Department of Religious Studies
Department of Religious Studies
Chris Rowe

Christopher Rowe

Doctoral Student
cmr8wc@virginia.edu

Education

  • University of Virginia - PhD Religious Studies, Buddhist Modernities (in progress)
  • Dharma Drum Institute of Liberal Arts - MA Religious Studies, Chinese Buddhism
  • University of California, Santa Cruz - BA Linguistics, Minor East Asian History

Dissertation

My dissertation, “Letters for the End of the World: Yinguang’s (1862-1940) Buddhist Readings of Modern Crises,” analyzes the scholar-monk Yinguang’s role as a translator or interpreter of signs with respect to social and natural disasters; religious texts and images; and meditative visions and dreams. This study draws out the human concerns animating Yinguang’s epistolary exchanges with his peers, and in the process seeks to understand Chinese Buddhist negotiations with internal and external pressures towards modernization.

Research and Teaching Interests

  • Late imperial and modern Chinese religions

  • Buddhism and modernity

  • Tibetan Buddhism

  • East Asian Buddhist art and ritual 

  • Religion and the environment

  •  Animal Studies

  •  Historiography

  •   Semiotics 

Teaching Experience

Instructor of Record, University of Virginia, VA

Chinese Buddhism, Fall 2024 

Teaching Assistant, University of Virginia, VA

Religion, Ethics, and Global Environment, Spring 2024

East Asian Canons and Cultures, Fall 2023

Introduction to Eastern Religious Traditions, Spring 2023

Tibetan Buddhism, Fall 2022

East Asian Canons and Cultures, Fall 2021; Spring 2022