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. A list of my other publications is given here. Please email me (pro@brown.edu) if cannot access one of my essays and you would like a free electronic copy.
I am currently developing a book-length project about lay Buddhists in the Northern Song, centered on the excavated woodblock text Quanhuawen (preface dated 1104), 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. Related research was published in two essays about spatial histories of Chan (2016, 2019); as well as an initial exploration of the Quanhuawen codex (2021). I have also written about manuscripts of Chinese monks in Japanese collections and rare printed books, both in The Poetry Demon and in essays (2020, 2023); and with a special focus on translingual “brush-talk” (2022). I was the co-editor of the special issue “Geospatial Studies of Chinese Religions” of Review of Religion and Chinese Society (2016) focused on GIS-based digital humanities. More recently, I am the co-editor of a forthcoming volume of essays entitled Countless Sands: Medieval Buddhists and Their Environments (University of Hawai’i Press); I continue writing a series of environmental histories of Buddhism in medieval China.
My essays have appeared in journals including Asia Major, Journal of the American Oriental Society, History of Religions, and Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture, as well as chapters in edited volumes. I recently completed “Buddhism during the Song Dynasty” for Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism; and “Buddhist Poetry of China” for Oxford Bibliographies Online.
email pro@brown.edu
Prof. Jason Protass
Religious Studies
59 George Street
Providence, RI 02912-1927
+1 (401) 863-3105