Members

Professor of Buddhist Studies and Indian Religion

Religious Studies, School of Divinity

Research interests: narrative literature in Sanskrit and Pali; early Indian Buddhism

Naomi Appleton's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Senior Lecturer in Japanese (retired)

Asian Studies, School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures

Research interests: Japanese and Chinese religions and philosophy, especially Shingon Buddhist tradition in China and Japan

Ian Astley's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Lecturer in South Asian Art History

Art History, Edinburgh College of Art

Research interests: the arts and cultures of the Himalayas, Rajasthan, Mughal India and colonial India, combined with a focus on animal history and women's studies

Yashaswini Chandra's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Lecturer in Buddhist Studies

School of Divinity

Research interests: early Buddhist philosophy; modern Buddhism, particularly engaged Buddhism

Paul Fuller's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Professor of Chinese Philosophy and Religion

Asian Studies, School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures

Research interests: Chinese philosophy and religions, text and commentary, ritual and divination, theories of cultural and religious studies, conceptions of space and body, Chinese histories of thought, and Chinese literary composition (artistic prose)

Joachim Gentz's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Senior Lecturer in Asian History

School of History, Classics and Archaeology

Research interests: the highly fruitful cultural dialogue that took place between the Western world and Asia (principally Japan and India) across the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries; mental health and related religious and philosophical ideas, looking especially at the pioneering of new practices in psychiatry, psychotherapy, and spirituality. 

Christopher Harding's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Visiting Researcher in Philosophy

Research interests: Animal ethics and East Asian philosophy

Lecturer in the History of the Indian Ocean World

School of History, Classics and Archaeology

Research interests: the premodern Indian Ocean world, global history of law, Islamic (legal, intellectual or textual) cultures, matrilineal-matriarchal communities, Afro-Asian connections, and manuscript traditions

Mahmood Kooria's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Lecturer in Premodern Japanese Studies

Asian Studies, School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures

Research interests: premodern Japanese history and religion with a focus on early pre-modern transregional exchange and Buddhist transmission throughout East Asia

Abigail MacBain's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Lecturer in Philosophy

School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences

Research interests: Metaphysics, Philosophy of Religion, and Existentialism; the histories of East Asian and Japanese philosophies within the context of “world philosophies”; contemporary Japanese philosophy (especially the Kyoto School). 

Takeshi Morisato's Profile, Projects and Publications

Honorary Fellow, School of Divinity

Research interests: early Chinese Buddhist literature, currently with a focus on the Liudu ji jing 六度集經, an early jātaka collection, including a translation for the Jataka Database project

Reader in Japanese Art

Art History, Edinburgh College of Art

Research interests: word and image, relics and reliquaries, invisibility in material culture, reuse and recycling, performativity, and the spectacular visualisations of Buddhist embodiment.

Halle O'Neal's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Honorary Fellow, School of Divinity

Also Professor Emerita of Japanese Studies, Department of Politics, Goldsmiths, University of London

Research interests: medieval Japanese literature, religion and culture; just completed a book on the significance of excrement in the Buddhist/literary narrative tradition of medieval Japan.

Research associate, Jataka Database project

Research interests: Tibetan Buddhist texts, especially the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya

British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow

School of Divinity

Research interests: right-wing women, their disputed agency, and their ways of femininising forms of violence in activism for religion and nation.

Sneha Roy's Profile and Publications

Emeritus Professor of South Asian Language, Culture and Society

School of Social and Political Science

Research interests: Religion and Politics, Anthropology of Democracy, Sri Lanka, South and Southeast Asia, Buddhism, War and peace

Jonathan Spencer's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Lecturer in Buddhist Languages and Cultures

School of Divinity

Research interests: Buddhist narratives, ethics, and texts in Pali, Sanskrit, and Tibetan languages; how Buddhism is practiced and interpreted in modern times; the ways in which different religions in South Asia share religious figures, pilgrimage sites, and devotional practices.

Upali Sraman's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow

Asian Studies, School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures

Research interests: Intersection of Marxism and Buddhism, Japanese New Left, political philosophy, theories of fascism, transwar Japan

Ferran de Vargas' Profile, Projects, and Publications

Research Fellow (Situating International and Global Mathematics)

Science Technology and Innovation Studies, School of Social and Political Science

Research interests: Chinese thought

Jan Vrhovski's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Senior Lecturer in Public Law

School of Law

Research interests: comparative constitutional law, applied constitutional theory, and Commonwealth constitutional history, with a particular expertise on Sri Lanka.

Asanga Welikala''s Profile, Projects, and Publications

Professor of Japanese Studies, University of Manchester

Research interests: religion in contemporary Japan with a focus on religious minorities, media and technology, violence, emotions and temporalities. 

Erica Baffelli's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Senior Lecturer, School of Global Affairs, Lancaster University

Research interests: early South Asian religion, philosophy and literature

Brian Black's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Academic Editor (Buddhism), School of Divinity, University of St Andrews

Research interests: South Asian Buddhism, gender, Buddhist texts

Alice Collett's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Senior Lecturer in Theology and Religious Studies, School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow

Research interests: South Asian languages, cultures, and religions, past and present; the history of connections and exchanges between religions and regions, communities and generations, peoples and institutions; Kerala history and culture, and Malayalam language and literature. 

Ophira Gamliel's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Associate Professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History, Durham University

Research Interests: comparative Greek-Indian philosophy and the history of Western scholarship on Buddhism (esp. work in Latin).

Nathan Gilbert's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Lecturer in Japanese Studies, University of Manchester

Research Interests: Zen, disaster, spiritual care, crisis evocation, prayer rituals, kitō.

Tim Graf's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Honorary Senior Lecturer, School of English, University of St Andrews

Research interests: contemporary and twentieth-century literatures and poetics, time, globalisation, experimental and visual narratives, digital storytelling, Tibetan Buddhism and diaspora, world literature, global feminisms, literature in performance, speculative fiction, and critical and cultural theory.

Rose Harris-Birtill's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Emeritus Professor of Buddhist Studies, University of Sunderland

Research interests: early Buddhist thought and practices, and Buddhist ethics

Peter Harvey's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Professor of Philosophy in the Durham CELLS (Centre for Ethics and Law in the Life Sciences), Durham University

Research interests: Environmental philosophy, Existential phenomenology, Buddhist philosophy

Simon Paul James's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Emeritus Professor, Lancaster University

Research interests: gender and Buddhism, dissemination of knowledge and moral values, social justice and wellbeing, charismatic power(s) of monastic practitioners, Buddhist orthodoxy and how heretical monks are created in Myanmar.

Hiroko Kawanami's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Kagyu Samye Dzong Edinburgh

Honorary Buddhist Chaplain, University of Edinburgh

Ani Rinchen Khandro's Profile

Professor in Anthropology, University of Aberdeen

Research interests: the anthropological study of Tibetan religious and governance institutions.

Martin Mills's profile, Projects, and Publications

Research Assistant, School of Divinity, University of St Andrews

Research Interests: Early Mahayana, Buddhist Visuality, Poetics.

Nic Newton's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Lecturer, School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews

Research interests: racism and the politics of immigration; the psychology of religion, especially in relation to Buddhism; resistance in Tibet

Samuel Pehrson's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Emeritus Professor, Japanese Studies, University of Manchester

Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Dundee

Research interests: process philosophy and its connections to Buddhist philosophy

Tina Rock's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Senior Lecturer in Chinese Culture and History, University of Manchester

Research Interests: Print Culture, Modern Chinese Buddhism.

Gregory Adam Scott's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Professor of Thai Studies, Languages, Cultures and Societies, University of Leeds

Research interests: Theravada Buddhism; Thai Buddhism; modern Thai history; Thai language

Martin Seeger's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Lecturer in Law, School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, Dundee Law School, University of Dundee

Research Interests: Buddhist Legal History in South and Southeast Asia, Buddhist Constitutionalism, Colonial Legal History in South and Southeast Asia, Buddhist Thought and Continental Philosophy.

Roshan de Silva-Wijeyaratne's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Emeritus Professor, Anthropology, University of Durham

Research interests: Bioethics, Biomedicine and Biotechnologies, including their encounter with local systems of values and beliefs in South Asia. 

Bob Simpson's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Associate Professor of Religion and Society, University of Leeds

Research interests: Sociology of Religion; Contemporary Buddhism; Religion and Gender; Religion in Britain, Space and Place, Psychics and Paranormal Phenomena, Religion, Spirituality and Social Class.

Caroline Starkey's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Portobello Buddhist Priory's Website

Principal Curator, West, South and Southeast Asian collections, National Museums Scotland

Research interests: Collecting histories and practices, West and South Asian arts and crafts, Iranian material culture, Scottish Orientalism.

Friederike Voigt's Profile

Professor of Law, Edinburgh Napier University

Research Interests: law, Himalayas, Tibetan Buddhism, Nyingma studies.

Richard Whitecross's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Lecturer in Chinese Cultural Studies, University of Manchester

Research interests: late imperial Chinese literature, drawing on the interdisciplinary fields of affect and gender studies, ritual theory, and medical humanities.

Zhaokun Xin's Profile, Projects, and Publications

Lecturer in Religious Studies, University of Glasgow

Research Interests: globalisation of Zen, Zen in the West, comparative analysis between Sufism and Zen, the Way of Tea/Chado.

Saeko Yazaki's Profile, Projects, and Publications

 "How the worldbuilding in recent folklore-related anime presents a theme of nostalgia" 

Keywords: Japanese Buddhism in films/anime, the representation of Buddhism in fantasy worlds, and the connection between Japanese Buddhist deities and Shinto mythology (e.g. Benzaiten is both a Shinto kami and Buddhist deity).

Supervisors: Dr Yoko Matsumoto-Sturt (first supervisor), and Dr Ian Astley (second supervisor). 

Provisional title: "Metaphors of Dharma Incorporation in Indian Buddhist Literature"

Supervisors: Professor Naomi Appleton and Dr Halle O'Neal

Carlos Garcia-Jane's Profile

"Explain, Interpret, and Convince: Zhanran and His Commentary "Zhiguan fuxing chuanhong jue" 止觀輔行傳弘決"

Supervisors: Professor Naomi Appleton and Professor Joachim Gentz

Rusha Jin's Profile

"From Nature to Art – The Material Culture of Medieval Zen Garden"

Supervisors: Dr Halle O’Neal and Dr Heather Pulliam 

Kwok Wah Tung's Profile

"Hidden Within: Memory, Materiality, and Merits in Japanese Buddhist Sculptures"

Supervisors: Dr Halle O'Neal, Dr Ian Astley and Prof Naomi Appleton

Elodie Pascal's Profile

Luo Yanxi (2025)

"Ge Hong’s Dao: Locating the Baopuzi Neipian within the Contexts of Early Medieval China"

Supervisors: Professor Joachim Gentz and Dr Julian Ward

Ding Kehan (2024)

"Chan Monastic Tea in Medieval China: A Deconstruction of Chan-tea Culture"

Supervisors: Professor Joachim Gentz and Dr Ian Astley

Ding Kehan's Profile

Nic Newton (2021)

"The Poetry of Sight: Literary Contexts of the Mahāyāna Imaginaire"

Supervisors: Paul Dundas and Professor Joachim Gentz