This workshop is organised by the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore; with funding support from the Foo Hai Ch’an Monastery Fellowship in Buddhist Studies.
CHAIRPERSON
Assoc Prof Jack Meng-Tat Chia, Department of History, National University of Singapore
ABSTRACT
Dr Ashiwa and Dr Wank will discuss their new book, The Space of Religion: Temple, State, and Buddhist Communities in Modern China, published by Columbia University Press in 2023. The book focuses on Nanputuo Temple in Xiamen, Fujian Province, China—a popular site of Guanyin worship since the seventeenth century, a center of modern Buddhist reform associated with Taixu in the early twentieth century, and one of the first temples to recover after the Cultural Revolution. Drawing on the authors’ thirty years of observation of the temple’s transformation and its extensive networks, the book offers an unprecedentedly rich view of modern Chinese Buddhism by examining the changing position of the temple in local, regional, national, and global contexts. The book also contributes to theoretical discussions on the concept of space, identifying three dimensions—physical, semiotic, and institutional—that are applicable to the study of religion. Dr Ashiwa and Dr Wank will highlight the book’s narrative, argument, and methodology, and will share their reflections on the background of the study, the research and writing process, the conduct of their fieldwork, and interdisciplinary research on Buddhism.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Yoshiko Ashiwa is an anthropologist and Professor Emeritus at Hitotsubashi University, as well as a visiting professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies. She co-founded the Institute for the Study of Global Issues and is the founder and director of the Center for the Study of Peace and Reconciliation at Hitotsubashi University. Her work focuses on the dynamics of values and institutions, explored through religion, arts, culture, peace and violence, modernity, globalization, and cultural policies, primarily in Asia. She has been a visiting scholar at Harvard University, Columbia University, Xiamen University, and other institutions, and has served the public by participating in various committees within the Japanese government. Additionally, she has organized numerous cultural projects. Her publications include The Challenge of Global Studies: Radically, Critically; Finding Thoughts of Peace and Reconciliation; and Murals of Buddhist Temples and Modern Allegories: Image-House in Post-Conflict Sri Lanka.
David Wank is a sociologist and Professor Emeritus at Sophia University, as well as a research affiliate at the Oriental Library in Tokyo. He co-founded the Graduate School of Global Studies at Sophia University and served as its dean. His research interests include state and society, social networks, power, values and systems, and globalization, in Chinese societies and Japan. He has been an academy scholar at Harvard University, and a visiting scholar at Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, Xiamen University and other institutions, and has co-founded and led scholarly societies in Asian and global studies. His publications include Commodifying Communism: Business, Trust, and Politics in a Chinese City; Social Connections in China: Institutions, Culture, and the Changing Nature of Guanxi; Dynamics of Global Society: Theory and Prospect, and The Global Japanese Restaurant: Mobilities, Imaginaries, and Politics.
Dr Ashiwa and Dr Wank have jointly written and edited numerous publications on Buddhism in China, Japan, Sri Lanka, and globally. Key works are Making Religion, Making the State: The Politics of Religion in Modern China (Stanford 2009); The Space of Religion: Temple, State, and Communities of Buddhism in Modern China (Columbia 2023); and Metamorphosis of Buddhism in New Era China: Between State, Culture, and Religion (Bloomsbury 2025).
