Ryan Bongseok Joo

Education
Ryan Bongseok Joo, Assistant Professor of East Asian Religions, holds a B.A. in Religious Studies from the University of California, Berkeley (1996), an M.T.S. in the History of Religion from Harvard Divinity School (1999), and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Department of Religion of Princeton University (2007).

Biography and Research Interests
A native of Korea, Ryan Joo has studied in China, Taiwan and Japan with fundings from the Fulbright-Hays fellowship program, the Japan Foundation and the Center for Chinese Study at the National Taiwan Library. His scholarly interests include medieval Chinese and Korean Buddhism, religion and material culture, Buddhist modernism and transnationalism, and the interaction between religion and state. He is currently working on a book provisionally titled Buddhist Immortals, Eminent Ancestors and Disguised Bodhisattvas: the Cult of Arhat in Medieval China.

Courses
At Hampshire, Professor Ryan Joo has taught the following courses:

1) Reading Asian Religious Texts (with Professor Alan Hodder),

2) Introduction to Chinese Religions,

3) Introduction to Buddhist Meditation,

4) Buddhist Objects and Material Culture,

5) Buddhism in Society (with Professor Sue Darlington),

6) Buddhism during the Colonial Period,

7) Theories of Religions (with Professor Alan Hodder),

8) Daosim, Shamanism and Shinto: Introduction to Indigenous Religions of East Asia,

9) Decoding Zen Buddhism,

10) Modern Buddhism: Orientalism, Buddhist Psychotherapy and Brain Activities of Tibetan Monks,

11) Introduction to the Comparative Study of Religions (with Professor Robert Meagher).

12) Academic Study of World Religions

In the future, Professor Ryan Joo would like to develop new courses on:

1) Introduction to Korean Religions,

2) Buddhist Histriography,

3) Religions in Contemporary East Asia,

4) Asian Art and Religion (with Professor Sura Levine),

5) Reading Chinese Buddhist Texts,

6) Introduction to Buddhist Philosophy and Literature

7) Eastern Religions in the West (2012 F)

Student Advisees


Gregory Lewis

Lisa Spear

Andrew Greene

Aine Banfield

Zachary Backer

John Puckett

Recommended Jan term and Summer Buddhist Monastic Programs
January Term Five College Tibetan Studies in India Sarnath Program [[1]]

The Humanistic Buddhist Monastic Life Program at Fo Guang shan, Taiwan (June 16-July15) [[2]]

Recommended East Asian Language Programs
 Chinese 

Princeton in Beijing Summer Chinese Program [[3]]

Middleburry College Summer Chinese Language Program [[4]]

The Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies at Tsinghua University [[5]]

National Taiwan University, International Chinese Language Program [[6]]

Japanese

Summer Japanese Language Program Princeton in Ishikawa [[7]]

Hokkaido International Foundation Summer Japanese Language [[8]]

Middleburry College Summer Japanese Language Program [[9]]

The Inter-University Program for Japanese Language Program, Yokohama Center [[10]]

 Korean 

Yonsei University Korean Language Institute [[11]]

Sogang University Korean Language Education Center Program [[12]]

Grant and Scholarship Programs for Learning Foreign Languages
Study Abroad Funding Search Website [[13]]

Boren Awards for Study Abroad and Language Study [[14]]

Freeman-ASIA Scholarship [[15]]

Bridging Scholarships for Study in Japan [[16]]

Critical Language Scholarship for Intensive Summer Language Programs (including Chinese, Korean, Arabic and Russian) by the US Dept. of States [[17]]

Monbusho Japanese Government Scholarship [[18]]

Taiwanese Government Scholarship [[19]]

Korean Language Study Funding Programs [[20]]

The Blakemore Foundation Postgraduate Asian Language Fellowship [[21]]

Community Involvement
Faculty Advisor of the Five College Buddhist Certificate Program [lhttp://www.fivecolleges.edu/sites/buddhism/]

Faculty Member of Hampshire Buddhist Student "Resource" Group

Member of Five College Asian/Asian-American Studies Faculty Group