Headshot of Pamela Winfield

Pamela Winfield

Professor of Religious Studies and Associate Director or International & Global Studies

Department: Religious Studies

Office and address: Spence Pavilion-Religion/Phil., Office 212 2340 Campus Box Elon, NC 27244

Phone number: (336) 278-5128

News & Notes

Education

  • Temple University Japan, Research Fellow, Institute for the Study of Contemporary Culture (2007)
  • Temple University, Department of Religion (MA 2001, Ph.D. 2003)
  • International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto. Graduate University of Advanced Study (Visiting Researcher 2001-2002). 
  • Georgetown University School Languages and Linguistics (B.S.L.A. cum laude 1989)

Employment History

ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS

Fall 2024          McGill University, School of Religious Studies, Montréal, CANADA

                         Numata/Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies (4 months)

2008-Present     Elon University, Elon, NC

            2023     Associate Coordinator, International and Global Studies (3 years)

            2020     Professor of Buddhist Studies, Department of Religious Studies

             2014    Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies

             2009    Program Coordinator, Asian Studies (7 years) Interim Coordinator (1 year)

             2008    Assistant Professor, Department of Religious Studies

2003-2008       Meredith College, Raleigh, NC

                        Assistant Professor, Department of Religion and Philosophy  

2002-2007       Temple University Japan, Tokyo, JAPAN

            2007    Visiting Research Fellow, Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies (ICAS),

                        Visiting Assistant Professor (6 months)

            2004    Visiting Assistant Professor (3 months)

            2002    Visiting Instructor (6 months)

2001- 2002      International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken), Kyoto, JAPAN  

                         Visiting Researcher, Graduate University of Advanced Study

2000, 2001      Haverford College, Philadelphia, PA. Visiting Instructor, Department of Asian Studies

1996 - 2003     Temple University, Philadelphia, PA. Russell Conwell University Fellow, Instructor, TA,     

                         Department of Religion

 

RELATED PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

1994-96           Sony Design Center, New York, NY. Design Coordinator

1993-94           Lyceum Kennedy International, New York , NY. Special Assistant to the Director, ESL

1990-93           Sendai and Kobe, JAPAN, ESL Instructor

1989-1990       Harvard University / Dumbarton Oaks Research Library & Collections, Washington, DC.  

                         Administrative Assistant, Director’s Office

Sum 1989        Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. Intern with stipend, Asian Art Department

Fall 1988         National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.Intern for credit, Italian Renaissance Department

Sum 1988        Sotheby’s, Inc., New York, NY. Intern, Silver and Russian Works of Art

Courses Taught

  • 100-level: Religion in a Global Context, Seeing the Sacred, Buddhist Traditions
  • 200-level: The Silk Road: Religion, Art and Exchange in the Age of Global Empires               (Honors). Religion and Film (online); 
  • 300-level: Religion and Healing, Religion & Psychology, Sages and Samurai; Emperors & Immortals; Religion and Art of Asia (CORE Capstone).
  • 400-level: Comparative Mysticism, Senior Seminar, Undergraduate Research
  • 500-level: Zen and Visual/Material Culture (Graduate seminar at McGill University F2024)

Leadership Positions

CURRENT POSITIONS

  • Steering Committee Member, Japanese Religions Unit (AAR)
  • Secretary, Association of Public Religion and Intellectual Life (APRIL)
  • Associate Editor, The Commons
  • Editorial Board member. CrossCurrents Journal, Pacific World

?FORMER POSITIONS

  • President, Society for the Study of Japanese Religions (SSJR)
  • Co-Chair, Arts, Literature and Religion Unit, American Academy of Religion (AAR)
  • Founding Co-Chair, Sacred Space in Asia Unit, American Academy of Religion (AAR)
  • Co-Chair, Religions of Asia Unit, AAR-Southeast Regional Conference 
  • AAR Steering Committees: Body& Religion Unit; Space, Place & Religion Unit;  Sacred Space in Asia Unit; Arts, Literature & Religion Unit; Religion & Art Award Jury.

 

Research

  • Religion and visual culture, especially esoteric and Zen Buddhist art and doctrine. Buddhism, East Asian religions, new religious movements, religion and healing, religion and politics, sacred space, comparative mysticism (Asian-European traditions)

Current Projects

Materiality as Method: How To Do Things With Zen (article in progress)

The Rhetoric of Anatomy: Zen Bodies of Knowledge at tEiheiji, Japan (manuscript in progress)

 

Grants Awarded

EXTERNAL GRANTS: 

Henry Luce Foundation / Appalachian State University (PI): Building A “Public-Focused” Future for Non-Sectarian Undergraduate Religious Studies Programs" (group grant). American Academy of Religion (AAR) individual research grant, Association of Asian Studies, NorthEast Asia Council (AAS-NEAC) short-term research travel grant, Association of Asian Studies Publication Subvention for First Time Authors, Asian Cultural Council Religion and Art grant, Association of Religion in Intellectual Life (ARIL), Kobe College Corporation/Japan Educational Exchange (KCC/JEE) graduate fellowship, Temple University Russell Conwell Fellowship.

INTERNAL GRANTS (since 2008):  Elon University Faculty Research and Development Reassign Times, Summer Stipends, Travel Grants, Publication Assistance, Research Support.

 

Publications

Selected Publications

  • BOOKS AND EDITED VOLUMES

  • The Religious Body Imagined ed. Pamela D. Winfield, Mina García, & Katherine Zubko (Sheffield, UK: Equinox Press, 2024). Articles previously published in Body & Religion Journal 3, no. 2 (2019) & 5, no. 1 (2022).

  • Zen and Material Culture, ed. Pamela D. Winfield and Steven Heine (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017).
  • Icons and Iconoclasm in Japanese Buddhism:  Kukai and Dogen on the Art of Enlightenment. New York:  Oxford University Press, 2013. (Winner, Fourth Annual Book Prize, Association of Asian Studies - Southeast Region, 2015).
  • The Religious Body Imagined - Part I ed. Pamela D. Winfield. Body and Religion Journal 3, no. 2 (2019): 105-222. Published online Oct 30, 2020. 
  • Co-Editor. Religion and Sex/ualities special issue. ed. Samuel Davis and Pamela D. Winfield.
    CrossCurrents Journal 69 no. 4 (Dec 2019): 343-474 
  • Contributing Editor.  "New" Religious Movements special issue ed. Pamela D. Winfield.  Cross Currents Journal, vol.64 no. 2 (June 2014), 170-314. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cros.2014.64.issue-2/issuetoc
  • Contributing Editor.  Religion in Asia Today special issue ed. Pamela D. WInfield. Cross Currents Journal vol. 61, no 3, (September 2011), 286-421. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cros.2011.61.issue-3/issuetoc

 

  • ARTICLES AND CHAPTERS 

  • “Introduction” (with Mina García) in The Religious Body Imagined ed. Pamela D. Winfield, Mina García and Katherine Zubko (Sheffield, UK: Equinox Press, 2024).

  • Zen and The Arts of Devotion: ‘Mind Over Matter’ at the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art,” Cross Currents Journal 72, no. 4 (2023): 394-404.                 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/883682 Published online March 7.

  • “Material Theories in Japanese Buddhism: What Kukai and Dogen Thought About Things” in The Routledge Handbook of Material Religion ed. Jennifer Hughes, Pooyan Tamimi Arab, and S. Brent Plate (Routledge Press, August 31, 2023).

  • “Religion and the Imperial Body Politic in Japan,” Body and Religion Journal 5 no. 1 (2021): 45-68. Published online July 24, 2022. Republished in The Religious Body Imagined ed. Pamela D. Winfield, Mina Garcia, Kate Zubko (Sheffield, UK: 2024).

  • “To Tame an Ox or To Catch a Fish: A Zen Reading of The Old Man and the Sea” in The Theory and Practice of Zen Buddhism: A Festschrift in Honor of Steven Heine ed. Charles Prebish and On-cho Ng (New York: Springer Press, 2022).

  • “Chinese Visual Texts, Japanese Spatial Contexts: Mandala Installation and the Reading of Empowered Space in Japan” Studies in Chinese Religions 7 no. 1 (Dec 3, 2021): 1-24. DOI: 10.1080/23729988.2021.1996972. Republished in Esoteric Buddhism and Texts Vol. II: Material Culture, Ritual, Arts, Construction of Sacred Space and Narratives in East Asia, ed. Jinhua Chen (Routledge Press, Feb 8, 2024), pp. 93-116.

  • “Visual Mimesis, Textual Nemesis: Animation and Alienation in Zen Portraiture” in “Motion: Transformation” 35th Congress of the Comité de l’Histoire de l’Art (CIHA 2019) (Bologna, ITALY: Bononia University Press), 215-18.                   https://buponline.com/az13zg/uploads/d-1-650-ciha-motion-transformation-vol1.pdf

  • “Curating Culture: The Secularization of Buddhism Through Museum Display” in Secularizing Buddhism: New Perspectives on a Dynamic Tradition, ed. Richard Payne (Boulder, CO: Shambhala Press), 94-114.

  • “The Religious Body Imagined” Body and Religion 3 no. 2 (2019): 105-107. Published online Oct 30, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1558/bar.18315. 

  •  “Introduction” (with Sam Davis) CrossCurrents Journal 69, no. 4, (Dec 2019): 347-350. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cros.12271

  •  “Interview with Dr. Robert Orsi” (with Sam Davis) CrossCurrents Journal 69, no. 4, (Dec 2019): 462-467. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cros.12410

  • “Shinnyo-en and the Formulation of a New Esoteric Iconography,” Material Religion:The Journal of Objects, Art, and Belief 15 no. 1 (April 2019): 27-53. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17432200.2019.1568756?needAccess=true

  • “Philosophy of the Mandala” in The Dao Companion to Japanese Buddhist Philosophy, ed. Gereon Kopf (Dordecht, Netherlands: Springer Publishers, 2019), 235-253. https://www.springer.com/us/book/97890481292321

  • "Introduction: Zen Matters" in Zen and Material Culture, ed. Pamela D. Winfield and Steven Heine. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017, xv-xxix.
  • "Materializing the Zen Monastery" in Zen and Material Culture, ed. Pamela D. Winfield and Steven Heine. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017, 37-69.
  • "Embodying Soto Zen:  Institutional Identity and Ideal Body-Image at Eiheiji, Japan" in Dogen and Soto Zen. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. 
  • “Esoteric Images of Light and Life at Osaka Kokubunji, Japan.” Southeast Review of Asian Studies, vol.34 (2012), 128-52.  http://www.uky.edu/Centers/Asia/SECAAS/Seras/2012/12_Kobubunji.pdf 
  • “Religion and Healing in Pre-Modern Japan” in Religion Compass, vol. 6, no.11 (2012), 467-479.http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/rec3.12020/pdf
  • “Coronation at Koyasan: How One Woman Became King And Learned About Homeland Security and National Health Care in Ancient Japan” in Studying Religions in Practice: Buddhism. Ed. John Harding.  Taylor & Francis / Routledge Press, 2012, pp. 11-24.
  • “The Mandala as Metropolis” in Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia. Charles Orzech, Richard Payne, and Henrik Sørensen eds. Handbook of Oriental Studies (Handbuch der Orientalistik section 4-China, vol. 24).  Leiden, Boston:  Brill Publishers, 2011, pp. 719-743.
  • “State of the Fields:  Recent Contributions to Japanese Art History and Religious Studies” Religious Studies Review vol. 36 no. 3 (September 2010) pp. 199-205. 
  • “Kyoto Pilgrimage Past and Present” in Cross-Currents vol.  59, no. 3 (September 2009) pp. 349-357.  Also published online wiley.com/WileyCDA/Brand/id-35.html.
  • “The Diaspora of Heavenly Hubris:  Scattering Spiritual Pride at Indra’s Palace and the Tower of Babel.”  The Journal of Indian Philosophy and Religion, vol. 12, October, 2007, pp. 1-28. 
  • “Curing With Kaji:  Healing and Esoteric Empowerment in Japan” in Japanese Journal of Religious Studies (JJRS) Vol. 32, no. 1, 2005, pp. 107-130.   

Professional Development

Leadership Education Faculty Scholar, Certified Mediator

Wellness Pedagogy Faculty Scholar, Mental Health First Aid certification 

CITI certification for SBE (Social-Behavioral-Educational) human subject research / IRB approval

 

 

Awards

 

2024                 Numata/Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies, McGill University

2017                 Excellence in Scholarship Award, Elon University College of Arts and Sciences

2007                 Harry & Marion Eberly Faculty Development Award (for scholarship), Meredith College