Our Research Foci
The Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies (GCBS) continues a longstanding tradition of Buddhological research in Ghent. While the GCBS supports a wide range of projects, we focus in particular on the following fields:
- Abhidharma (Prof. Bart Dessein)
- Buddhist Linguistics (Prof. Christoph Anderl)
- Vinaya Studies (Prof. Ann Heirman)
- Buddhist philosophy; Chan Buddhism; material culture
The GCBS supports permanent staff, MA and PhD students, postdoctoral researchers and visiting scholars in conducting research on philosophical, doctrinal and socio-cultural aspects of Asia’s Buddhist traditions. The GCBS is housed within Ghent University’s Department of Languages and Cultures, which features a highly international research profile currently comprised of researchers from China (including those pursuing joint PhD projects with Nanjing and Renmin Universities), Taiwan, Germany, Russia, Thailand, the United States and elsewhere.
Please see the Join us section to learn more about how to join the GCBS as an international student, researcher or visiting professor.
Resources
The GSBC has accumulated a number of useful resources for Buddhist Studies:
- Ghent Database of Medieval Chinese (GDMC)
- Videos and other media from our earlier lectures
- Zotero bibliography and reference works concerning Buddhist sites in Sichuan, edited by Prof. Christoph Anderl (Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies)
- Frogbear Database of Religious Sites in East Asia (created, among else, through the fieldwork organized by GCBS researchers)
- Buddhological links
Associated research groups
The following research groups at Ghent University conduct research on related topics:
Member publications
This page presents publication highlights of the GCBS members. For the full bibliography, please visit their personal profiles through the People webpage.
Publication highlights (Q1 2024): “The Awakening of the Hinterland: The Formation of Regional Vinaya Traditions in Tang China”, by Anna Sokolova (2/15/2024) - This volume explores the dissemination of the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya tradition in Tang China (618–907) in the context of the dispersal of the state bureaucracy throughout the empire and the changing centre–periphery dynamics. The tradition’s development in China during the Tang… Read more
Publication highlights (Q4 2023): “Diversifying Philosophy of Religion: Critiques, Methods and Case Studies”, edited by Nathan R. B. Loewen and Agnieszka Rostalska (10/3/2023) - Much philosophical thinking about religion in the Anglophone world has been hampered by the constraints of Eurocentrism, colonialism and orientalism. Addressing such limitations head-on, this exciting collection develops models for exploring global diversity in order to bring philosophical studies of… Read more