My research has addressed religion (mostly Buddhist doctrine, institutions, and communities) in the twentieth and twenty-first century mainland China and Taiwan, and under the three main areas of (1) religion and Chinese society; (2) textual studies; (3) concepts and methods for the study of Chinese religions.
My research on the theme of Religion and Chinese Society asks which role religion, Buddhism in particular, plays in the public sphere and for society at large, from the late nineteenth century up to today. I have given special emphasis on topics such as education, female communities, religious diversity, humanitarianism, politics and cross-strait relations.
My work in Textual Studies includes philological and philosophical research on Buddhist texts; the reception history of traditional values and sacred scriptures from Chinese Buddhism, especially from the Pure Land school, Mādhyamika, and the Āgamas; and the study of textual communities in modern Taiwan.
My research on the history of semantics of traditional Chinese and Buddhist values continues in my project on Concepts and Methods, where I adopt a discursive approach to the study of conceptual categories relevant to religion in China.
Regionally, I have focused on Taiwan for more than 20 years, and Sichuan in the past 10 years.
Stefania Travagnin 