One of two conferences I'm organizing this semester. This one is on Kenneth Ch'en and other Asian and Asian-American scholars who helped create Buddhist Studies in North America: chen.religion.princeton.edu
Check out this interview by Kit Brooks with Akiko Walley and me on the nature of replicas and the Shลsลin. journals.publishing.umich.edu/ars/article/...
Maybe in a future version of the course! They are reading Levi McLaughlin's recent piece, which I appreciate for its nuance. doi.org/10.1007/978-...
In a weird coincidence, I'll be lecturing on the Unification Church and the Abe assassination in my undergrad class within 12 hours of this ruling, since that was already our scheduled topic for the day! english.kyodonews.net/articles/-/7...
Princeton is hiring a one-year lecturer position in Asian Religions. Please spread the word:
apply.interfolio.com/180148
History of Japanese Literature From the beginning to modern times; particular attention paid to Chinese, Buddhist, and Western Influences. Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 12. Professor EvissรฉEFr. (v) A knowledge of Japanese is not required. A reading knowledge of French or German is required. Not open to Freshmen.
In the 1930s, you could teach Japanese literature and reasonably expect the students to know French or German but not Japanese.
nrs.lib.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ar...
Also check out Michelle Wang's "Global Medieval Studies is a Failure," which is absolute ๐ฅ and also argues that comparative studies might be a better path forward than "global" ones.
doi.org/10.1086/738440
Also check out Michelle Wang's "Global Medieval Studies is a Failure," which is absolute ๐ฅ and also argues that comparative studies might be a better path forward than "global" ones.
doi.org/10.1086/738440
A new short piece of mine just came out in the centennial issue of Speculum that (briefly) tries out comparative, rather than global, history on medieval archives from the Shลsลin, Dunhuang, and the Cairo Geniza.
www.journals.uchicago.edu/eprint/JRDRZ...
Text reads A high school friend of mine was once arrested for graffiti. The officer, who caught my friend, asked what he had written. My friend replied, โesoteric.โ The officer, confused by this unexpected response, followed up, โWhatโs that mean?โ The story, which reads like a Zen encounter dialogue, is true but has a punchline. If esoteric means โDesigned for, or appropriate to, an inner circle of advanced or privileged disciples; communicated to, or intelligible by, the initiated exclusively,โ as the Oxford English Dictionary would have it, how could my friend reveal the termโs meaning to the cop? He was stuck and ended up in handcuffs. The police officerโs simple question and my friendโs paralysis are surely famil- iar to scholars of Buddhism.
Pleased with the hook in my new article, reviewing books on esoteric Buddhism.
nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/journal/6/is...
Email reading โDear Bryan, Thanks so much for doing this. You are unquestionably the most fastidious author Iโve copy edited. Iโm humbled that you noticed the stray quotation mark.โ
Want this on my tombstone.
My new book is coming out in August 2026.
uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/how-bu...
Hardly on here anymore, but if anyone is near Princeton and interested in book history, you MUST check out the absolutely amazing new exhibition Forms & Function: The Splendors of Global Book Making curated by Martin Heijdra at Firestone Library through 12/7 ๐๐ library.princeton.edu/formsandfunc...
Help me find a wonderful new colleague for our department! Specialty in religions of South Asia or Southeast Asia. #religiousStudies #tenuretrackjobs jobs.sandiego.edu/cw/en-us/job...
๐น๐น๐น
Slightly late #ManuscriptMonday. Illustrated Tales of Heike, 17th century, Princeton University Library.
dpul.princeton.edu/eastasian/ca...
New issue of the Journal of Japanese Studies is out! Highlights include articles on kanpu masatsu, war photography, empire paranoia, Italian-Japanese children's lit, Seidenstickerโs style, and a bonus piece on Black Rain and ritual. Donโt miss it!
The tragedy - and true horror - of many witch trials was that the impersonal machinery of the law took them inexorably forward, even if judges and lawyers (and even the public at large) were unconvinced. But the image popular media presents us with is one of mounting hysteria (cf. Millerโs Crucible)
A simple idea: faculty should be represented in the search for UVaโs next president: www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...
Congrats!
The Japanese Journal of Religious Studies @jjrs-nirc.bsky.social โจ50th anniv issueโจ abt past, present, & future of ๐ฏ๐ต religious studies is out!
๐Paul Swanson, Hayashi Makoto, Kawahashi Noriko, Keller Kimbrough, Emi Foulk Bushelle, @orionklautau.bsky.social @jolyonbt.bsky.social @aikerots.bsky.social
Our Department is hiring in early Christianity. It's an assistant professor (tenure-track position). Spread the word! puwebp.princeton.edu/AcadHire/app...
Flyer from temple emphasizing syncretism
Kindle book image describing obliteration of Buddhism at Usa
Kindle book image describing obliteration of Buddhism at Usa
Fascinating to see Usa today market itself as the birthplace of Shinto-Buddhist syncretism, a very different view from that in Grapard, who describes an obliteration of syncretism in the wake of Meiji ideologues and their reforms.
For the first time since the Princeton Geniza Project began in 1986, we have published our metadata collated from over 30,000 Geniza documents and the People, Places, and histories of the Middle East and premodern Jewish communities found therein!
zenodo.org/records/1583...
๐๐ฅ๐
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...
Is there a collective noun for popes? ๐
#ManuscriptMonday
BL Cotton MS Nero D VII; The Benefactors' Book of St Albans Abbey (โthe Golden Book of St Albansโ); 1380-c 1540; England (St Albans)
A manuscript page with Latin writing at the top and an illustration of a bearded person killing a horse with an axe, a pot suspended over a fire, and five bearded people eating strips of meat underneath. From Topographia Hibernica by Giraldus Cambrensis (British Library Royal MS 13 B. VIII f. 28v; reproduced under Creative Commons licence CC0 1.0).
A 13th-century-AD depiction of the 'pagan' Irish kingship ceremony, by priest and historian Gerald of Wales. He claimed the king bathed in the blood of a mare before sharing the meat with his courtiers 1/2
#ManuscriptMonday #MedievalMonday #Archaeology ๐บ
๐ท @britishlibrary.bsky.social / CC0 1.0
Shared for #ManuscriptMonday
Shared for #ManuscriptMonday
Of course, the original is even more amazing and you can see that on eMuseum: emuseum.nich.go.jp/detail?langI...
