Robert Buswell Jr.
Robert Buswell Jr. is an American academic, author and scholar of Korean Buddhism and Chinese Buddhism as well as Korean religions in general. He is Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles and founding director of the Academy of Buddhist Studies (불교 학술원) at Dongguk University, Korea's main Buddhist university.
General Bio
After starting his undergraduate education Buswell left the United States and became a Buddhist monk in Thailand, then Taiwan, and finally The Republic of Korea where he spent five years at Songgwangsa. This experience ended up becoming his well known book The Zen Monastic Experience: Buddhist Practice in Contemporary Korea.[1] Returning to the United States he finished his AB, MA, and Ph.D. and the University of California, Berkeley. Although a soft-spoken man, Buswell enjoys the status of a public intellectual.[2][3]
Career
Buswell was hired by the University of California, Los Angeles where his career trajectory resembled a rocket due to frequent high-quality publications and academic citizenship including stints as the chair of the Asian Languages and Cultures Department, and serving as the director of the UCLA Center for Korean Studies and until the present day as the Director of the UCLA Center for Buddhist Studies.[4]
Buswell and other noted scholars of Buddhism at UCLA such as William Bodiford and Gregory Schopen have made it one of the strongest Buddhist studies programs in the world.
Buswell is a past president of the Association for Asian Studies he is both the only scholar of Korea and the only scholar of Buddhism to have been elected to this position.[5]
Selected works
A WorldCat search for Buswell returns 22 results.
- This is an incomplete list that may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.
- The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism (2013) with Donald S. Lopez, Jr..[6]
- Tracing Back the Radiance: Chinul's Korean Way of Zen (Classics in East Asian Buddhism) (1991)
- The Zen Monastic Experience (1993)
- Currents and Countercurrents: Korean Influences on the East Asian Buddhist Traditions (2005)[7]
- Christianity in Korea with Timothy S. Lee (2007)[8]
- Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha (1992)
- The Formation of Chan Ideology in China and Korea: the Vajrasamadhi-Sutra, a Buddhist Apocryphon (1989)[9]
Honors
- In 2009, Buswell was awarded the Manhae Prize from the Chogye Order in recognition of his pioneering contributions to Korean Buddhist Studies in the West.[10]
- Buswell is also a recipient of the Puri Prize for Buddhist Studies in Korea.
References
- ↑ Princeton University Press. "The Zen Monastic Experience: Buddhist Practice in Contemporary Korea" Princeton University Press (US). retrieved 2014-03-15
- ↑ Zocalo Square "Personalities in the Green Room: Robert Buswell" Zocalo Square (US). retrieved 2014-03-16
- ↑ Huffington Post "A Place for Doubt"] Huffington Post (US) retrieved 2014-3-16
- ↑ Daily Bruin. "UCLA Professor Translated Volumes of Korean Buddhist Text Inspired by Past as a Monk" Daily Bruin (US). retrieved 2014-03-23
- ↑ Association for Asian Studies. "AAS Board of Directors and Officers" Association for Asian Studies (US), retrieved 2014-03-15
- ↑ H-Net Reviews. " H-Net Reviews (US), retrieved 2014-03-23
- ↑ KoreanStudies.com " Korean Studies Discussion List (US), retrieved 2014-03-23
- ↑ J.stor.org " Review of Christianity in Korea (US), retrieved 2014-04-07
- ↑ Princeton University Press " The Formation of Chan Ideology (US), retrieved 2014-04-04
- ↑ Manhae Foundation. "Manhae Prize Awardees" Manhae Foundation (Korea). retrieved 2014-03-23
Other sources
- UCLA faculty webpage for Robert Buswell, Jr. http://alc.ucla.edu/people1/114
- Buswell's translation "Cultivating Original Enlightenment" http://muse.jhu.edu/books/9780824862084/
- Buswell's "Sugi's "Collation Notes" to the Koryŏ Buddhist Canon and Their Significance for Buddhist Textual Criticism" from the Journal of Korean Studies http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/41485332?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21103766213463