Bryan Lowe's avatar

Bryan Lowe

@bryandaniellowe.bsky.social

407 followers 325 following 167 posts

Asst. Prof. of Religion @Princeton. Historian of Japanese religions (esp. 7th-9th c.) & Buddhism. Author of Ritualized Writing (UH Press, 2016). Unapologetic Boston sports fan.

Bryan Lowe's avatar Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
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Me waking up and firing off emails while still in bed about the supposed lack of cows in eighth-century Japan.

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A. J. West's avatar A. J. West @ajwphilologist.bsky.social
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I think we're in a worst-of-all-possible worlds situation with 'medieval' terminology these days. 'Global Middle Ages' is still a popular term even though the world before c.1500 wasn't global in any meaningful sense — that's practically its defining characteristic!

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Bryan Lowe's avatar Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
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No problem. Yoshida-Sensei alerted me to this. He had been asking me to watch it live, but I couldn’t handle the time difference. So glad y’all recorded it!

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Dr. Paula R. Curtis's avatar Dr. Paula R. Curtis @paularcurtis.bsky.social
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Come have a conversation with us about how we can support Japanese language instructors at your institution! 🗾 Share with your dept!

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Bryan Lowe's avatar Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
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Check out these important presentations and conversations about how scholars are thinking about the issue of "syncretism" in Japanese religions today. (in Japanese)
youtube.com/playlist?lis...

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Bryan Lowe's avatar Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
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I tried to google "cremation graves" (火葬墓), but without looking accidentally googled the homophone "grave costumes/disguises" (仮装墓) and this image came up. At least my Halloween costume is set for next year 😂

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Kaitlyn Ugoretz's avatar Kaitlyn Ugoretz @kaitlynugoretz.bsky.social
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Happy #ToriiTuesday! Today we start the 'shapes & sizes' mini-series on Myōjin torii. First time I saw one I was struck by its vibrance. Obvi it left a deep impression! When ppl think of #Shinto, its iconic color & shape often comes to mind. Heck, it's the Shinto emoji! ⛩️ 1/🧵

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Nicholas Witkowski's avatar Nicholas Witkowski @nwitkowski.bsky.social
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June 25 - LECTURE on how #subalterns shaped early #Buddhism! Friends who will be in/near #Heidelberg, please do attend UTAustin Buddhist Studies graduate student Harsha Gautam's exciting talk:

Buddhist Others and Other Buddhists: Religious Identity Formation and Agency in Early India

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Bryan Lowe's avatar Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
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Within hours of posting this, my Celtics won a title and I got my first, very generous, reader’s report back with the promise of the second in the very near future 🍀

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Reposted by Bryan Lowe

Daniel Bellingradt's avatar Daniel Bellingradt @dbellingradt.bsky.social
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That's how most of #earlymodern printed books were offered and consumed in Europe: unbound, likely not stab-stitched, usually just slightly folded.
Say hello to the world of quartos and octavos, small and cheap prints, #Flugpublizistik, street literature, etc. Forget about bound books and libraries.

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Bryan Lowe's avatar Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
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I'll never not be surprised that proofs for publications in Japanese are still usually done by hand. (Not saying this is better or worse and I've always been impressed by the high quality of editing in Japanese publications that I've been a part of)

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Bryan Lowe's avatar Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
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Yea, it's uber-specialized and probably too much in the weeds for a survey (honestly, too much in the weeds for me...) Looking forward to your work!

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Jason Protass's avatar Jason Protass @protass.bsky.social
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The new book has a cover ! And a website ! Coming this December (or January)

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Bryan Lowe's avatar Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
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My new article "Patrons of Paper and Clay: Methods for Studying Women’s Religiosity in Ancient Japan." It's a chapter in an open-access volume on women and manuscripts. I had fun writing this one and tried to reflect on method and premodern women's history at the end.
doi.org/10.1515/9783...

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Bryan Lowe's avatar Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
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Chat GPT for rough draft replies for boilerplate but formal Japanese emails is a godsend. Very much needs a human touch for revision, but it's amazing at something like: "Could you write a brief reply to this email from the publisher saying that sounds good and giving my mailing address as follows?"

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Devin Fitzgerald, book troll 's avatar Devin Fitzgerald, book troll @devinfitz.bsky.social
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Hell of an auction coming up, including a binding from a Nag Hammadi manuscript, part of a cache of 4th century manuscripts written in Coptic - and often described at the oldest intact codices to come to light. This little binding is unbelievably exciting to me.
www.christies.com/en/auction/m...

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Kim Weeden's avatar Kim Weeden @weedenkim.bsky.social
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Cornell's encampment ends, voluntarily, after 2.5 weeks of being more or less left alone by uni admin. A marked contrast to Dartmouth, Columbia, etc.

Too bad peaceful ends to peaceful encampments don't make national news. Grossly distorts public perception.

cornellsun.com/2024/05/14/c...

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JJRS + NIRC's avatar JJRS + NIRC @jjrs-nirc.bsky.social
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Join us in-person on 20 May 2024 for a talk by Barbara R. Ambros (UNC Chapel Hill), "Feeling Cross-species Kinship in Edo-Period Morality Books: Excessive Affect and the Ethic of Refraining from Killing and Releasing Life." May 20, 2024: 17:30~19:00 JST Reiners Library, Nanto Room Nanzan University

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Japan Past & Present's avatar Japan Past & Present @jppinfo.bsky.social
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Japan Past & Present is to announce the launch of our External Grants database! This database provides a filterable list of more than 250 funding opportunities related to Japan Studies from all around the world. 💻🌏 japanpastandpresent.org/en/funding/e...

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Reposted by Bryan Lowe

Ian Petrie's avatar Ian Petrie @icpetrie.bsky.social
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This is my favorite picture of the late Will Noel, from 2017, when kids from West Philly's Lea Elementary -- which my son attended at the time -- came to Penn's Rare Books and Special Collections, which Will then directed.

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Bryan Lowe's avatar Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
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This is an absolute tragedy. Someone I only started to get to know recently and had been so eager to learn more from. An exceptional colleague and scholar, who was also extraordinarily kind. I feel terribly for his family.

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Bryan Lowe's avatar Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
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I just tried one-minute (though I gave them three) essays on what do you hope you’ll remember about this course in ten years. Didn’t collect the essays, just used them to jumpstart discussion. Worked well.

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Kevin M. Kruse's avatar Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social
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Just a cop in a black ski mask dragging away a department chair, a.k.a. “making the campus safe”

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Bryan Lowe's avatar Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
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Just think of all the new languages you could learn 🤣

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Bryan Lowe's avatar Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
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Congrats—next step Curator of Intergalactic Book History?

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Kaitlyn Ugoretz's avatar Kaitlyn Ugoretz @kaitlynugoretz.bsky.social
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Happy #ToriiTuesday from Ibaraki! I was craving sweet potatoes so I took a trip with my bestie Erin to the golden Hoshiimo Shrine! It was just as on brand as expected. Some might say imo-mazing! 🤣⛩️🍠

YELLOW #ToriiTuesday post below ⬇️

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Bryan Lowe's avatar Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
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I should add that these are just a sample. I have some in my office including amazing origami frogs covered in tiny writing as well as some I couldn't display because the student names would be visible.

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Bryan Lowe's avatar Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
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We'll see--one is a flash drive and I'm not sure what's on it. The assignment did say "physical book," though perhaps I should even revise this in a future version to allow for audio,etc. Here's the basic assignment, which is a new one for me.

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Bryan Lowe's avatar Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social
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What grading looks like when the assignment is make a book.

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Paulina (Paula) Kolata's avatar Paulina (Paula) Kolata @paulakolata.bsky.social
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The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has agreed to return the 14th c. remains of the Buddhist monks to South Korea, along with the silver-gilt Lamaistic pagoda-shaped reliquary (the latter, technically as a loan). The remains are considered Buddhist relics or śarīra.

m-en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN2024...

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Daniel Bellingradt's avatar Daniel Bellingradt @dbellingradt.bsky.social
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There is a monk hidden in the letters, worshipping the #palindrome in the cross (oro te ramus aram ara sumar et oro). In 1503, the author of the book made himself part of his book: "I, Ramus, pray to you at the altar so that at the altar I may be taken up, I also pray".

. #skystorians #bookhistory

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