Month: February 2015

     In this two-part essay, I survey two important academic lineages in Taiwan and their contributions to the study of Chinese Buddhist poetry. In the first part, I focused on the cohort of scholars that worked and trained at National Chengchi University. In this second part, I examine the other major lineage. In addition to tracing the origins of this second group, I highlight some recent works and offer a more in-depth summary of their contents.        The other major school of scholarship on Buddhist poetry is associated with National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) and National Taiwan University (NTU). Though still connected to traditions of East Asian scholarship, these scholars distinguish themselves through their engagement with contemporary Western scholarship. They frequently refer to their distinctive style of scholarship as cultural analysis.         These scholars tend to ground their work in historical disciplines (intellectual history, literary history, social history) rather than pure philosophy or literary analysis. They also set themselves apart by looking beyond the received canon. Though not as numerous as the members of Chengchi school of thought, the NTNU-NTU practitioners of cultural analysis are influential and hold positions at Taipei’s three most prestigious institutions:

     Chinese Buddhist poetry and literature remains largely unstudied in Western academia. The study of Buddhist poetry requires facility with the disparate fields of Chinese literature and Buddhist studies. These demands are a formidable challenge even for native speakers of East Asian languages. Nonetheless, several generations of East Asian scholars have made significant inroads into this field of inquiry. In this two-part essay, I will briefly outline two important academic lineages in Taiwan and their contributions to the study of Chinese Buddhist poetry.        Thanks to the generosity of Fulbright Taiwan, this past year I have had the honor of working at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy (ICLP) under the supervision of Professor Liao Chao-heng (廖肇亨). My interest in the intersections of Chinese Buddhism and literature has been nurtured by the large and active community of scholars at Academia Sinica.         When I had the opportunity to participate in conferences, attend lectures, or visit campuses and Buddhist temples, I was impressed by the breadth and depth of scholarship around Taiwan. The island, with its close connections to Japan and the West, is particularly well-suited to scholarship on Buddhist literature. Taiwan’s academic legacy