Jason Protass (PhD Stanford)
William A. Dyer, Jr. Assistant Professor of Humanities
Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
Brown University
I study Buddhism of medieval China. My first book, The Poetry Demon: Song-dynasty Monks on Verse and the Way, is published in the series “Kuroda Studies in East Asian Buddhism” (University of Hawai’i Press, 2021). This book examines Buddhist monks’ understanding of Chinese poetry and its relationships to the Buddhist path in the eleventh to fourteenth centuries CE. I continue to translate and write about Buddhist monks’ poetry.
I am currently developing a book-length project about lay Buddhists in the Northern Song, centered on the excavated woodblock text Quanhuawen, a set of 15 essays for lay practice composed by Chan Master Changlu Zongze (d. 1106). That project emerges from a broader interest in recovering the history of the Yunmen lineage of Chan Buddhism shortly before its sudden decline circa 1130. My related work includes publications about geography of demise and the religious topography of Chan lineages and institutions; and manuscripts by Chinese monks in Japanese collections. My essays have appeared or are forthcoming in journals including Asia Major, Journal of the American Oriental Society, History of Religions, Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture, and Review of Religion and Chinese Society, as well as edited volumes. I am the co-editor of a forthcoming volume of essays entitled Countless Sands, a series of cases studies of medieval Buddhists and their environments. I recently completed the entry “Buddhism during the Song Dynasty” for Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism.
Prof. Jason Protass
Religious Studies
59 George Street
Providence, RI 02912-1927
+1 (401) 863-3105