Conference Speakers

Dr. Michael Como is Assistant Professor, Department of Religion, Columbia University.

Professor Como received his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Stanford University. Focusing on the study of Prince Shotoku (573? - 622), the legendary founder of the Japanese Buddhist tradition who was also closely associated with the Horyu-ji, his research explores the cultural interactions of China, Korea, and Japan in the formation of Japanese religion during the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries. In particular he looks into the transmission of Chinese religious ideas (both Buddhist and non-Buddhist) to Japan and the important role played by immigrant kinship groups from the Korean kingdom of Silla in the formation of the Shotoku cult. Professor Como has published articles on aspects of this research and is currently preparing a book-length manuscript on the cult of Prince Shotoku. Having previously taught at the College of William and Mary, Professor Como starts teaching at Columbia University this fall.

Mr. Eric M. Field is Lecturer, Department of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, and Senior Systems Engineer in Information Technology, School of Architecture, University of Virginia.

Mr. Field received his B.S.A.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his M.Arch from the University of Virginia. Mr. Field has been with the University of Virginia since 1994, first with the Office of the University Architect, where he was a technical design lead and project manager coordinating the University’s first Electronic Master Plan. This extensive project was to electronically map, codify, and display the University’s facilities and resources in a dynamic planning and information management system. He joined the School of Architecture in 1995, where he has been a lead collaborator in the teaching and resource management of Computer and Information Technology. The courses he develops stem from his research in the crossover of information-driven technologies and culture with the construction of the human environment at the architectural, industrial, and urban scales. Mr. Field also operates the school’s expanding CNC Fabrication Lab of computer-controlled lasers, milling and routing machines, and associated 3D digitizing and rapid-prototyping equipment. In 2002, he took on the additional role of Webmaster for the school. Outside of the University, Mr. Field maintains a small consulting and research practice performing teaching and project work for the architectural and design communities. Projects include residential, commercial, and non-profit work, as well as instruction and advanced research applications in technology.

Dr. Paul Groner is Professor of Japanese and Chinese Buddhism, Department of Religious Studies, University of Virginia.

Professor Groner received his Ph.D in Religious Studies from Yale University. He specializes in Japanese and Chinese Buddhism, with a research focus on the Japanese Tendai tradition, exploring the relationship between doctrine, monastic discipline, and institutional history in medieval Japan. His articles have covered such topics as the realization of Buddhahood with this very body, monastic education, and the ordination of nuns during the Heian period. He has published book-length studies of Saicho: the Establishment of the Japanese Tendai School (1984), and Ryogen and Mount Hiei: Japanese Tendai in the Tenth Century (2002). He has also translated Akira Hirakawa's History of Early Indian Buddhism from Japanese into English (1990).

Dr. Yunsheng Huang is Associate Professor in Asian Architecture, Architecture School, University of Virginia.

Professor Huang received his Diploma in Architecture from Tsinghua University, his M.S. from Academia Sinica, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton University. After his post-doctoral research fellowship at Cornell University, Professor Huang began teaching in the Architecture School at the University. His research interests focus on the cross-cultural issues in architecture and architectural interactions between the East and the West. Mr. Huang’s courses include a survey of World Buddhist architecture, a seminar on urban development in East Asia since World War II, and East-West architecture. His course of comparative architecture is an effort to explore a comparative methodology in architectural history. In addition, the new class “Sacred Architecture of Asia” has included monumental architecture with spiritual importance from Asia in large. Professor Huang has organized a number of conferences on traditional and modern Asian architecture for the School of Architecture. He also directs the University’s Beijing China summer program.

Dr. J. Edward Kidder, Jr., is Professor Emeritus of International Christian University (ICU), Tokyo.

Born in China, Dr. Kidder received his B.A. from Maryville College, Tennessee, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. He has also studied for a year at Ecole du Louvre, Paris. Dr. Kidder first taught at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, but spent most of his academic career at ICU (1956-1993), where he held various posts there, including Chair of the Humanities Division, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Vice President of Academic Affairs, Director of the ICU Hachiro Yuasa Memorial Museum, and Director of the ICU Archaeology Research Center. In visiting capacity he has also taught at Yale, University of Oregon, Washington University, Duke, and, since retirement, the University of Tennessee/Knoxville and Appalachian State University. As an archaeologist, Dr. Kidder directed fifteen excavations for the Tokyo government between 1972 and 1993. He has published many books, including Jomon Pottery of Japan (1957), Japan Before Buddhism (1959), Masterpieces of Japanese Sculpture (1961), Japanese Temples (1964), Early Japanese Art (1964), The Birth of Japanese Art (1965), Prehistoric Japanese Arts: Jomon Pottery (1971), Early Buddhist Japan (1972), Ancient Japan (1977), The Art of Japan (1985), and The Lucky Seventh: Early Horyu-ji and Its Time (1999). Indicative of a life-long productive career, he is currently completing a book entitled Himiko and the Elusive Chiefdom of Yamatai. Dr. Kidder has received many honors, including a Fulbright grant to Kyoto (1953-54); Japanese Imperial Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, (1992); Who's Who in the World (since 1985); and honorary degrees of Litt.D. and L.H.D. from different universities. He also holds membership in professional societies and served as president of Oriental Ceramic Society (Tokyo, 1977-86), and was Vice President and honorary member of the Asiatic Society of Japan.

Dr. Nancy S. Steinhardt is Professor of East Asian Art, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilization, and Curator of Chinese Art, the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania.

Professor Steinhardt received her B.A. from Washington University, and her Ph.D. in Fine Arts from Harvard University, where she was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows from 1978-81. She has taught at the University of Pennsylvania since 1982, previously having taught at Bryn Mawr College and University of Delaware. In 1996 she  was a visiting professor in the Kunsthistorische Institut, University of Heidelberg. Much of Professor Steinhardt's research has focused on East Asian architecture and urban planning, with particular interest in the 2nd through 14th centuries, but her broader research interests include problems that result from the interaction between Chinese art and that of peoples at China's borders, particularly to China's North, Northeast, and Northwest. She is author of Chinese Traditional Architecture (1984), Chinese Imperial City Planning (1990), Liao Architecture (1997), editor and adaptor of A History of Chinese Architecture (2002), and one of the editors of the Hawaii Reader in Traditional Chinese Culture (2004). In addition, she has published more than 60 scholarly articles, and numerous book reviews. Professor Steinhardt has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, American Council of Learned Societies, American Philosophical Society, Graham Foundation for Advanced Study in the Fine Arts, Social Science Research Foundation, and Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation. A member of 12 professional organizations, she has been very active in conference participation and has lectured widely.

Dr. Dorothy Wong is Associate Professor of East Asian Art, Lindner Center for Art History of the McIntire Department of Art, University of Virginia.

Professor Wong received her B.A. from International Christian University, Tokyo, her M.Phil. from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Ph.D. from Harvard University. Specializing in Buddhist art of medieval China, her research addresses topics of art in relation to religion and society. In addition to her recent book, Chinese Steles: Pre-Buddhist and Buddhist Use of a Symbolic Form (2004), she has authored articles that range in topics from pilgrims' maps to devotional arts, deity cults, pure land paintings, gender and ethnicity issues in Buddhist patronage, cults of saints in Asian traditions, and images of Buddhist cosmographies. Formerly an editor of Orientations, she currently serves on the editorial board of Early Medieval China. Prof. Wong has received fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study at Harvard University, the Whiting Foundation, the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, the American Association of University Women, the Mellon Foundation, among others. In spring 2006, she will be Visiting Scholar at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.