Jonathan Thumas

Jonathan Thumas

Ph.D. Candidate in Japanese Religion
A man in a brown suit with short hair stands in front of an Asian temple painted orange.

Jon Thumas entered the PhD program in East Asian Languages and Civilizations in 2017. His research investigates how Buddhism spread to the masses in medieval Japan. His dissertation, “Places Apart: Buddhist Reclusion in Medieval Japan,” examines the role of provincial hermitages in this development. He spent the 2022-23 academic year conducting archival research at the Historiographical Institute of the University of Tokyo through the BDK Fellowship for Foreign Scholars. Alongside texts, Jon uses archaeological materials and methods to understand religion and society from different historical perspectives. He holds a Secondary Field through the Standing Committee on Archaeology and has done fieldwork in Japan and the United States. He is author of “Buried Scripture and the Interpretation of Ritual” (Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2022). Jon’s expected PhD conferral date is May 2024.

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