We are pleased to announce the Glorisun Global Network for Buddhist Studies!

To learn more vist http://glorisunglobalnetwork.org/about-us/.

The Glorisun Global Network for Buddhist Studies received funding from the Glorisun Charitable Foundation and officially launched in January 2017.

The Glorisun Charitable Foundation was founded by Dr. Charles Yeung, the Founder and Chairman of Glorious Sun Enterprises Limited, on July 27, 2005. A major aim of the foundation consists in promoting Buddhism and Buddhist studies globally.

As the global importance of East Asia grows and its cultural identities are asserted ever more strongly, scholars in many fields are recognizing the vital importance of studying Buddhism and East Asian Religions. Scholarship over the past decade has yielded a much richer understanding of both historical and contemporary religious phenomena, partly thanks to the discovery of texts and artifacts, and increased opportunities for ethnographic observation. Despite these advances, many of the disciplinary divisions that have configured the modern academy continue to act as barriers to innovative research on Buddhism and East Asian Religions. Scholars trained in different disciplines and housed in different departments at academic institutions continue to work in relative isolation, with few able or willing to address their subjects from different disciplinary perspectives. Similarly, despite the relative ease of communication and transportation in facilitating dialogue, cultural, linguistic, and geographic boundaries continue to separate academic communities between and within Europe, North America, and East Asia. The gulf dividing East Asian scholars from colleagues in Europe and North America is often perceived as particularly wide. While technology has begun to mitigate some of these challenges, the extensive and long-term collaboration this proposed network entails will help forge enduring professional connections among scholars of many disciplines who make their permanent academic homes at North American, European, and East Asian institutions.

For this purpose, leaders of the programs on the studies of Buddhism and East Asian Religions at the following ten universities in Europe, North America and East Asia, proposed to set up this informal, legally unbound networking program that, through the institutional and financial support from both these partner universities and a non-profit foundation under the leadership of Dr. Charles Yeung, who has also kindly acted as the Chief Advisor for this network, will academically engages the scholars affiliated with these partner universities:

  1. Harvard University, USA
  2. Peking University, China
  3. Princeton University, USA
  4. University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada
  5. University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkley), USA
  6. University of Cambridge, UK
  7. University of Hamburg, Germany
  8. University of Hong Kong (HKU), China
  9. University of Oxford, UK
  10. Yale University, USA

 

The Foundation will provide different types of financial support for the above listed partner universities. For each of the eight partner universities, located both in Europe (Cambridge, Hamburg, and Oxford) and North America (Harvard, Princeton, Yale, UC Berkeley and UBC), the Foundation will provide support annually (for the two universities located in East Asia – Peking University and the University of Hong Kong – the funding is slightly different), for the following programs:

  1. Visiting professorships for senior scholars affiliated with a university in China or another Chinese-speaking country or region, enabling him or her to spend three to twelve months in this partner university in Europe or North America. There, he or she will regularly interact with the faculty and students working on Buddhism and East Asian cultures, in the form of weekly or biweekly meetings with them. These meetings will include reading one or one group of East Asian religious texts, as well as several public lectures.
  2. Fellowships for advanced graduate students or postdoctoral fellows with a university in China or another Chinese-speaking country or region, enabling him or her to spend six to twelve months in this partner university in Europe or North America. There, he or she will constantly interact with its faculty and students working on Buddhism and East Asian cultures, including attending seminars and lectures.
  3. Graduate fellowships for Chinese Buddhist Studies, enabling students to spend three to six months in China doing research.
  4. Conference funding for a conference at each institution on Buddhism and East Asian cultures.
  5. Lecture Series funding to sponsor three lectures on Buddhist Studies.
  6. Graduate student fellowships on East Asian Buddhism to support students from China who are regularly enrolled in graduate programs at partner universities.