Lei Kuan Rongdao Lai

This project is a study of the transnational forms of circulation and identity formation of the Tiantai lineage network in Chinese Buddhism between the 1920s and 1990s. By focusing on groups outside of the well-documented reformist organizations, it is an attempt to broaden and renew our current understanding of modern Chinese Buddhist globalism. Through a careful study of newspapers and periodicals, archival materials, and interviews, This project identifies the social and historical processes by which ethnic and religious identities are produced and transmitted in the Chinese worlds. Ultimately, it provides an alternative analytical framework for the trajectory of transnational growth in Chinese Buddhism in the twentieth century.