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

My research has focused on religious spaces in premodern Japan. I am currently writing a book “The Kōfukuji Nan’endō and Its Buddhist Icons: Family Memory and History of the Northern Fujiwara Clan, 800-1200,” which examines how the Nan’endō (Southern Round Hall) at Kōfukuji in Nara became a realm of memory whereby narratives of the dead and history of the family were weaved into miracles and devotional activities surrounding the building and its sacred icons. Another research project explores the formation of religious figures and body in Japanese visual culture with particular attention given to representations of Shaka in various media and performances of his body in rituals, such as nehan-e and Shaka nenbutsu-e.

I teach courses in premodern Japanese art, which examine topics, such as sacred places, material and visual culture of pilgrimage, body and face in Japanese art, and networks of Buddhist visual culture in Asia.

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