The past year.

For a review of last year's news and events, see our 2003-04 archive.

The coming year.

Though at the time of this writing our event schedule is still in planning, we already have several programs lined up for the year.

Our new Berkeley-Stanford Buddhist Studies colloquium, inaugurated last year, will continue with a series a talks by local and visiting scholars. This year, we're adding what we hope will become an annual joint Berkeley-Stanford graduate student workshop, featuring research reports by doctoral students of the two campuses. The first meeting of the workshop will be held this autumn at Stanford, with a second planned for the spring at Berkeley.

Also continuing throughout the year will be our joint SCBS/ARC research workshop on sacred geographies in Asian religions, led by Michael Zimmermann and Kenneth Koo. These meetings, sponsored by the Stanford Humanities Center, occur several times each term for talks or discussion by faculty and graduate students.

In winter term, we plan to be hosting a day-long symposium on meditation and Pure Land Buddhism, organized by our Bay Area neighbor the Institute of Buddhist Studies (IBS).

Winter also marks the opening of a major exhibition on Sri Lankan Buddhist art and manuscripts at the Cantor Arts Center. We hope to be co-sponsoring events around the exhibition.

People.

Welcome to incoming Buddhist studies doctoral students Brenda Cooper, who comes to us from Colorado to study modern Japanese Buddhism; Ho Chiew Hui, from Singapore and Hong Kong, in medieval Chinese Buddhism; and Wang Xiang, from Yale and Hong Kong, also doing medieval China. Welcome back to doctoral student Tad Cook, returning from a year in Beijing.

At Berkeley, the Group in Buddhist Studies will have visiting professors Griff Foulk (Sarah Lawrence), Christian Luczanits (Vienna), and Michael Hahn (Marburg). Berkeley will also be searching for an appointment in Japanese Buddhism; so we should see a lot of fresh faces this year.

We won't, however, see much of Carl's face, since he's on sabbatical for the year, working on his Soto Zen Text Project. Michael Zimmermann will be stepping in to help run the center.

Also missing will be Winnie Chin, who is leaving after three years as SCBS program coordinator to pursue private practice in acupunture and herbal medicine. She promises to keep in touch.

Watch our home and calendar pages for updates on news and events throughout the year, and feel free to contact us if you have questions or suggestions for us.

Carl Bielefeldt
Bernard Faure

News of the site.

During the past few months, we've added several sections to our site. SCBS now maintains a separate little directory for Buddhism in the Modern World (BMW), a joint program of Buddhist events we run with the Buddhist Community at Stanford and the Office for Religious Life; BMW is accessible from our home page. On the same page, we've also added a handy link to the new web site of our revived sister program at Berkeley, the Group in Buddhist Studies.

Meanwhile, the ARC directory has new pages for its regional initiatives: arc/china, arc/india, and arc/tibet. And the arc/china home page now links to Fabrizio Pregadio's Daoist Data Base Project.

Last term.

Autumn quarter saw three talks in our annual Berkeley-Stanford Buddhist Studies Colloquium, by Chizuko Yoshimizu (Tsukuba), Mark Blum (NYU Albany), and John Listopad (Stanford).

The colloquium also launched a new program: what we hope will be an annual Buddhist Studies Graduate Student Colloquium dedicated to research reports from doctoral students of the two campuses. The first meeting, held at Berkeley, heard reports by Amanda Goodman and Juhn Ahn (Berkeley), and by Lisa Grumbach (Stanford). A second meeting is scheduled for Stanford in April.

Meanwhile, our continuing Sacred Geographies Workshop heard presentations on Himalayan Buddhism by Christian Luczanits (Vienna), and Alexander von Rospatt (Berkeley).

Next term.

In January, we'll hear from visiting postdoc Mario Poceski (Florida) on Tang-dynasty Chan, as well as Ronald Davidson (Fairfield) on Tantra.

February brings Griffith Foulk (Sarah Lawrence) and Gregory Levine (Berkeley) to the Sacred Geographies Workshop. Also in February, we'll be at the Berkeley conference on Buddhism and the media, held in conjunction with the Bay Area presentation of the International Buddhist Film Festival.

The Buddhism in the Modern World program will be sponsoring two events on campus: a Jodoshin symposium, organized by our neighbor, the Institute of Buddhist Studies; and a consecration ceremony for the opening of the Sri Lankan art exhibition at the Cantor Center for the Arts.

Watch our home and calendar pages for updates on news and events throughout the year, and feel free to contact us if you have questions or suggestions for us.

Carl Bielefeldt
Bernard Faure

Last term.

During winter term, our joint colloquium with Berkeley heard a paper on T'ang-dynasty Ch'an from visiting scholar Mario Poceski (Florida), while our Sacred Geographies Workshop sponsored talks by Ronald Davidson (Fairfield) on Indian Tantra, Griffith Foulk (Sarah Lawrence) on Sung-dynasty Chan monasteries, and Gregory Levine (Berkeley) on Edo landscape painting.

In February, our outreach project called Buddhism in the Modern World hosted a symposium on Jodoshin Buddhism organized by the Institute of Buddhist Studies. And in March, we co-sponsored a consecration ceremony by Buddhist monks for the exhibition of Sri Lankan Buddhist art at the Cantor Arts Center; the exhibition, entitled "Guardian of the Flame," will continue through June.

Also in February, our ARC initiative co-sponsored a talk by Xu Xin (Nanjing) on Judaic studies in China and worked with the Music Department to organize a week-long Pan-Asian Music Festival.

Next term.

Our Sacred Geographies Workshop will complete its second year this spring. At this writing, we have talks scheduled by Stanford alumnus James Robson (Michigan), on sacred sites in China, and Sayoko Sakakibara (Tokyo) on the three kingdoms.

In April, we'll be hosting the second Berkeley-Stanford Buddhist Studies Graduate Student Colloquium. Also in the works: a talk by Michael Hahn (Marburg) and an Evans-Wentz symposium called "Krishna in Springtime," organized by ARC/India director Linda Hess.

Looking ahead.

Next year promises to be interesting.

In September, SCBS is headed into a new unit, called the Division of International, Area, and Comparative Studies (ICA), now being developed by the School of Humanities and Sciences. The division will collect all the university's area studies centers, as well as programs like Islamic studies, Iranian studies, and the proposed South Asian studies. Administrative details (not to mention intellectual issues) are still being worked out, but the new home does figure to give us stronger staff support.

Meanwhile, our graduate program will be considerably reduced. Due to what we trust will be temporary cuts in graduate fellowships by the School of Humanities and Sciences, the Religious Studies department could not admit any new doctoral students in Buddhist studies this year. With many of the current students off to other venues, there'll be little competition for study space in the SCBS reading room.

People.

Congratulations to Lisa Grumbach for completing her degree last term. Lisa will be continuing in her teaching post at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley.

Congratulations to alumnus Michael Como (2000), who will be leaving William and Mary to take up a new position at Columbia.

Carl will be back from sabbatical (though not teaching) in the autumn term. Bernard will be off to Columbia in the winter term.

Watch our home and calendar pages for updates on news and events throughout the year, and feel free to contact us if you have questions or suggestions for us.

Carl Bielefeldt
Bernard Faure

Spring recap.

In April, we hosted the second meeting of our new Berekely-Stanford Graduate Student Colloquium, with talks by Jinah Kim, Nancy Lin, and Tad Cook. Michael Hahn (Marburg) joined us later in the month, for a lecture on the jataka literature.

The last installment of our Sacred Geographies workshop heard papers by our own alumnus James Robson (Michigan) and Sakakibara Sayoko (Tokyo). We are happy to report that Dr. Sakakibara, a specialist on premodern Japanese views of geography, will be returning to Stanford this autumn, to work in the History doctoral program with Karen Wigen.

Elsewhere, the CEAS Spring Colloqium on religious pluralism in China brought us talks by Mario Poceski (Florida), Stephen Bokenkamp (Indiana), Richard Madsen (UCSD), and Buzzy Teizer (Princeton).

People.

The big news at the end of spring term was Bernard's acceptance of a position at Columbia beginning in January 2006. He'll be leaving Stanford after seventeen years but will be joining a circle of his former students in New York: Michael Como ('00) at Columbia, and Wendy Adamek ('97) and Max Moerman ('00) at Barnard.

Many of the graduate students will also be on the move next year. Ben Brose will join George Clonos in Kyoto; Megan Bryson will be off to Oregon; Kenneth Koo will be in Seoul; Dominque Steavu and Yang Zhaohua will join Will Hansen and David Quinter in Tokyo. Meanwhile, Sarah Fremerman will be enjoying her newly married status in Mexico City, while JJ Josephson will stay on another year in Paris, and John Pang will continue in Kuala Lumpur.

Congratulations to John Kieschnick ('95) on his appointment at Leeds; and to Fabrizio Pregadio on the completion of two big projects: his Great Clarity: Daoism and Alchemy in Early Medieval China is scheduled for autumn release from Stanford University Press; and his massive Encylopedia of Taoism is forthcoming from Curzon.

Looking ahead.

With Bernard leaving and SCBS moving into the new Division of International, Area, and Comparative Studies (ICA), Buddhist studies at Stanford will begin to take on a different look. What that will be in the long run remains to be seen; but, for next year, Michael Zimmermann will take over the directorship of SCBS, while Carl will be back to direct the Asian Religions & Cultures (ARC) Initiative. Under the new ICA staffing arrangements, SCBS will likely divest itself of administrative responsibility for ARC, but Wendy Abraham will likely continue as associate director of both units. We'll have more news of developments in our Autumn report.

One thing for certain, Tibet will get center stage next year. The Dalai Lama will be visiting in November, and Wendy is busy raising funds for increased coverage of Tibetan studies, including an annual lecture series to begin in the winter. Whether this effort will ultimately yield a permanent Tibet program of some sort, only time will tell.

As usual, SCBS will go into hibernation for the summer break, but Wendy will still be hard at work. Drop in and say "hello" to her if you're on campus.

Watch our home and calendar pages for updates on news and events throughout the year, and feel free to contact us if you have questions or suggestions for us.

Carl Bielefeldt
Bernard Faure