My humble review of Hue Guan Thye’s (Xu Yuantai 许源泰) 《沿革与模式：新加坡道教和佛教传播研究》(Evolution and Model: The Propagation of Taoism and Buddhism in Singapore) has been published in the Journal of Chinese Overseas. Check out Hue Guan Thye’s fascinating book at: http://www.globalpublishing.com.sg/bookshop/g293.html
Read review here.
Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China. By Jiang Wu. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008, 457 pages, ISBN: 978‐0195333572 (cloth), US $74.00.
Volume 18, 2011
Reviewed by Jack Meng-Tat Chia
Harvard University
mtchia@fas.harvard.edu
Zhongguo Fojiao shilun 中国佛教史论. Wang Rongguo 王荣国. Beijing: Zongjiao wenhua chubanshe 宗教文化出版社, 2008. 343 pages. ISBN 978-7-80123-987-7. RMB 38.00 paper.
How Zen Became Zen: The Dispute over Enlightenment and the Formation of Chan Buddhism in Song-Dynasty China. By Morten Schlütter. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2008, 289 pages, ISBN: 978-0-8248-3255-1 (cloth), US$48.00.
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 17, 2010
Reviewed by Jack Meng-Tat Chia
Harvard University
mtchia@fas.harvard.edu
Fathering Your Father: The Zen of Fabrication in Tang Buddhism, by Alan Cole. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. 340 + xix pp. Hardcover $65.00, ISBN 978-052025484-8, Paperback $27.50, ISBN 978-052025485-5.
Chan (襌) and its Japanese counterpart, Zen, have always been a popular subject of scholarly attention. Recent years have witnessed an interesting burgeoning of literature on the history of Chan Buddhism, which grapples with various issues, including formative texts, the establishment of schools within the tradition, spiritual transmission and disputes over the nature of enlightenment. Alan Cole’s new book, Fathering Your Father, continues his tradition of utilizing familial terms – father, mother, and son – to discuss Buddhism. This study adopts a ‘History of Religions’ approach in its attempt to re-examine the history of early Chan Buddhism… [Read full review].
Jack Meng-Tat Chia 謝明達 