Henry Luce Foundation awards grant to study Buddhist civilizations in Asia

The Asia Program of The Henry Luce Foundation awarded a three-year grant to Juliane Schober, a professor in the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, working on the comparative study of Theravada Buddhist civilizations in Southeast Asia.

The award lays the foundation for new research directions and mentoring of a new generation of scholars in this field.

“I am excited about the long-term impact the Luce Foundation’s award will have on the study of Buddhism in this region and appreciate the initial investment Religious Studies at ASU made when we began this work two years ago,” Schober said.

The grant provides $200,000 to support the work of Schober, principal investigator, with Steven Collins, professor at the University of Chicago, and other researchers of Theravada Buddhism at Harvard, Cornell, the University of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Washington, Toronto, London (SOAS), and the École Française d’Extrème-Orient. In addition to funding a series of conferences and dissertation workshops, the award also will support a website for sharing data sets and scholarly resources on teaching and research about Theravada Buddhism in Southeast Asia.

The Henry Luce Foundation has provided critical support to the study of Southeast Asia at ASU and throughout the United States. Two previous Luce Foundation awards to ASU and Schober funded the acquisition of library materials and graduate fellowships for research in Southeast Asia.

“Today, recipients of those earlier fellowships all hold significant academic appointments,” Schober said. “With this new award, we hope to make a lasting impact in the study of cultures and religions in Southeast Asia.”

Roxane Barwick, roxane.barwick@asu.edu
School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies
College of Liberal Arts and Sceinces