davis in 2006. Prior to his current faculty appointment, he was a Senior Researcher/Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity and a core member of the Transregional Research Network (CETREN) at University of Göttingen. Currently he is an elected board member of International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture (ISSRNC), a member of the Advisory Board of Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, and the co-lead of the Thematic Working Group on Himalayan Environmental Humanities.

His contribution to KPA IV: 

Smyer Yü contributes his research and teaching to the Global South Studies Center (GSSC) at Cologne primarily in the fields of environmental humanities, religious studies, sustainability

His research interests include environmental humanities, religion and ecology, indigenous knowledge, modern Tibetan Buddhism, politics of ethnic diversity in China, and Eurasian secularisms. His geographical specializations are modern China, Himalayan borderlands, and the Tibetan Plateau. His research projects have been funded by the British Academy Sustainable Development Program, the Swedish Research Council, Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, German Ministry for Education and Research Fund, the National Social Sciences Foundation of China, and Himalayan University Consortiu

Articles and book chapters

• Smyer Yü, Dan. 2023. “Freeing animals: Sino‑Tibetan Buddhist environmentalism and ecological challenges”, Religions 14 (110). doi.org/10.3390/rel14010110.
• Smyer Yü, Dan. 2023. “Geo-economics of China’s Rare Earths Production: Concurrent Green Transition and Environmental Vulnerability”, The Extractive Industries and Society 18 (2024) 101466. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2024.101466.
• Smyer Yü, Dan. 2023. A Public Theology of the Anthropocene: The Earth’s Deep Freedom. Religion and Development, Online Publication, 30 Aug 2023, https://doi.org/10.30965/27507955-20230012.
• Smyer Yü, Dan. 2023. “Collapsing Elephant Clime since the Little Ice Age: Climatic Refugees, Animal Zomia and Elephant Modernity in Yunnan.” In Smyer Yü, Dan and Jelle J.P. Wouters, eds. Storying Multipolar Climes of the Himalaya, Andes and Arctic: Anthropocenic Climate and Shapeshifting Watery Lifeworlds. London: Routledge Environmental Humanities Series.
• Amrith, Sunil and Dan Smyer Yü. 2023. “The Himalaya and Monsoon Asia: Anthropocenic Climes since the 1800s.” In Dan Smyer Yü and Jelle J.P. Wouters, eds. Storying Multipolar Climes of the Himalaya, Andes and Arctic: Anthropocenic Climate and Shapeshifting Watery Lifeworlds. London: Routledge Environmental Humanities Series.
• Smyer Yü, Dan. 2023. “Multipolar Clime Studies of the Anthropocenic Himalaya, Andes and Arctic: An Introduction.” In Smyer Yü, Dan and Jelle J.P. Wouters, eds. Storying Multipolar Climes of the Himalaya, Andes and Arctic: Anthropocenic Climate and Shapeshifting Watery Lifeworlds. London: Routledge Environmental Humanities Series.
• Smyer Yü, Dan “Ecological Civilization and Reformed Communism in a Contested G-One World.” International Quarterly for Asian Studies, Vol. 53/2022 iii, pp. 337–356.
• Smyer Yü, Dan. 2022. “The Middle Highlands of Modern China as a Historical Inter-Asian Zomia: Human-Nature Diversity in the Hengduan Mountains.” In Jelle J.P. Wouters and Michael Heneise, eds. The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Highland Asia. London: Routledge.
• Dan Smyer Yü and Erik de Maaker, eds. 2021 Environmental Humanities in the New Himalayas: Symbiotic Indigeneity, Commoning, Sustainability (Routledge Environmental Humanities Series). 
• Smyer Yü, Dan. 2021. “Situating environmental humanities in the New Himalayas: An Introduction.” In Dan Smyer Yü and Erik de Maaker, eds. Environmental Humanities in the New Himalayas: Symbiotic Indigeneity, Commoning, Sustainability. London: Routledge Environmental Humanities Series, pp.1-24. 
• Smyer Yü, Dan. 2021. “Symbiotic Indigeneity and Commoning in the Anthropogenic Himalayas.” In Dan Smyer Yü and Erik de Maaker, eds. Environmental Humanities in the New Himalayas: Symbiotic Indigeneity, Commoning, Sustainability. London: Routledge Environmental Humanities Series, pp.239-260. 
• Smyer Yü, Dan. 2021. “Perpendicular geospatiality of corridors and borderlands: an introduction.” In Dan Smyer Yü and Karin Dean, eds. 2021 Yunnan-Burma-Bengal Corridor Geographies: Protean Edging of Habitats and Empires. Routledge, pp.1-26. 
• Smyer Yü, Dan. 2021. “Environmental edging of empires, chiefdoms, and states: corridors as transregions.” In Dan Smyer Yü and Karin Dean, eds. Yunnan-Burma-Bengal Corridor Geographies: Protean Edging of Habitats and Empires. Routledge, pp.46-67. 
• Mandy Sadan, Dan Smyer Yü and Seng Lawn Dan “Researching Life Stories of the Myanmar-China Jadeite Trade,” New Area Studies 2:1 (2021), 39-73.  
• Dan Smyer Yü 2020 “The Critical Zone as A Planetary Animist Sphere: Etho-graphing An Affective Consciousness of the Earth.” Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture (JSRNC), 14. 271-290.
• Dan Smyer Yü and Jean Michaud, eds. 2017 Trans-Himalayan Borderlands: Livelihoods, Territorialities, Modernities (Amsterdam University Asian Borderland Series)
• Dan Smyer Yü 2015 Mindscaping the Landscape of Tibet: Place, Memorability, Eco-aesthetics (De Gruyter Religion & Society Series)
• Dan Smyer Yü 2011 The Spread of Tibetan Buddhism in China: Charisma, Money, Enlightenment (Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism)

Edited volumes

• Jelle J.P. Wouters and Dan Smyer Yü (eds). 2024. Himalayan Climes and Multispecies Encounters. Routledge Environmental Humanities Series.
• Smyer Yü, Dan and J. Wouters (eds). 2023. Storying Multipolar Climes of the Himalaya, Andes and Arctic: Anthropocenic Climate and Shapeshifting Watery Lifeworlds. Routledge Environmental Humanities Series.
• Smyer Yü, Dan and Karin Dean, eds. 2021 Yunnan-Burma-Bengal Corridor Geographies: Protean Edging of Habitats and Empires. Routledge.