Japan

Bernard Faure

Bernard Faure

Kao Professor of Japanese Religion

Office: 614 Kent
Office Hours: On leave for the 2020-2021 AY
Phone: (212) 854-8926
Email: bf2159@columbia.edu

Educational Background

PhD: University of Paris (’84)

Classes Taught

RELI GU4513 Buddhism and Neuroscience
EARL GR6500 Topics in East Asian Buddhism
EARL GR9935 Graduate Seminar in Japanese Religion

Research Interests

Gods in Medieval Japan, The Life of the Buddha, Buddhism and Neuroscience

Bernard Faure’s research treats various aspects of East Asian Buddhism, with an emphasis on Chan/Zen and Tantric or esoteric Buddhism. His work, influenced by anthropological history and cultural theory, has focused on topics such as the construction of orthodoxy and heterodoxy, the Buddhist cult of relics, iconography, sexuality and gender. His current research deals with the mythico-ritual system of esoteric Buddhism and its relationships with medieval Japanese religion. He has published a number of books in French and English, and is presently working on a book on Japanese Gods and Demons.

Selected Publications

The Power of Denial: Buddhism, Purity, and Gender (Princeton, 2003)

Visions of Power: Imagining Medieval Japanese Buddhism (Princeton, 1996)

The Rhetoric of Immediacy: A Cultural Critique of Chan/Zen Buddhism (Princeton, 1991)

Shigeru Eguchi

Shigeru Eguchi

Senior Lecturer in Japanese

Office: 516 Kent Hall
Office Hours: TR 1:00-2:00
Phone: (212) 854-8345
Email: se53@columbia.edu

Educational Background

BA: Teaching of English, Ibaraki University
MA: Japanese Pedagogy, University of Iowa

Classes Taught

JPNS UN1001 Introductory Japanese A
JPNS UN2201 Second Year Japanese I
JPNS UN2202 Second Year Japanese II
JPNS GU4017 Fourth Year Japanese I
JPNS GU4018 Fourth Year Japanese II

Research Interests

Japanese Pedagogy
Japanese Grammar

Shigeru Eguchi has taught all levels of Japanese at Columbia University. He is also the Administrative Director of the Summer MA Program in Japanese Pedagogy since 2006. He has over a dozen years of experience teaching Japanese at Columbia, and also taught at Middlebury College’s Summer Program in Japanese, and at the Hokkaido International Foundation. He has developed teaching lessons based on unusual and creative materials, including haiku and video projects. He is currently developing new textbooks for intermediate level (Routledge, 2011) with Dr. Fumiko Nazikian, and other colleagues.

Publications

Hiyaku: An Intermediate Japanese Course (Routledge, 2011; co-authors: Miharu Nittono, Fumiko Nazikian, Keiko Okamoto, Jisuk Park)
Schaum’s Outlines-Japanese Vocabulary(McGraw-Hill Company, 2000; co-author)
“Exploration through “Hiyaku”: Considering Authenticity of Context”, 17th Princeton Japanese Pedagogy Forum (2011)

Michael Como

Michael Como

Tōshū Fukami Associate Professor of Shinto Studies

Office: 307 80 Claremont
Office Hours: On leave for the fall 2020 semester
Phone: (212) 854-4144
Email: mc2575@columbia.edu

Educational Background

BA: Harvard University (’85)
PhD: Stanford University (’00)

Classes Taught

AHUM UN1400 Colloquium on Major Texts: East Asia
RELI UN2308 East Asian Buddhism
EARL 9335 Graduate Seminar in Japanese Religion

Research Interests

Transmission and diffusion of rituals and deities to Japan, local religious traditions, urbanization and theological innovation

Michael Como’s recent research has focused on the religious history of the Japanese islands from the Asuka through the early Heian periods, with a particular focus upon the Chinese and Korean deities, rites and technological systems that were transmitted to the Japanese islands during this time. He is the author of several articles on the ritual and political consequences of the introduction of literacy, sericulture and horse-culture from the Asian sub-continent into ancient Japan. He is currently working on a new monograph that focuses upon urbanization and the materiality of performance and interpretation in Japanese religion in the eighth and ninth centuries.

Selected Publications

Medieval Shintō (co-editor with Bernard Faure and Iyanaga Nobumi, 2010)

Weaving and Binding: Immigrant Gods and Female Immortals in Ancient Japan (University of Hawaii, 2009)

Shōtoku: Ethnicity, Ritual and Violence in the Formation of Japanese Buddhism (Oxford University, 2008)