Thomas NEWHALL

September 2025 :	Ph.D., Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
October 2025 :	Appointed to the Faculty of Letters, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, The University of Tokyo

1) East Asian Buddhist History

2) Buddhist Philosophy

3) History of Buddhism

4) Comparative studies

Keywords: Vinaya, Vinaya School

My research focuses on the intellectual, social, and institutional development of Buddhism in East Asia, with a specific focus on Chinese Buddhist monastic law (the Vinaya) and the development of monasticism in pre-modern China. I also am engaged in several side projects that focus on the development of Buddhism in North America, particularly among Japanese in the United States and among Chinese Buddhists in Maritime Canada.

My research on Buddhist monasticism aims to investigate how Buddhist monasticism was transmitted from its origins in India and then adapted to become an integral part of society throughout East Asia. I specifically focus on how monastic literature aimed to define a Buddhist monastic “form of life,” and how this form of life in East Asia was both influenced by the societies Buddhism encountered, as well as how the Buddhist monastic form of life influenced those societies it encountered.

My research on Buddhism in North America also focuses on the question of the adaptation and integration of Buddhism, this time to North American societies, particularly among immigrant communities, and how these communities interact with and are understood, or misunderstood, by their “host” communities.