John Harding

Primary areas of interest include Japanese Buddhism and the cross-cultural exchange between Asia and the West that has shaped the development of modern Buddhism worldwide in the past century and a half. This has included research on Buddhism in Canada, such as Jodo Shinshu in southern Alberta, as well as research in Asia, Europe, and the United States.

Secondary areas of interest include Scholarly Approaches to the Study and Teaching of Religion (see sastor.com) as well as the co-authored (both with Hillary Rodrigues) Introduction to the Study of Religion (Routledge 2009) and follow-up The Study of Religion: A Reader (2013).

Recent projects include: editing the volume, Studying Buddhism in Practice (2012), for a new Routledge series, Studying Religions in Practice (Hillary Rodrigues, series editor); and serving as one of the authors and one of three editors (with Victor Sogen Hori and Alexander Soucy) for Flowers on the Rock: Global and Local Buddhisms in Canada (McGill-Queens University Press in 2014). This volume, which analyzes the dramatic growth of Buddhism in Canada in global and historical contexts, both follows up on our co-edited book, Wild Geese: Studies of Buddhism in Canada (MQUP, 2010), and launches our current five-year SSHRC research project, "The Modernization of Buddhism in Global Perspective".