MA, Johns Hopkins University
PhD, Columbia University

Ryûichi Abé acquired an undergraduate degree in Economics at Keio University and a master’s degree from School of Advanced International Affairs, the Johns Hopkins University. He then turned to Religious Studies and was awarded a M.Phil and Ph.D. from Columbia University. In 1991 he was appointed as an assistant professor at Columbia’s Department of Religion, and since 1998 served that department as Kao Associate Professor of Japanese Religions. In 2004 he moved to the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard and has been teaching wide-ranging graduate and undergraduate courses on East Asian Buddhism and premodern and early-modern Japanese religions. His research interests center around Buddhist theory of language, Buddhism and literature, history of Japanese esoteric Buddhism, Shinto-Buddhist interaction, and Buddhism and gender.

His publications include Great Fool – Zen Master Ryôkan (University of Hawaii Press), The Weaving of Mantra –Kûkai and the Construction of Esoteric Buddhist Discourse (Columbia University Press), “Word” (In Lopez ed, Critical Terms in Buddhist Studies, University of Chicago Press), “Mikkyô girei to kenmitsu bukkyô” (In Imai Masaharu ed., Chûsei bukkyô no tenkai to sono kiban, Daizô shuppan), and “Naraki mikkyô no saikentô” (In Nemoto seiji et al. eds., Nara bukkyô to zaichi shakai, Iwata shoin).

Professor Abe is currently teaching.