Bryan Lowe
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bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
Bryan Lowe
@bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
1.8K followers 880 following 540 posts
Assoc. Prof. of Religion @Princeton. Historian of Japanese religions (esp. 7th-9th c.) & Buddhism. Author of Ritualized Writing (UH Press, 2017). Unapologetic Boston sports fan.
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bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · Oct 7
My new book is coming out in August 2026.
uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/how-bu...
How Buddhism Spread in Japan, 650-850
Between the late seventh and early ninth centuries, Japan changed from a land largely without Buddhism to a country where Buddhist ideas, images, and practices were everywhere. The introduction of …
uhpress.hawaii.edu
bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
Want this on my tombstone.
Email reading “Dear Bryan, Thanks so much for doing this. You are unquestionably the most fastidious author I’ve copy edited. I’m humbled that you noticed the stray quotation mark.”
November 15, 2025 at 9:08 PM
bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
My new book is coming out in August 2026.
uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/how-bu...
How Buddhism Spread in Japan, 650-850
Between the late seventh and early ninth centuries, Japan changed from a land largely without Buddhism to a country where Buddhist ideas, images, and practices were everywhere. The introduction of …
uhpress.hawaii.edu
October 7, 2025 at 11:31 PM
bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
Hardly on here anymore, but if anyone is near Princeton and interested in book history, you MUST check out the absolutely amazing new exhibition Forms & Function: The Splendors of Global Book Making curated by Martin Heijdra at Firestone Library through 12/7 📖📜 library.princeton.edu/formsandfunc...
Forms & Function: The Splendors of Global Book Making
Highlighting the diversity of global book making traditions using examples from the Princeton University Library, this exhibition focuses on the continuous transmission and exchange of formal aspects ...
library.princeton.edu
September 10, 2025 at 1:16 AM
Reposted by Bryan Lowe
jaxhidalgo.bsky.social
Help me find a wonderful new colleague for our department! Specialty in religions of South Asia or Southeast Asia. #religiousStudies #tenuretrackjobs jobs.sandiego.edu/cw/en-us/job...
Details - Assistant Professor of Religious Studies with Specialization in Hindu Studies
jobs.sandiego.edu
August 10, 2025 at 9:39 PM
bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
🏹🏹🏹

Slightly late #ManuscriptMonday. Illustrated Tales of Heike, 17th century, Princeton University Library.
dpul.princeton.edu/eastasian/ca...
Close up of archer in samurai armor, white face, black horse. Full seen of archer on horse in water facing boats with other soldiers beneath him.
August 5, 2025 at 6:10 AM
Reposted by Bryan Lowe
mpitelka.bsky.social
New issue of the Journal of Japanese Studies is out! Highlights include articles on kanpu masatsu, war photography, empire paranoia, Italian-Japanese children's lit, Seidensticker’s style, and a bonus piece on Black Rain and ritual. Don’t miss it!
online.ucpress.edu
August 4, 2025 at 7:14 PM
Reposted by Bryan Lowe
drfrancisyoung.bsky.social
The tragedy - and true horror - of many witch trials was that the impersonal machinery of the law took them inexorably forward, even if judges and lawyers (and even the public at large) were unconvinced. But the image popular media presents us with is one of mounting hysteria (cf. Miller’s Crucible)
August 2, 2025 at 10:59 AM
Reposted by Bryan Lowe
nlheller.bsky.social
A simple idea: faculty should be represented in the search for UVa’s next president: www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...
www.cavalierdaily.com
August 1, 2025 at 9:21 PM
Reposted by Bryan Lowe
kaitlynugoretz.bsky.social
The Japanese Journal of Religious Studies @jjrs-nirc.bsky.social ✨50th anniv issue✨ abt past, present, & future of 🇯🇵 religious studies is out!

🙏Paul Swanson, Hayashi Makoto, Kawahashi Noriko, Keller Kimbrough, Emi Foulk Bushelle, @orionklautau.bsky.social @jolyonbt.bsky.social @aikerots.bsky.social
NIRC
nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp
July 30, 2025 at 3:57 AM
bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
Our Department is hiring in early Christianity. It's an assistant professor (tenure-track position). Spread the word! puwebp.princeton.edu/AcadHire/app...
puwebp.princeton.edu
August 1, 2025 at 12:45 AM
bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
Fascinating to see Usa today market itself as the birthplace of Shinto-Buddhist syncretism, a very different view from that in Grapard, who describes an obliteration of syncretism in the wake of Meiji ideologues and their reforms.
Flyer from temple emphasizing syncretism Kindle book image describing obliteration of Buddhism at Usa Kindle book image describing obliteration of Buddhism at Usa
July 30, 2025 at 7:11 AM
Reposted by Bryan Lowe
genizalab.bsky.social
For the first time since the Princeton Geniza Project began in 1986, we have published our metadata collated from over 30,000 Geniza documents and the People, Places, and histories of the Middle East and premodern Jewish communities found therein!

zenodo.org/records/1583...
Princeton Geniza Project Dataset
Since 1986, the Princeton Geniza Lab has been studying and digitizing historical documents from the Cairo Geniza, a cache of roughly 400,000 fragments of paper and parchment preserved in a medieval Eg...
zenodo.org
July 28, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Reposted by Bryan Lowe
enniusredloeb.bsky.social
Is there a collective noun for popes? 😉
#ManuscriptMonday
BL Cotton MS Nero D VII; The Benefactors' Book of St Albans Abbey (‘the Golden Book of St Albans’); 1380-c 1540; England (St Albans)
July 21, 2025 at 9:13 AM
Reposted by Bryan Lowe
antiquity.ac.uk
A 13th-century-AD depiction of the 'pagan' Irish kingship ceremony, by priest and historian Gerald of Wales. He claimed the king bathed in the blood of a mare before sharing the meat with his courtiers 1/2

#ManuscriptMonday #MedievalMonday #Archaeology 🏺

📷 @britishlibrary.bsky.social / CC0 1.0
A manuscript page with Latin writing at the top and an illustration of a bearded person killing a horse with an axe, a pot suspended over a fire, and five bearded people eating strips of meat underneath. From Topographia Hibernica by Giraldus Cambrensis (British Library Royal MS 13 B. VIII f. 28v; reproduced under Creative Commons licence CC0 1.0).
July 21, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Reposted by Bryan Lowe
saveredlandlibr.bsky.social
Shared for #ManuscriptMonday
parkerlibcccc.bsky.social The Parker Library @parkerlibcccc.bsky.social · Jul 21
Have you ever seen angel's wings used to picture confession? How about a 'tree of consanguinity' drawn on the figure of a man? Perhaps you're a fan of calendars, genealogies, doodles & indexes?

If you missed our exhibition, you can always find it online!
www.corpus.cam.ac.uk/parker-libra...
Opening from medieval manuscript (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 10, fol. 330v) displaying a painting of a bearded and long-haird man with open arms (palms out) on the left, and canon law text on the right. The man is painted on deep blue background with red and partial green frame. A chart of multiple circles (empty) is superimposed on him. Opening from a medieval manuscript (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 66, p. 100) with text on the right, and a painting of a six-winged angel on the left. Small-headed angel has bare feet and legs, and all six wings spread in pairs; first two as a modesty shield, second two at the side, and last pair of two wings over the head. A border with floral motif surrounds the angel, and contains four golden circles, one at each corner of the frame.
July 21, 2025 at 5:28 PM
Reposted by Bryan Lowe
saveredlandlibr.bsky.social
Shared for #ManuscriptMonday
nmireland.bsky.social National Museum of Ireland @nmireland.bsky.social · Jul 21
Today we’ve turned a new illuminated page in the Irish Gospels of St Gall (Cod. Sang. 51).
Explore the beauty of cross-carpets and Chi-Rhos in our latest blog, then see them in person at Words on the Wave
📍 National Museum of Ireland – Kildare Street
🔗 www.museum.ie/en-IE/Collec...
The cross-carpet and Chi-Rho pages in St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang 51, pp 6-7; © Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen
July 21, 2025 at 5:28 PM
bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
This week's #ManuscriptMonday is this cool miniature replica of the illustrated hell scrolls that I bought at the Kyoto National Museum last week (next to an air conditioner remote for scale). You can get your own copy here for less than 6,000 yen! www.kyotobenrido.com/view/item/00...
Picture of Japanese text with women in hell illustrated on either side. Box of hell scroll next to a/c remote
July 28, 2025 at 1:22 AM
bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
New journal issue edited by Sujung Kim focusing on Buddhist talismans: ijbtc.dongguk.edu
International Journal of Buddhist Thought & Culture
동국대학교 불교학술원 발행, 불교학 영문 학술지, 역사/문화/사상 등 연구 자료 수록,the International Journal of Buddhist Thought & Culture, IJBTC
ijbtc.dongguk.edu
July 25, 2025 at 7:09 AM
Reposted by Bryan Lowe
laurenginsberg.bsky.social
So, if humanities produce good job outcomes, humanities have a secure ROI that bring in more than they cost, and STEM now has an even lower ROI due to grant cuts…. shouldn’t we invest more in humanities where less $$ goes a longer way? Apparently not. We should ask why not. /9
July 24, 2025 at 10:37 PM
Reposted by Bryan Lowe
pieterbeullens.bsky.social
Western Medieval Manuscripts (and fragments) @keiouniversity.bsky.social (Japan)! Enjoy a few spare minutes and browse this remarkable collection! Something for everyone's taste and interest!
dcollections.lib.keio.ac.jp/en/western-m...
Thumbnails of manuscripts images of the Keio university collection of Medieval Western Manuscripts! Including fragments of Aristotelica and Dutch books of hours.
July 24, 2025 at 6:46 PM
bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
Sometimes, when things get tough, you just need a Buddhist statue to come to life and give you a piggyback ride.

Shakadō Engi, 16th c. Currently on display at the Kyoto National Museum and well worth it!
www.kyohaku.go.jp/jp/exhibitio...
Buddhist statue carrying a monk Exhibition poster
July 24, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Reposted by Bryan Lowe
candidamoss.bsky.social
Excited to announce that after a lot of editorial work our volume "Writing, Enslavement, and Power in the Roman Mediterranean, 100 BCE - 300 CE" is out now. @jeremiahcoogan.bsky.social @illdottore.bsky.social

academic.oup.com/book/60683
Book cover. The background in sepia tones Showa man dictating to scribes. A cream box in the center has light brown writing that contains the title (Writing, Enslavement, and Power in the Roman Mediterranean) and the words "Edited by Jeremiah Coogan, Candid R. Moss, and Jospeh A. Howley.
July 23, 2025 at 8:56 PM
Reposted by Bryan Lowe
mccutcheonsays.bsky.social
chicagomaroon.com/48215/news/u...
UChicago Arts & Humanities Division to Restructure Amid “Historic Funding Pressures”
“The status quo is not an option,” Deborah Nelson, dean of the Division of the Arts & Humanities, wrote to division faculty on June 18.
chicagomaroon.com
July 22, 2025 at 2:38 PM
Reposted by Bryan Lowe
nposegay.bsky.social
Good news if you like history, manuscripts, or nice books! 'The Illustrated Cairo Genizah' is now available at *greatly* reduced shipping costs via @theul.bsky.social (UK) and Amazon (worldwide) from this link: linktr.ee/nposegay. There's also a free sample file there with the entire first chapter.
5 copies of 'The Illustrated Cairo Genizah', by Nick Posegay and Melonie Schmierer-Lee, stacked on a light brown tabletop. The books' spines are facing the camera. The book is large and the covers are dark red, with the title and authors' names in white. The cover also has a grid of 21 square images each cut out from a different medieval manuscript.
July 22, 2025 at 11:22 AM
Reposted by Bryan Lowe
book-historia.bsky.social
I feel like I haven’t posted enough Book Stuff on here lately, so here’s another amazing thing from the Château de Chantilly: a book of hours manuscript with a trompe l'oeil border of sewn-on metal pilgrim badges next to a book with ACTUAL sewn-on metal pilgrim badges 🤩
An open manuscript, with miniature and text surrounded by a green border with multiple silver and gold illustrations of pilgrim badges Detail of border; there is also a pearl Pastedown of a different manuscript with metal pilgrim badges sewn into the book
July 22, 2025 at 1:20 PM