James C. Dobbins

James Carter Dobbins (b. 1949) is an American academic and Japanologist. He was a professor of religion and East Asian studies at Oberlin College.

In 1971, Dobbins was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree at Rhodes College. He earned a Master of Arts at Yale University in 1976; and was granted a Ph.D. at Yale in 1984.

Selected works

Books

• Behold the Buddha: Religious Meanings of Japanese Buddhist Icons. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2020.
• Letters of the Nun Eshinni: Images of Pure Land Buddhism in Medieval Japan (2004)
• Jōdo Shinshū: Shin Buddhism in Medieval Japan (1989)
• The Emergence of Orthodoxy: a Historical Study of Heresy in the Early Jōdo Shinshū (1984) (Phd dissertation)

Articles

• "Women's Birth in Pure Land as Women: Intimations from the Letters of Eshinni," The Eastern Buddhist, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Spring 1995), pp. 108-22.
• "The Biography of Shinran: Apotheosis of a Japanese Buddhist Visionary," History of Religions, Vol. 30, No. 2 (November 1990), pp. 179-96.
• "From Inspiration to Institution: The Rise of Sectarian Identity in Jodo Shinsho," Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 41, No. 3 (Autumn 1986), pp. 330–43.
• From Inspiration to Institution: The Rise of Sectarian Identity in Jōdo shinshū (1986)

Edited volumes

• The Legacy of Kuroda Toshio (1996)

External links

• Oberlin College, Religion Emeriti Faculty
• Oberlin Review, Off the Cuff: James Dobbins, Author, Professor, Translator
• JSTOR, au:James C. Dobbins
• Britannica, James C. Dobbins, contributor
• Library of Congress authority file, James C. Carter, n87-848271
• University of Washington, James. C. Dobbins
• University of Washington, James C. Dobbins, Cirriculum Vitae