Ph.D., National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations, Paris (France).
International Shinto Foundation Professor of Shinto Studies
Office: Humanities and Social Sciences Building, 2256
Phone: (805) 893 2428
Email: agrapard@verizon.net

Over the past twenty-five years or so Allan Grapard's research on Japanese religious history has followed three main lines of enquiry: Shinto-Buddhist interactions, sacred geography, and a variety of Japanese cultic practices. Professor Grapard's teaching is closely related to these lines of enquiry and is geared to question the relations between ideas, institutions, and practices, in a variety of formats. Although the endowed chair he holds stipulates Shinto studies, it should be understood that Professor Grapard has always paid equal attention to Shinto and Buddhism, a feature best symbolized by his longstanding interest in mountain religion (Shugendo) and in medieval Shinto-Buddhist schools. Professor Grapard is a dedicated teacher and welcomes anybodymind.

Finally, it should be emphasized that Professor Grapard is an Affiliate of the Religious Studies Department which means that anybody can work toward a Doctorate in that department under his supervision.

Professor Grapard's current research projects include the symbolism of food offerings in Shinto shrines; further studies in Japanese religious geography, assisted by computer-generated three-D models; and the history of Shinto-Buddhist interactions. Protocol of the Gods received the Berkeley Prize for best book in Asian Studies by a senior scholar, as well as the Lilienthal Prize for best book in Japanese Studies. Professor Grapard has published altogether 3 books and 75 articles and book chapters.

Representative Publications

• The Way to Supernatural Powers: Mountain Religion in Japan. Stanford: Stanford University Press (forthcoming).
• "Shinto" (Head article), The MacMillan World Encyclopedia of the Arts. London: 1996.
• "Rite de Voyage: Re-dressing Hachiman's Appearance." In Mélanges Offerts en l'Honneur de René Sieffert. Paris: Presses Orientales de France, 1995.
• "Geosophia, Geognosis, and Geopiety: Orders of Significance in the Japanese Representation of Space." In NowHere: Time, Space and Modernity, eds. D. Boden and R. Friedland. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
• The Protocol of the Gods. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
• "The Shinto of Yoshida Kanetomo." Monumenta Nipponica, 1992.
• La Vérité Finale des Trois Enseignements. Paris: Poesis, 1982.

Teaching

• Zen (East Asian Cultural Studies 21; same course as Religious Studies 21)
• Buddhist Meditation Traditions (East Asian Cultural Studies 161B; same course as Religious Studies 161B)
• Sacred Geography in China and Japan (East Asian Cultural Studies 175; same course as Religious Studies 175)
• Jisha Engi Medieval Narratives (Japanese 22; same course as Religious Studies 22)
• Shugendo: Japanese Mountain Religion (Japanese 119; same course as Religious Studies 120)
• Religion in Japanese Culture (Japanese 167A-B; same course as Religious Studies 167A-B)
• Shinto (Japanese 167D; same course as Religious Studies 167D)
• Problems in the Study of Japanese Religion (Japanese 264; same course as Religious Studies 264). The contents of this course vary, depending on graduate students' needs.