Professional Biography

Alan Cole specializes in the cultural and literary history of Buddhism in medieval China, with interests in Indian Buddhism as well. In his first book, Mothers and Sons in Chinese Buddhism (Stanford University Press, 1998), he considered the role of family values in the construction of Chinese Buddhism as it took form from the 5th to 13th centuries. More recently he finished a book, Text as Father: Paternal Seductions in Early Mahayana Buddhist Literature, that examines the structure and function of narratives in several Mahayana sutras, including: The Lotus Sutra, The Diamond Sutra,The Tathagatagarbha Sutra, and The Vimalakirtinirdesa, (University of California Press, 2005.) He is currently working on a book that refigures the origins of Chan (Zen)within a broader competitive literary culture that sought political and social advantages by claiming that particular masters descended directly from the Buddha Sakyamuni. This book tentatively titled, Patriarchs on Paper: The Gradual Birth of Chinese Buddhas in Tang-Era Literature, grew out of an earlier attempt to think about Chan’s origins in terms of the innovative use of Confucian funerary rites to secure and legitimize the reproduction of the monastic elite; for this essay see, "Upside Down/Right Side Up: A Revisionist History of Buddhist Funerals in China," in History of Religions, 35: 4, (May, 1996): 307-338. Another related article, "Homestyle Vinaya and Docile Boys in Medieval China," argues that filial piety and monastic discipline (vinaya) were understood to be parallel modes of conduct in medieval China; see positions: east asia cultures critique (Duke University Press, 1998), pp. 5-50. He also recently contributed the Buddhism section to The Columbia Reader on Sex, Marriage, and Family in the World Religions, ed. Donald Browning and Christian Green. (Columbia University Press, 2006).

Academic Credentials

Ph.D. 1994 University of Michigan

M.A. 1988 University of Virginia

B.A. 1985 Middlebury College