Cluster Leader: Yinggang Sun (Zhejiang University) – 2017 Chen Jinhua (UBC) – 2018 This cluster project examines ways in which the transition from manuscript to print and the development of a range of technologies and reading techniques in premodern Asia may inform our understanding of the current global transition from Continue reading
Cluster leader: Susan Andrews, Mount Allison University Women’s significance in the economic life of East Asian religions is widely recognized but not yet well understood. This is in part because sources foregrounding their participation in this sphere very often remain outside official canons. Histories of the intersections between economics and Continue reading
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 Continue reading
Cluster Leader: Jinhua Jia, Hong Kong Polytechnic University The field visits of Cluster 2.1 have been focusing on the historical sites of the traditional Chinese state sacrificial system dedicated to spirits of major mountains and waters, including Five Marchmounts 五嶽, Five Strongholds 五鎮, Four Seas 四海, and Four Waterways 四瀆, which formed a part Continue reading
Cluster Leader: Vincent Goossaert (École pratique des hautes études) and Barend ter Haar, University of Hamburg How do we map out and interpret the enormous and ever-expanding traditions of authoritative texts produced via revelation practices (e.g. spirit-writing)? The mechanisms by which new texts are actually created and legitimated as a Continue reading
Cluster Leader: Imre Galambos, University of Cambridge and Michelle Wang, Georgetown University The cluster “Multicultural Dunhuang: Manuscripts and Paintings” examines the connections between Dunhuang manuscripts and paintings, particularly during the tenth century. A central aim of the project is to bring together rising scholars of paintings and of manuscripts in Continue reading
Cluster Leader: Kai Sheng, Tsinghua University This research is primarily concerned with several extant caves from the Northern Dynasties period in Hebei and Henan provinces where sūtras were carved and images with inscriptions remain. For the purpose of propagation or preservation of Buddhist texts, at least in the mid-sixth Continue reading
Cluster Leader: James Robson, Harvard University The main goals of the “Texts in Statues” cluster are to identify, catalogue, and study all statues from China, Korea, and Japan with manuscripts and texts that have been interred inside of them. Included in the scope of this project will be statues in situ in Continue reading
Cluster Leader: Christoph Anderl, University of Ghent This cluster investigates the development of specific patterns of text-image relations in East Asian Buddhist iconography, with a focus on Chinese sites but also including data from Buddhist sites in other Asian countries. We attempt to analyze how textual and visual media interact Continue reading
