Religion

David Max Moerman

moermanD. Max Moerman

Professor, Chair of Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures at Barnard College

Office: 303 Milbank
Office Hours: T 4:30-5:30, W 1:00-2:00 and by appointment.
Phone: (212) 854-5540
Email: dm438@columbia.edu

Educational Background

AB: Columbia College (’86)
PhD: Stanford University (’99)

Classes Taught

AHUM UN1400 Colloquium on Major Texts: East Asia
RELI GU4611 The Lotus Sutra

Research Interests

East Asian Buddhism, Visual and Material Culture of Japanese Religions

D. Max Moerman is Professor in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures. He is Co-Chair of the Columbia University Seminar in Buddhist Studies and an Associate Director of the Columbia Center for Buddhism and Asian Religions. He holds an A.B. from Columbia College and a Ph.D. from Stanford University. His research interests are in the visual and material culture of Japanese religions. His current book project, Geographies of the Imagination: Buddhism and the Japanese World Map, is under contract with the Harvard University Asia Center.

Selected Publications

“The Buddha and the Bathwater: Defilement and Enlightenment in the Arima Engi,”
Japanese Journal of Religious Studies (2015)

“Demonology and Eroticism: Islands of Women in the Japanese Buddhist Imagination,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies (2009)

Localizing Paradise: Kumano Pilgrimage and the Religious Landscape of Premodern Japan (Harvard University Asia Center, 2005)

Seong Uk Kim

Seong Uk Kim

Il Hwan and Soonja Cho Associate Professor of Korean Culture and Religion

Office: 616 Kent Hall
Office Hours: M/W 2:30-3:30 PM
Email: sk4236@columbia.edu

Educational Background

PhD: University of California, Los Angeles (’13)

Classes Taught

ASCE UN1363 Introduction to East Asian Civilizations: Korea
AHUM UN1400 Colloquium on Major Texts: East Asia
EARL GU4320 Buddhism and Korean Culture

Research Interests

Korean Buddhism and Religions, East Asian Buddhism and Religions

Seong Uk Kim’s research interest lies in the intersections between Buddhism and other religions in pre-modern Korea. His first book, Monks and Literati, examines the relationships between Buddhist monastics and Confucian elites with diverse attitudes toward Buddhism in the late Chosŏn period from the 17th to 19th centuries. His current research explores the development of self-identifying Sŏn Buddhist communities of the same period to reconstruct the social, cultural, and religious history of Korean Sŏn tradition. Before coming to Columbia, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Washington University in St. Louis (2013-2014) and Harvard University (2014-2015), teaching “Buddhist Traditions,” “Introduction to Korean Religions,” and “Theories and Methods in the Study of Religion

Selected Publications

“The Intersections between Buddhism and Folk Religions in the Late Chosŏn: The Case Study of the Kitchen-God Cult,” International Journal of Buddhist Thought & Culture 30.1(2020).

“Kwanŭm (Avalokiteśvara) Divination: Buddhist Reconciliation with Confucianism in the Late Chosŏn,” Religions 11 (2020)

“Korean Confucianization of Zen: Ch’oŭi Ŭisun’s (1786–1866) Affirmation of a Confucian Literati Approach to Buddhism in Late Chosŏn,” Acta Koreana (2016)

“The Zen Theory of Language: Linji Yixuan’s Teaching of ‘Three Statements, Three Mysteries, and Three Essentials,’” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies (2015)

Robert P.W. Hymes

Robert Hymes

Carpentier Professor of Chinese History

Office: 504 Kent Hall
Phone: (212) 854-2580
Email: rph2@columbia.edu

Office hours: R 12-2:00PM, Please make an appointment in advance by email.

Educational Background

BA: Columbia College (’72)
MA: University of Pennsylvania (’75)
PhD: University of Pennsylvania (’79)

Classes Taught

EAAS UN3990 Approaches to East Asian Studies
HSEA GU4893 The Family in Chinese History
HSEA GR8883 Topics in the Middle Period of Chinese History

Research Interests

Middle-Period China, Social and Cultural History, Social Networks, Family and Kinship

Robert Hymes’ work focuses on the social and cultural history of middle period and early modern China, drawing questions and sometimes data from cultural anthropology as well as history, and using the methods of the local historian to study elite culture, family and kinship, medicine, religion, gender, and (currently) the changing role and form of Chinese social networks from the tenth through the seventeenth centuries. His monographs Statesmen and Gentlemen and Way and Byway won the Joseph Levenson Prize of the Association for Asian Studies for the best book on pre-1900 China in their years of publication.

Selected Publications

“Thoughts on the Problem of Historical Comparison between Europe and China,” in Political Communication in Chinese and European History, 800–1600 (Oxford, forthcoming 2018)

Way and Byway: Taoism, Local Religion, and Models of Divinity in Sung and Modern China (University of California, 2002)

Statesmen and Gentlemen: The Elite of Fu-chou, Chiang-hsi, in Northern and Southern Sung (Cambridge, 1987)