Visitors to The University of British Columbia
- July 2018 – January 2019. Chen Long (Xinzhou Teachers University)
Chen Long, PhD. is an Associate Professor, and Master Instructor, and was named a “Young and middle-aged top creative talent” of Xinzhou Teachers University. He teaches courses such as “History of Chinese Literature”, “Academic Writing”, and “Religion and Medieval Literature”, and is mainly engaged in the study of ancient Chinese literature and religions. He has published more than 20 academic papers, in the “literary heritage”, “Chinese Cultural Studies”, “Lu Xun Research Monthly” and other periodicals, and has published one professional academic book. Dr. Chen has hosted over five provincial and ministerial research projects, and has participated in two major research projects.
- November 2018. Tang Zhongmao (East China Normal University)
Prof. Tang Zhongmao is currently a professor and doctoral supervisor in the School of Social Development at East China Normal University. He also serves as the copy editor of Journal of East China Normal University (Philosophy and Social Science) and the Deputy Director of Center for Social and Religious Research of East China Normal University. He received his doctorate in philosophy at East China Normal University and finished postdoctoral study in the Institute of Chinese Historical Geography at Fudan University. His main research areas are Buddhism, Religious Folklore, and Sociology of Religion. Prof. Tang associates himself widely with academic institutions, serving as the council member on the Chinese Association for Religious Studies, the council member and vice-secretary of Shanghai Association of Religion Studies, and the vice-chairman of Shanghai Zhao Puchu Research Institute. He has published 5 monographs and more than 40 academic papers including佛教本覺思想論爭的現代性考察 (Debate on Buddhism Original Enlightenment Thought in Modernity, 2006),中國佛教近代轉型的社會之維 (The Social Dimension of Chinese Buddhism’s Transformation in Modern Times, 2013), and經卷遺存：長江流域民俗文化與藝術遺存 (The Remaining Scriptures: The Folk Culture and Art Remaining in Yangtze River Basin, 2013).
While visiting UBC, Prof. Tang Zhongmao delivered a lecture titled “The Life-world of Chinese Buddhism: Temple-Town Relationship and Everyday Life in the Area South of the Yangtze River”.
- April-December 2018. Tang Jia (Chinese National Academy of Arts)
Jia TANG 唐嘉, PhD. Renmin University of China (2010); Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Chinese Language and Literature, Beijing Normal University(2010-2013); Research Associate, Chinese National Academy of Arts (2013-). Her previously published books include A Study of Buddhist Nuns’ beliefs During the Dong-Jin, Song, Qi, Liang and Chen Dynasties東晉宋齊梁陳比丘尼研究( Sichuan: Bashu Press巴蜀書社, 2011), Buddhist Women in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties 魏晉南北朝女性佛教信仰研究(Co-authored with Luping Wang, Beijing: CITIC Publishing House中信出版社, 2017), and An Essential Study of Buddhist Ge-yi: Taking Daśasahasrika-Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra as an Example《道行般若經》“格義”研究 (Beijing: Shidaihuawen Press時代華文書局, 2018). Dr. Tang works primarily in the area of medieval Chinese Buddhism, Chinese philosophy, Chinese literature , Buddhist literature studies, gender studies.
While visiting UBC, Tang Jia delivered a lecture titled “What is Buddhist Ge-yi”.
- August 2018. Chen-kuo Lin 林鎮國 (Department of Philosophy, National Chengchi University)
Dr. Chen-kuo Lin 林鎮國 is a Distinguished Professor in both the Department of Philosophy and the Graduate Institute of Religious Studies at National Chengchi University. He earned Ph.D. from Temple University in 1991. His research interest includes Buddhist philosophy (Buddhist logic and epistemology, Mādhyamika, Yogācāra), Chinese philosophy (Neo-Confucianism, Daoism), and comparative philosophy. Dr Lin’s research is on the reception of Dignāga’s Ālambanaparikṣā during the late Ming and Edo Japan and on Dharmapalā’s commentary on Vasubandhu’s Viṃśikā. Both are studies in Yogācāra Buddhist philosophy.
Visitors to Ghent University
- 2018-2019. Lei Hanqing (Fudan University)
Hanqing Lei graduated from Fudan University in the School of Chinese Language and Literature. He was a visiting scholar at UC Irvine in 2011, and at the Research Institute of Zen at Hanazono University in Japan. Currently, he is a professor in the School of Literature and Journalism at Sichuan University, a researcher in the Institute of Chinese Folk Culture, and a PhD student supervisor in Chinese philology, linguistics and applied linguistics. As a visiting scholar at the University of Gent, his research topic is the study of Zen literature and language (especially the language of Zen in Tang and Song Dynasties). During the visit, he will consult European scholarship on Zen language and write article manuscripts on this topic.
- April – June 2018. Dr. Li Gang (Turfan Academy)
Dr. Li Gang obtained his PhD from Minzu University of China. A Xinjiang native, he is currently Associate Professor at Academia Turfanica and the English-language chief editor for the journal Turfan Studies. As a member of the Association for Chinese Ancient Ethnic Characters, his research engages with with old Uighur and Turkic documents.
At Ghent, Li Gang worked on the classification and decipherment of Uighur Buddhist documents and Uighur cave inscriptions, work that will be useful for both the study of Uighur philology and Uighur Buddhism.
- May 2018. Stuart Young (Princeton University)
Dr. Stuart Young obtained his PhD in Religious Studies in 2008 at the University of Princeton. He is associate professor at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. His impressive work on material culture in medieval China and its links to Buddhism has attracted the attention of the academic world.
As a visiting scholar at the University of Gent, he was a featured lecturer of Doctoral school on “Buddhism and Silk Culture”.
- March – May 2018. Pu Chengzhong (Shanghai University, PRC)
Chengzhong Pu completed his PhD in Buddhist Studies at SOAS, London University and did a one-year Post-doctorate with Professor Jonathan Silk at LIAS, Leiden University, followed by serving as an associate researcher for nearly a year at the Research Centre for Humanistic Buddhism, Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is currently a lecturer at Shanghai University.
As a visiting scholar at the University of Gent, his current research topic is “A Preliminary Study of the Shi’er you jing (十二游经)”, trying to investigate this dubious Buddhist scripture through tracing some information in the text to Chinese Buddhist translations.
- April 2018. Hong Xiuping (Nanjing University)
April 27, 2018: Dr. Hong Xiuping delivered a lecture (in Chinese) on the history of Chan. Provisional title: “从‘心’义种种看南宗禅的特色”
[A variety of perspectives on the Southern Chan school’s specificity, departing from the meanings of the character “Mind”]
Translation of the first two paragraphs:
After Buddhism spread from ancient India to China, it underwent an unceasing process of change. From the perspective of ideas and discourse, it is essential to look at the development of how Buddhism mixed with native Confucianist and Daoist ideas to form a Chinese Buddhism with Chinese characteristics. The Southern school of Chan Buddhism, founded by the Sixth Patriarch Huineng, is a representative case of this Chinese Buddhism.
The Southern school of Chan took shape in the middle of the sinification of Buddhism and in the middle of the development of Chan. From the Chan doctrines of the “Five Chinese Patriarchs,” the Chan lineage of Bodhidharma to Hongren, the meaning of the character “mind” continuously changed, exhibiting two tendencies. From the poems of Huineng and Shenxiu, we can discover the differences between the Northern and Southern Schools of Chan.
- March 2018. Georgios Halkias (University of Hong Kong)
March 8, 2018: Dr. Halkias delivered a lecture on “The Shitro Ceremony and Lay Tantric Buddhism in Amdo, Qinghai Province”
Professional practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism belong either to the ‘red sangha’ (dge ‘dun mar po) that includes celibate nuns and monks who wear the maroon robes, or the ‘white sangha’ (dge ‘dun dkar po), a lay community of male and female tantrists or ngakpa(sngags pa / sngags ma; Skt. māntrin). The latter are also known as those who wear the ‘white cloth’ and have uncut ‘braided hair’ (gos dkar lcang lo can), two distinctive markers of lay, and usually non-celibate, tantric practitioners. It would be fair to say, that the ngakpaof Rebkong in the north-eastern part of the Tibetan Plateau in Qinghai province, are well known in the Tibetan cultural world for comprising the largest community of householder tantric practitioners. In this presentation, I will briefly introduce the history of the Rebkong community of ngakpas that belong to the Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism, known as the Reb kong snangs mang (a group of tantrists from Rebkong), and share some audio-visual material and observations from my fieldwork participation in the ceremony of the ‘100 peaceful and wrathful deities,’ the Shitro (zhi khro), that took place in June 2017 at the village of Shakarlung in the district of Rebkong.
Visitors to The University of California, Berkeley
- October 2018. Paul Groner (University of Virginia)
Paul Groner received his Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from Yale and taught at the University of Virginia. His research focused on the Japanese Tendai School during the Heian period and the precepts and ordinations, which led to research on Eison, founder of the Shingon Ritsu sect, and the status of nuns in medieval Japan. In recent years, his interests have extended to the Tendai educational system during the Muromachi Period and to the establishment of Japan’s first public library at the Tendai temple, Kan’eiji. His publications consist of Saichō: The Establishment of the Japanese Tendai School and Ryōgen and Mount Hiei: Japanese Tendai in the Tenth Century and approximately fifty papers.
While visiting UC Berkeley, Prof. Paul Groner delivered a lecture titled “Reflections on the Movement to Revive the Precepts in Kamakura Japan”.