Religion & philosophy

Head: John Powers

Research on religion in Asia and the Pacific is undertaken in several units in the School. The Religion and Philosophy Unit focuses on teaching and research on religion and philosophy in East and South Asia, and is informed by the conviction that religion and philosophy are integral to understanding the relationship between the past and the present in these key regions. The current research interests of contributing staff include Chinese philosophy, Buddhist religion and philosophy (covering India, Tibet, China and Japan), Daoism, Hinduism and new religious movements. Staff in this Unit supervise Honours and postgraduate research in these and related areas.

Staff are currently involved in a wide range of research projects, including: propaganda relating to Tibetan Buddhism; a historical dictionary of Tibet; photographic and other images of Buddhism; Buddhist masculinity; history and doctrines of Yogacara Buddhism in India; the religion of Falun Gong; the development of the biography of Zhang Ling, the founder of Daoism; discussions of religion by Protestant missionaries in nineteenth-century China; celebrity qigong masters of the1980s and early 1990s; the role of Yogacara Buddhism in the development of modern Chinese thought; the formation and development of Chinese philosophy as an academic discipline; an annotated translation of Xiong Shili's New Treatise on Cognition-only, a key text in modern Chinese Confucian and Buddhist thought.