Rachel Quist

Rachel Quist is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History at Case Western Reserve University. She specializes in Buddhist visual culture of medieval Japan, focusing on the relationships between religious icons, worshipers, and natural environments. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Kansas with a dissertation on imperial patronage of Daigoji. Her research and curatorial work engage deeply with Japanese art history and museum practices.

• Education: Ph.D., University of Kansas
• Specialty: Japanese Art History
• Email: rdq9@case.edu

Dr. Quist’s research explores the intersection of ritual, politics, and cosmology in premodern Japanese Buddhist art. She has conducted fieldwork in Japan supported by a Fulbright-Hays fellowship and received a Dissertation Fellowship from the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation. Her work has been published by the Spencer Museum of Art and the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art.

In 2024, she participated in installing an exhibition at Nakanoshima Museum of Art in Osaka and curated a 2019 exhibition on Dehua porcelain at the Ringling Museum, highlighting her expertise in global art exchange and material culture studies.

• Scientific Awards:
  • Dissertation Fellowship, Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studies (2023)
  • Fulbright-Hays Fellowship for fieldwork in Japan (2022–2023)