Columbia Center for Buddhism and East Asian Religion (CBEAR)

The centre is no longer active

The Center for Buddhism and East Asian Religion (CBEAR) exists as a unit of the Departments of Religion & East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University, and serves to coordinate, support, and develop the university’s resources for Buddhism and East Asian Religion in three general areas: scholarly research, academic communication, and teaching.

Originally founded in 2006 as the Columbia Center for Japanese Religion, the Center for Buddhism and East Asian Religion exists as a unit of the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and serves to coordinate, support, and develop the university’s resources for Buddhism and East Asian religion in three general areas: scholarly research, academic communication, and teaching. C-BEAR seeks to promote the study of Buddhism and Asian religious traditions in a broader East Asian context with an emphasis on both inter-disciplinary and cross-cultural approaches.

C-BEAR’s primary activities thus far have included the organizing of international conferences (held in New York and Japan, and Korea as well) and the publishing of articles related to those conferences as special issues of the journal Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie.  While C-BEAR is not a degree-granting institution, it does serve as a focal point for graduate students engaged in research on Buddhism and East Asian religion.