Cluster Leader: Jiang Wu, University of Arizona
This cluster investigates the ways in which reading and writing the religious book in East Asia structured and defined communities of real or imagined readers, and how the economic and technological dimensions of the production of texts affected and even created communities and institutions. We plan to compile annotated bibliographies of rare Buddhist and related sources after the tenth century in neglected archives and libraries in Beijing, Shanghai/Hangzhou, Sichuan, Kunming, Xi’an, Fuzhou in China and Nagasaki, Kyoto, and Tokyo in Japan. Priority will be given to public and private collections which have not yet been cataloged in comprehensive rare books bibliographies, especially to prints and manuscripts with marginalia (writings in the margin) and damaged by heavy usage. Examples of such collections include but do not limit to Mount Jizu collection in Yunnan, inscriptions and stele in Sichuan, Gushan monastic collection in Fuzhou, and Manpukuji archive in Kyoto. We plan to start this cluster project in the summer of 2019 and in the sixth year (2022), we plan to organize a conference on “Reading, Writing, and the Formation of Textual Communities in East Asian Religions” based on field research. The digital form of the completed bibliographies will be contributed to and disseminated through the “From the Ground Up” project database and CBETA. Printed versions will be available on demand.
Workshop Report
Read 2021 online workshop report
Field Visit Report
Data Collection
View 2023 digital data collection
Cluster Participants
| Affiliated Researchers | Associated Researchers |
| Chan, Chien-Cho (University of British Columbia) – 2023 | Dong, Junru (The Chinese University of Hong Kong) – 2023 |
| Cilangasan, Malang (Dharma Drum Institute of Liberal Arts) – 2023 | Li, Erjia (University of Glasgow) – 2023 |
| Fung, On Tsun (Columbia University) – 2023 | Lin, Grace Cheng-Ying (John Abbott College) – 2023 |
| Jia, Xixi (École pratique des hautes études – université PSL) – 2023 | Ma, Zhujun (Brown University) – 2023 |
| Lin, Xinzhi (Columbia University) – 2023 | Pascal, Elodie (Edinburgh University (PhD) – 2023 |
| Liu, Jeffrey (University of Arizona) – 2023 | |
| Park, Minkang (Ewha Womans University) – 2023 | |
| Park, Sunhyun (Ewha Womans University) – 2023 | |
| Shi, Yuan (Princeton University) – 2023 | |
| Tang, Rouying (Temple University) – 2023 | |
| Wan, Ziling (University of Arizona) – 2023 |
Field Visit Sites
loading map - please wait...
 | Manpukuji 萬福寺 Cluster 1.5 description Cluster 1.5 2023 - Manpukuji 萬福寺 data collection Manpukuji 萬福寺, Uji-shi, Japan |
| Wanfu Temple 福清黄檗山万福寺 Cluster 1.5 description Cluster 1.5 2023 - Wanfu Temple 福清黄檗山万福寺 data collection Wanfu Temple 福清黄檗山万福寺, Fuqing, China |
