Kira Thibaudeau, M.A. student in Japanese Buddhism at McMaster University, received a travel grant to support language training.
Kira is interested in engaging with issues concerning sex, gender, and monasticism within the context of East Asian Buddhism. Presently, her foremost academic interest involves examining how both lay and monastic women in pre-modern Japan were able to wield economic, social, and political power in order to acquire the means to produce various forms of Buddhist material culture, including items such as statues, scriptures, and paintings.