Garance Chao Zhang

Presentation

Research Fellow at the Zen Institute, Komazawa University 駒澤大学禅研究所

My field of research is the religious culture of premodern China (around the 10th-15th centuries). I am particularly interested in Chan Buddhism, which, during this period, experienced unparalleled dynamism on Chinese soil and spread throughout a vast area of East Asia. I have examined two major aspects of its religious paradigm – historiography and monasticism – by situating them both in the Buddhist tradition and in the contexts of Chinese society and the Sinosphere. I will soon be developing a third line of research on the establishment of Chinese Chan in Medieval Japan.

Within the China team, I am in charge of coordinating the Dunhuang studies project and, more generally, of providing support for research.

Research thematics

• History of East Asia
• Sinographical culture
• Chan/Zen/Seon Buddhism
• Digital Humanities and Dunhuang studies

CRCAO research programmes

• Essays “Following the Brush” (zuihitsu) : Collections of Thoughts and Observations concerning the Past and Present of Pre-modern Japan
• Lifes of Buddhist Actors in the Sinosphere : Forms of Extra-canonical Narrative
• Histories and Historians of Classical China
• Directory of Patronymics and Titles of Function in the Dunhuang Manuscripts

External research programmes

• A Study of Chinese Zen Buddhism 中国禅宗語録の研究, Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia at the University of Tokyo 東京大学東洋文化研究所
• Recognizing Automatically Dunhuang Chinese Manuscripts (Read Chinese)

Publications (HAL Collection CRCAO)

Article dans une revue

Communication dans un congrès

Thèse