 |
|
||||||
|
|
||||||
Over the period from 25-27 September, the JSPS San Francisco Office supported an international conference titled “Tracing Japanese Buddhism,” sponsored by UC Berkeley’s Center for Japanese Studies (CJS) and held at the Alumni House on the university’s campus. The conference assembled 42 scholars from the US and Japan, who gave presentations and held a discussion on the theme from the perspectives of history, religion and cultural anthropology. Open to researchers and members of the interested public in the US, a discussion was also held on studies of Japanese Buddhism being advanced in the two countries. On the second day, the group went to the Green Gulch Zen Center on the outskirts of Sausalito, just north of San Francisco. After holding a panel discussion at the Center, they observed its activities and practices and took a fieldtrip around its Zen-oriented environs. Through these two days of activities, the Japanese and American participants were able to build research networks among each other. Indeed, the meeting provided a very meaningful opportunity, which would even be rare in Japan, for researchers of Japanese Buddhism specializing in the medieval, premodern, early modern and modern periods of the religion to gather together under one roof. For further information about the conference, please see the Institute of East Asian Studies’ webpage: http://ieas.berkeley.edu/events/2009.09.25w.html - JSPS San Francisco Office  |
