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Hualin International Journal of Buddhist Studies 4.2 (2021): 558–565
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Wheel that Crossed the Borders: Buddhist and Non-Buddhist Religions)
Author Biographies
Ming CHEN 陳明
Ming Chen 陳明 is currently a Professor and Head of the Department of South Asian Studies at Peking University. Since he was awarded a doctoral degree by Peking University in 1999, with a dissertation on Indian Medical Science, he has focused on the history of cultural communication between China and Central & South Asia in the Medieval Period, mainly but not exclusively in terms of medicine. His academic interests have also been extended to a study on Buddhist literature in Sanskrit-Chinese, and the influence of ancient South Asian literature on China. He has published six books all in Chinese: (1) On the Sanskrit Medical Book Siddhasāra (2002, 2014); (2) Medical Manuscripts Discovered in Dunhuang and Western Regions: Foreign Medicine in Medieval China (2005); (3) A Study on Sanskrit Medical Text of Jīvaka-pustaka from Dunhuang (2005); (4) Foreign Medicine and Culture in Medieval China (2013); (5) Texts and Languages: A Comparative Study on Some Manuscripts Unearthed from the Silk Road and Early Chinese Buddhist Canon (2013); (6) Indian Buddhist Mythology: Its Writing and Transmission (2016). Now he is also interested in comparative study of Buddhist literature and vocabulary in Sanskrit and Chinese, and the transmission of tales and related images in pre-modern Eurasia. He has two funded projects: A collection of illustrated texts of ancient Eastern literature and related studies, and Studies on exchanges of culture and literature between China and South Asia in pre-modern period.
HAO Chunwen 郝春文
Hao Chunwen 郝春文 is a Yanshan 燕山 Distinguished Professor of the School of History at Capital Normal University, also serving as the head of the university’s Institute of Historical Studies. His main areas of research are Dunhuang documents, Buddhism in China, and Chinese history, especially from the third to thirteenth century. In the past few decades, he has published several monographs on various related topics, which include Zhonggu shiqi sheyi yanjiu 中古時期社邑研究 [The Study of Confraternities in Medieval China], Tang houqi Wudai Song chu Dunhuang sengni de shehui shenghuo 唐後期五代宋初敦煌僧尼的社會生活 [The Social Life of Buddhist Monks and Nuns in Dunhuang during the Late Tang, Five Dynasties, and the Early Song], Shishi xiejing: Dunhuang yishu 石室寫經——敦煌遺書 [Scriptural Manuscripts in Stone Chambers: Dunhuang Documents], Dunhuang de lishi he wenhua 敦煌的歷史和文化 [The History and Culture of Dunhuang] (co-author), and Dunhuang sheyi wenshu jijiao 敦煌社邑文書輯校 [A Critical Collection of Documents concerning Confraternities from Dunhuang] (co-author). In addition, he was the chief editor of Vol. 12–14 in a multi-volume collection of Dunhuang manuscripts which are preserved in the United Kingdom and have published a host of articles. His current primary work-in-progress is an investigation of Dunhuang documents kept in the U.K., with the goal of collecting and studying the data related to social history. This is one of the major research projects sponsored by the National Social Science Fund of China. The outcome of this project will be a 30-volume series Ying cang Dunhuang shehui lishi wenxian shilu 英藏敦煌社會歷史文獻釋錄 [Annotated Transcription of the Dunhuang Literature concerning Social History Preserved in the U. K.], of which 15 volumes have already been published. He has served in a wide range of institutions. These posts include President of the Institute of Dunhuang and Turfan Studies of China, Chief Editor of Dunhuang xue guoji lianluo weiyuanhui tongxun 敦煌學國際聯絡委員會通訊 [Newsletter of International Liaison Committee for Dunhuang Studies], chief editor of Dunhuang Tulufan yanjiu 敦煌吐鲁番研究 [Studies on Dunhuang and Turfan], and editorial member of Zhongguo shi yanjiu 中國史研究 [Journal of Chinese Historical Studies].
Lu HUANG 黃露
Lu Huang 黃露 is currently a graduate student in the Department of Religion at Temple University. She obtained a B.A. from Nanjing University and an M.A. from Peking University. In 2019 she became a University Fellow at Temple University. Her interests include the study of scholastic debates within the Indian Sarvāstivāda School, the role of pre-Xuanzang Chinese Abhidharma specialists, social network analysis, Buddhist pilgrimage at Mount Jizu, and Buddhist history in Southwest China. Besides classical Chinese and Sanskrit, she has studied Tibetan. At Temple University she teaches a wide range of courses including Religions in the World, Introduction to Buddhism, and Death and Dying.
GEORGE KEYWORTH
George Keyworth received his B.A. (Honors) in Chinese and Asian Studies and M.A. in Asian Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He received his Ph.D. in Chinese Buddhist Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Dr. Keyworth was an Assistant Professor of East Asian Religions at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) from 2001–2006, followed by three years as a researcher in Kyoto, Japan, from 2006–2009. In 2011, Dr. Keyworth joined the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada as an Assistant Professor of Buddhist Studies and East Asian Religions. After receiving tenure in 2017, Dr. Keyworth transferred to the Department of History as an associate professor, teaching courses in the areas of premodern Chinese and Japanese history, Asian Studies, the history of religion in East Asia, and comparative manuscript studies. Dr. Keyworth has published several articles on topics ranging from Northern Song dynasty (960–1127) Chinese Chan Buddhism and the figure of Juefan Huihong 覺範惠洪 (1071–1128); Japanese pilgrims to Song China (e.g., Jōjin 成尋 [1011–1081]); apocryphal Chinese Buddhist scriptures and the particular case of the Shoulengyan jing 首楞嚴經 (*Śūraṃgama-sūtra, T no. 945) using Chinese and Khotanese Sanskrit sources from Dunhuang; esoteric Buddhism in Tang (618–907) and Song China; Zen Buddhism in Edo (1603–1868) Japan and the figures of Xinyue Xingchou 心越興儔 (Shin’etsu Kōchū, 1639–1696) and Kakumon Kantetsu 覚門貫徹 (d. 1730); and old Japanese manuscript Buddhist canons (issaikyō 一切経), especially from Nanatsudera 七寺 the Matsuo shrine 松尾社 canon kept at Myōrenji. He is currently working on two books, tentatively titled: Zen and the Literary Arts and Copying for the Kami: A Study and Catalog of the Matsuo Shrine Buddhist Canon. He has received grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada to support his research projects. He has also supervised M.A. students who wrote theses on topics ranging from modern religion in China and Japan to early modern Daoism.
Jeffrey KOTYK
Jeffrey Kotyk (Ph.D., Leiden University, 2017) is presently the Sheng Yen Education Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Chinese Buddhism at the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC, Canada. His diverse publications cover a variety of topics, including transcultural Buddhist history, the history of astronomy in China, material culture in medieval East Asia, and Sino-Japanese Buddhist relations. He has publications in journals such as T’oung Pao, Asia Major and Studies in Chinese Religions.
Winston KYAN
Winston Kyan is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Utah. He teaches and publishes on three distinct, but interrelated areas: traditional Buddhist art of the Silk Road, Buddhist visual culture of the Asian diaspora, and Buddhism inspired contemporary Chinese art. His articles and essays have appeared in numerous edited volumes and journals, including The Art Bulletin, Amerasia, and Art Journal Open.
Elizabeth MORRISON
Elizabeth Morrison is Associate Professor in the Religion Department at Middlebury College, Vermont. Her research focuses on Chan history and Buddhist-Confucian relations in pre-modern China.
Richard K. PAYNE
Richard K. Payne, Ph.D., is Numata Professor of Japanese Buddhist Studies at the Institute of Buddhist Studies, Berkeley, where he teaches courses on tantric Buddhism and methods in the study of Buddhism. His edited collection, Secularizing Buddhism: New Perspectives on a Dynamic Tradition, was published by Shambhala Publications in 2021. He and Georgios Halkias, University of Hong Kong, are co-editors of The Oxford Encyclopedia of Buddhism, which is currently online and will be forthcoming in print. Glen Hayes, emeritus at Bloomsbury College, and he are co-editing The Oxford Handbook of Tantric Studies, forthcoming both online and in print. Also forthcoming is Buddhism under Capitalism: Historical Background, Contemporary Manifestations, and Theoretical Reflections, co-edited with Fabio Rambelli, University of California, Santa Barbara, being published by Bloomsbury Academic. He continues to study tantric Buddhist ritual, particularly the homa, which was the topic of Homa Variations: The Study of Ritual Change Across the Longue Durée, co-edited with Michael Witzel, and published by Oxford University Press (2015).
†Norman Harry ROTHSCHILD
†Norman Harry Rothschild (1969–2021): For twenty years, the focus of Norman Harry Rothschild’s research is Wu Zhao (624–705), better known as Wu Zetian or Empress Wu. His most recent book Emperor Wu Zhao and her Pantheon of Devis, Divinities, and Dynastic Mothers (Columbia University Press, 2015) examines the female emperor’s sustained effort to deploy language, symbol, and ideology to harness the cultural resonance, maternal force, divine energy, and historical weight of a broad-base of female exemplars and divinities—Buddhist devis, Confucian exemplars, Daoist immortals, and mythic goddesses—to establish cultural, religious, and political legitimacy. Tapping into powerful subterranean reservoirs of female power, Wu Zhao built a pantheon of female divinities carefully calibrated to meet her needs at court. This pageant of goddesses and eminent women was promoted in scripted rhetoric, reinforced through poetry, celebrated in theatrical productions, and inscribed on steles. This work follows his first book, a biography of the female ruler titled Wu Zhao, China’s Only Female Emperor (Longman World Biography Series, 2008). In addition, he has published an array of more than a dozen essays analyzing various facets of Wu Zhao’s sovereignty—her connection to apocalyptic Buddhism, her utilization of avian symbolism, her deft manipulation of language in choosing reign names, and the significance of her rapport with non-Chinese subjects—in Canadian, Italian, Korean, Chinese and American journals. Recent essays have also examined other epiphenomena in early Tang history: one examines contested narratives of the environmental and political consequences of a locust infestation in 715–716 and another looks at escalating rhetoric opposing performances of a Sogdian dramas in the early eighth century after Wu Zhao’s ouster and death.
Morten SCHLÜTTER
Morten Schlütter (Ph.D., Yale University) is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Iowa, and the former Director of the University of Iowa Center for Asian and Pacific Studies. He is the author of How Zen Became Zen: The Dispute over Enlightenment and the Formation of Chan Buddhism in Song-Dynasty China (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2008), that focuses on crucial developments within Chan [Jp. Zen] Buddhism that came to dominate Chinese monastic Buddhism by the tenth century. He is the co-editor of Readings of the Platform Sūtra (Columbia University Press, 2012), and the author of many articles on Chinese Buddhism and Chan. He is currently at work on a book manuscript that traces the evolution of Chinese Chan through different versions of the Platform Sūtra. He is also working on a long-term project concerned with how Buddhist monastic communities in Southern-Song China (1127–1279) interacted with secular elite society.
Albert WELTER
Albert Welter’s area of academic study is Chinese Buddhism, and he has published in the area of Japanese Buddhism as well. His main research focuses on the study of Buddhist texts in the transition from the late Tang (ninth century) to the Song dynasty (tenth to thirteenth centuries). In recent years, he has published Monks, Rulers, and Literati (Oxford, 2006), The Linji lu and the Creation of Chan Orthodoxy (Oxford, 2008), and Yongming Yanshou’s Conception of Chan in the Zongjing lu (Oxford, 2011), in addition to numerous articles. His work also encompasses Buddhist interactions with Neo- Confucianism and literati culture. He just finished a project on the social and institutional history of Buddhism as conceived through a text compiled in the early Song dynasty, Zanning’s Topical History of the Buddhist Clergy, published by Cambria Press in 2018 (The Administration of Buddhism in China; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqJKcl0ygU0). Stemming from this latter research interest, Professor Welter has also developed a broader interest in Chinese administrative policies toward religion, including Chinese notions of secularism and their impact on religious beliefs and practices, leading to a co-edited volume (with Jeffrey Newmark), Religion, Culture, and the Public Sphere in China and Japan (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2017). He recently received funding from the Khyentse Foundation for a project, ‘The Hangzhou Region and the Creation of East Asian Buddhism’, in conjunction with Zhejiang University, the Hangzhou Academy of Social Sciences, and the Hangzhou Buddhist Academy. He also received funding from the American Council of Learned Societies (with the support of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation) for an international conference, ‘Creating the World of Chan/Sŏn/Zen: Chinese Chan Buddhism and its Spread throughout East Asia’. Before coming to the University of Arizona, Dr. Welter was based in Canada, where his research projects were regularly supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
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