Email: yenyichan[at]sophia.ac.jp
Tell: 03-3238-4039
Office: 10-628

My research explores the materiality of sacred spaces and representations of religious “heroes” in different visual media. My PhD dissertation examines how the Nan’endō (Southern Round Hall) at Kōfukuji in Nara became a realm of memory where its architectural space and Buddhist icons were woven into the narratives of the dead, the family history of the Northern Fujiwara clan, and the performances of rituals dedicated to divinities. In addition to developing my dissertation into a book, I am currently working on a research project tentatively titled “Presence and Performance: Visualizing the Historical Buddha and His Body in Medieval Japan.” This project explores how visual and material representations of the historical Buddha constructed a new soteriology centered on the somatic and sensory religious experience in medieval Japan. My other research interests include premodern sculpture, relics and reliquaries, and Japan’s interactions with Chinese visual culture.

I teach courses on sacred spaces, body in Japanese visual culture, painting and print in early modern Japan, and text and image in religious cultures.

Journal Articles

・“Revealing the Miraculous: Objects Placed inside the Statue of the Kōfukuji Nan’endō Fukūkenjaku Kannon.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies (forthcoming)

・“〈權力、共同體與信仰網絡：興福寺南圓堂不空羂索觀音像的複製〉(Power, Communities, and the Network of Worship: The Replications of the Kōfukuji Nan’endō Fukūkenjaku Kannon),” 國立台灣大學美術史研究集刊 [Taida Journal of Art History], no.49 (2020.09): 187-242.

Faculty of Liberal Arts

Graduate Program in Global Studies