Robert Sharf

Robert Sharf is a Professor of Buddhist Studies in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Berkeley.

He received a B.A. in Religious Studies (1979) and an M.A. in Chinese Studies (1981) from the University of Toronto, and a Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from the University of Michigan (1990). His graduate work included study in Japan; he was a Research Fellow at the Institute for Research into the Humanities (Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyūjo) at Kyoto University, and also conducted fieldwork at Kōfukuji in Nara (1985-87).

Before joining the Berkeley faculty he taught in the Department of Religious Studies at McMaster University (1989-95) and in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan (1995-2003). He works primarily in the area of medieval Chinese Buddhism (especially Chan), but he also dabbles in Japanese Buddhism, Buddhist art, Buddhist philosophy, ritual studies, and methodological issues in the study of religion. He is author of Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism: A Reading of the Treasure Store Treatise (2002), and co-editor of Living Images: Japanese Buddhist Icons in Context (2001). In addition to his appointment in East Asian Languages and Cultures, he is Chair of the Center for Buddhist Studies at UCB.

External links

• https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/faculty/robert-sharf