Justin Ritzinger is an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Miami, whose research focuses on modern Buddhism in China and Taiwan. He spent almost a decade living, working, and traveling in the Chinese-speaking world, primarily Taiwan. The author of Anarchy in the Pure Land: Reinventing the Cult of Maitreya in Modern Chinese Buddhism, he is currently working on ethnographic study of a small blue-collar lay group in Taoyuan, Taiwan.