The Center for Buddhist Studies and the Department of East Asian Studies are pleased to announce that Yi Liu is one of the two recipients of the 2023-2024 Lingyin Buddhist Studies Fellowship and the Khyentse Foundation Doctoral Fellowship. An award ceremony will take place in conjunction with the East Asian Studies ceremony on Friday, May 5, 2023.
Yi Liu is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of East Asian Studies. With a focus on local history, her dissertation examines the interaction between Buddhism and local elites in twelfth-century Mingzhou 明州. Through analyses of local gazetteers, stone inscriptions, and anthologies, this research delineates the process of cultural reform that shaped the common perceptions of how to weave together the discrete strands of everyday scenes in this locality. As the field where Buddhist ritual protocol encountered Confucian values of etiquette, this cultural reform embodied conflicts and tensions pertaining to the remaking of the social order. By interpreting Buddhism’s strategies for securing its privileged status while the rise of elite lineages takes place in the local society, this research seeks to illustrate the role of Buddhism as an impetus in developing the societal power structure.
Thanks to the generous support of the Khyentse Foundation, the Center for Buddhist Studies and the Department of East Asian Studies established a doctoral fellowship, which awards $25,000 each year to support one or more students. Thanks to the generous support of Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou, China, each year the Center for Buddhist Studies awards two graduate studies fellowships, each worth $10,000, to support doctoral students in completing a major project towards their degrees.
For more information: Student Awards | Center for Buddhist Studies | University of Arizona.