There is a four-year PhD with the first year being tailored to the needs of the student, and some training in Newari, Nepali, Sanskrit or Tibetan can be given if appropriate, as well as fieldwork methods in anthropology and ethnobiology. There is also a distance-taught PhD for highly qualified students that find UK residence requirements an obstacle.
Research:Newar Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism generally, traditional medicine, sacred sites, Buddhism and ecology, conservation biology, or science.
Research:Confucianism and East Asia new religions.
Research:The anthropology of Tibet and Tibetan-speaking areas, and in particular its religious and state life (including the ceremonial nexuses of Tibetan monastic and state life); the formulation of new ways in which modern ethnographers of Tibetan regions can integrate their work with textual specialists and indigenous scholars to create an historical anthropology of the region.
SR/ED6077-20 Without Fear or Favour: National and International Perspectives on Religion, Culture and Education – includes teaching Buddhism at school level.
PhD supervision possible in areas of Buddhism, especially Theravada Buddhism, Buddhist Ethics (with a special interest in war and peace) Buddhism in education.
Research: Theravada Buddhism, ethics of war and the role of religion in conflict and peace building, Buddhist preaching.
Research: Contemporary Buddhism and Buddhism in Education.
Teaches Indian and Chinese Buddhist philosophy.
Research: Early Buddhist literature, the history and development of Buddhist thought in the Nikayas and Pali commentaries, Indian Buddhist meditation, Abhidharma.
Research: Theory of consciousness in the early Pali sources; Buddhist ritual and its origin (in South and South East Asia, particularly Sri Lanka).
Research: The history of Chinese Buddhism, Chinese Buddhist meditation, Chan/Zen Buddhism, Chinese translations of Buddhist texts, the transmission of Buddhism to China.
Research: Buddhist Philosophy and Religion in India and Tibet; Madhyamaka Philosophy; Mahayana Buddhism.
Research: Tibetan cultural area and Tibet-Mongolia interface; local-state dynamics and deals with the impact of radical change on traditional communities; landscape, space and time; local history and memory; changing notions of power and kinship; and debates over continuity, tradition and modernity.
1Yr (2Yr part time) MA by research and MPhil/PhD supervision (3Yr FT/5Yr PT).
Research: Philosophy of religion from a Buddhist perspective,Madhyamaka, especially Nāgārjuna, Buddhist Epistemology, Comparative Philosophy, and Religion and Film/Visual Culture.
Research: Buddhist Philosophy, Indo-Tibetan literature, Buddhism in the west.
Taught, depending on the individual students’ interest, by the members of staff of the Asian Religions group (Simon Brodbeck, Max Deeg, James Hegarty, Will Johnson).
Research: Buddhist history in India, Central Asia and East Asia; The spread of Buddhism from India to Central Asia and East Asia; Buddhist narratives; Early Christianity in Central and East Asia; Reception history of Asian religions, Buddhism in the West.
Research: Religion in Tibetan societies, contemporary and historical; the historical development and contemporary practice of technologies of consciousness; understanding the relationship between consciousness, body and materiality, particularly in relation to healing, meditation and yoga; Tibetan, Indian and other Asian medical, health and yogic practices; religion and modernity, including Buddhism in contemporary societies; Gender, sexuality and masculinity in Asian cultures; shamanism and ‘nature religions’.
TH7046 Buddhist Concepts of Awakening (20 credit MA module in MA Religious Studies programme).
Research: Currently, public culture in Germany, particularly East Germany; but has worked on forest monks in Sri Lanka.
Research: Includes Archaeological visibility of Buddhism (work on excavation of Lumbini), Caste and the development of craft specialisation, Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea Trade.
Research: Environmental philosophy, Buddhist philosophy, Buddhist ethics, phenomenology.
Honours level (years 3 and 4): The courses vary each year and are split between the two Schools, but they will usually include modules in early Indian Buddhism, Theravada Buddhism, and East Asian Buddhism.
This is a taught Masters and will usually include a substantial Buddhism component.
Research: The Shingon Buddhist tradition in Japan and its Chinese antecedents; Japanese and Chinese religions and philosophy, especially Buddhism.
Research: Chinese philosophy and religions, text and commentary, ritual and divination, and theories of cultural and religious studies.
Resesarch interests: Early Indian Buddhism, Theravada Buddhism, Buddhist narrative.
Research: the History of Asian Medicine, Interactions between Medicine and Religion, the transmission of medical ideas along the Silk-Roads and the history of early Tibetan medicine.
Research: Includes Indian philosophical thought in the period 200-900 CE, especially the formation of the Mahāyāna Buddhist schools (Madhyamaka and Yogācāra) and early Advaita Vedanta.
Research: Theravada Buddhism; Sanskrit and Pali language and literature, including vernacular-Pali mixed literature; Buddhist practice and traditions of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia; Buddhism in Application; History of Science in Buddhist contexts.
Research: Late imperial Chinese Buddhism.
Research: Burmese Abhidhamma. Buddhist ethics.
Please contact Pyi Kyaw for the Kings College Buddhist Studies Research Seminars and the Buddhist Studies Writers’ Forum.
Research: Early modern Thai Buddhism, Buddhism and politics.
Year 3: Reading Buddhism (scriptural passages from important texts in Mahāyāna and Theravāda traditions).
Research: Contemporary Buddhism in Southeast Asia, Japanese Buddhism, Buddhist nuns, social justice, monastic education and dissemination of knowledge, application of mindfulness.
Research: Hinduism, Buddhism, Indian Philosophy, Dialogue in Indian religious and philosophical traditions, Indian Ethics, multiculturalism, social justice, and secularism in South Asia.
Research: Indian philosophy – classical and modern, especially in: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, the self and consciousness studies, Hinduism, Indian Buddhism, Jainism.
Research:The history of Buddhism in Thailand, Contemporary movements in Thai Buddhism and their relations to society, politics and the economy, Disputes on Buddhist doctrines in Thailand, Canonical Theravada-Buddhism and its modern forms.
Research interests: Southeast Asian cultural history, with a focus on classical and pre-modern art and literature.
Year 3: Buddhism component, covering contemporary Buddhism in different contexts, including Buddhism in the West, but some texts are also studied in translation.
The courses given above, plus the study of Islam and Judaism.
Research: Theravada Buddhism, Buddhism in Sri Lanka, Buddhist-Christian relations, Western encounters with Buddhism.
Research: Buddhism in China, Tibetan Buddhism, Mongolian Buddhism, Taiwanese Buddhism, Fo Guang Shan, Buddhist ethics.
Research: Soka Gakkai International, Prayer, Practice in religion and music.
Research: Tibetan textual transmission/development; tantric rituals, symbolism, art; rNying-ma canonical texts; Dunhuang and later ritual manuals; Phur-pa traditions (rNying-ma, Sa-skya, Bon); bDud-’joms gter-ma tradition.
Research: Theravada Sangha, Buddhist education; vipassana meditation and Buddhism among the Shan.
Research: The chivalric, shamanic and tantric Gesar epic tradition. More broadly, Tibetan political, religious and cultural history; Cultural relations between Tibet and Central, South and East Asia; and the Tibetan language.
Research: Anthropology of South Asia, Buddhism, Hinduism, Traditional urbanism, Healers and their relation to religion, Ritual and symbolism, Politics, ethnicity and activism.
Research: Civil society and pagan religion in the Himalaya; the Bön religion of Tibet; Pilgrimage and sacred geography.
Research: Literature and religion of the Veda; Indo-Tibetan Buddhism; history of bKa’-gdams-pa school; ‘sacred landscapes’ in literature and ritual practice.
Research: Early Buddhist (Pali) suttas and Abhidhamma material on meditation; Early Buddhist narrative: literary features of Jatakas and Dhammapada stories; Indian and Asian influences on British nineteenth-century writers; modern South and Southeast Asian Buddhist ritual, chant and meditation.
Research: Mahāyāna literature (particularly sūtras and exegetical literature); early Chinese Buddhist translations and related commentaries; institutional and intellectual history of Chinese Buddhism (particularly during the early phase: 2nd-6th centuries CE); history of the Chinese Buddhist Canon.
Research: Philosophical aspects of the religious traditions of ancient India. Buddhist thought (especially Madhyamaka) as preserved in Sanskrit and Tibetan sources; Classical Indian philosophy (particularly Nyāya); Buddhist philosophy, both theoretical (metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language) and normative aspects (ethics); the investigation of Buddhist meditative practice from the perspective of cognitive science and the philosophy of mind.
Research: Early medieval religion in India and Southeast Asia, focusing on the history of Saivism, its relations with the state, and its influence on Buddhism and Vaishnavism.
Research: Transplantation ofBuddhism to the West; socially engaged Buddhism.
The Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies (http://www.ocbs.org) is a Recognised Independent Centre of the University of Oxford sponsoring lecture series, summer instruction, academic visitors, and other academic activities.
SOAS has a Centre of Buddhist Studies, initiating, supporting and co-ordinating activities which directly and indirectly lead to the advancement of Buddhist Studies within the School; and providing a forum for an intellectual community bound by common interests in Buddhist Studies, and running a regular seminar series on Buddhist topics under the name of The Buddhist Forum.
Note that at SOAS, courses offered in one Department may be open to students on a degree programme in another Department.
Note that relevant languages to the Study of Buddhism (e.g. Sanskrit, Prakrit, Chinese, Tibetan, Korean, Burmese, Thai etc.) can be taken as options at the Faculty of Languages and Cultures, at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
Research: History of Buddhism in Tibet, Mahāyāna Buddhism, Kanjur Studies, Vinaya, Religions of Central Asia, Tibetan, Sanskrit.
Research: Buddhism in Ancient and Early Medieval South Asia; models and figures of human perfection; Buddhist schools, lineages, and centres; scriptural formation and authentication; narrative representations of the past; Buddhist cosmology; monastic life and regulations.
Research: History of Chinese religion, notably Taoism and Buddhism; pre-modern Chinese history, especially the Tang period.
Research: Buddhist Studies; philosophical and religious doctrines; literature; Buddhist iconography; Buddhist rituals; Buddhist doctrines; Buddhist history.
The Southeast Asian Art Academic Programme, inaugurated in 2014, and made possible by a £20 million donation to SOAS from the Alphawood Foundation, Chicago, aims to enhance the understanding and preservation of Buddhist and Hindu art and architecture in Southeast Asia. The SAAAP will award over 80 scholarships to students in the countries of Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam where Buddhist and Hindu art is prevalent. SOAS will be strengthened with the addition of three fully endowed academic posts in the Department of the History of Art and Archaeology. It will also fund a programme of conferences and seminars, publications, and academic exchanges to foster long-term sustainability in the region.
Research: Architecture, sculpture and painting in South Asia, especially in southern India; pilgrimage and sacred geography; material religion; colonialism and material culture.
Research: Premodern Japanese art and cultural history; East Asian calligraphy; Buddhist sutra copying; Heian court culture; classical literary themes in Japanese art; Ukiyo-e prints and painting.
Research: Arts of Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Cambodia cultural landscape; pre- and proto-historic Myanmar, Pyu and Mon culture; visual culture, social memory and sacred landscape.
Research: History of Art and Archaeology of China and the Silk Road, Chinese culture of the Bronze Age and the Han to Tang period; early Buddhist art; art and technology in China, Chinese heritage, comparative art history.
Research: History of Japanese Art, Buddhist Art of Japan in context.
Research: Evidence in Indochina for the influence of tantric or esoteric Buddhism, developed in the great monasteries of the Ganges valley and diffused and developed in different ways through much of Asia.
Research: Southeast Asian arts, aesthetics, literatures and cultural histories; sexual difference; deconstruction, memory and textuality.
Research: Tibetan arts and handicrafts, Himalayan architecture and Tibetan linguistics.
Research: Anthropology of Japan, anthropology of India, meditation, analysis of discourses on ‘religion and the secular’, ‘religion and politics’, ‘religion and the State’ and other such rhetorical constructs, history, theory and method in the study of religion, orientalism as a theory and problems of representing others.
Research: Medical anthropology; the anthropology of ethics; mindfulness-based therapy; post-democracy; well-being and happiness; UK & Thailand. Her current research examines the introduction of mindfulness techniques into therapeutic practice in the UK focusing on questions of ethics, well-being and the dialogue between religion and therapy.
Research:Buddhist-Christian Dialogue and the history and theologies of encounter; Chinese Buddhism, especially representations of Guanyin and self-immolation.
Dr Mark Owen, Director of the Winchester Centre of Religions for Reconciliation and Peace.
Research:Religion, peacebuilding and conflict transformation; religion and reconciliation; Buddhist death rituals and practices; Tibetan Buddhism; ethnographic research methods.
Research: Women in Early Indian Buddhism;Buddhism and Gender; Buddhist Texts; Sanskrit, Pali, Prakrit; Early Indian and Sri Lankan inscriptions.