James Robson (Chinese name: Chinese: 羅柏松; pinyin: Luó Bósōng, born December 1, 1965) is Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University and the President of the Society for the Study of Chinese Religions. He specializes in the history of Medieval Chinese Buddhism and Daoism, and is particularly interested in issues of sacred geography, local religious history, talismans, religious art, and the historical development of Chan (Zen) Buddhism. He is presently engaged in a long-term collaborative research project with the École française d'Extrême-Orient studying a large collection of local religious statuary from Hunan province.[1]
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James Robson received his BA in religious studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1987, and thereafter studied in China, Japan, and Taiwan for several years before pursuing his PhD at Stanford University. After completing his doctorate in 2002, he worked at Williams College from 2002–2004, and University of Michigan from 2004–2008, where he received tenure in 2008. Robson became a Harvard faculty in 2008. His recent book Power of Place: The Religious Landscape of the Southern Sacred Peak (Nanyue 南嶽) in Medieval China (Harvard University Asia Center, 2009) received the Stanislas Julien Prize for 2010 by the French Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres [Prix Stanislas Julien by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (Institut de France)][2] and the 2010 Toshihide Numata Book Prize in Buddhism.[3]