John Lo Breglio - Oxford Brookes University

Mr John Lo Breglio

Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies

School of English and Modern Languages

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Phone number: +44 (0)1865 484105

Email: jlobreglio@brookes.ac.uk

Location: Headington Campus, Tonge Block,T607

John LoBreglio has taught courses on various aspects of Japanese religious history at Dōshisha University in Kyoto, the Antioch College Buddhist Studies Program, Kyoto, the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, and the British Museum's Postgraduate Diploma Course in Asian Arts. He has also taught Japanese language (Unseen Translation and Reading Japanese Texts) at the Oriental Institute, Oxford University. John has an M.A. in Religious Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and has completed doctoral coursework both there and at Kyoto University.

Teaching

Modules taught

Undergraduate

Advanced Japanese Reading and Translation
Japan: Myth and Reality
Introduction to Japanese Society
Japanese Religions (2 years on; 2 years off)
Making of Modern Japan (2 years on; 2 years off)

Research

John LoBreglio's doctoral research examines the doctrinal, ritual and institutional modernisation of Sōtō Zen Buddhism during the Meiji period (1868-1911) and considers the implications that these changes have for the Buddhist institutions in contemporary Japan.

He is also interested in the study of Japanese religions from pre-history to the present, East Asian Buddhism generally, and methodological issues in the study of religion.

Publications

Journal articles

LoBreglio J, 'Orthodox, Heterodox, Heretical: Defining Doctrinal Boundaries in Meiji-period * Zen'
Bochumer Jahrbuch zur Ostasienforschung 33 (2009) pp.77-102
ISSN: 0170-0006
LoBreglio John, 'Uniting Buddhism: The Varieties of Tsūbukkyō in Meiji-Taishō Japan and the Case of Takada Dōken'
Eastern Buddhist 37 (1 & 2) (2005) pp.39-76
ISSN: 0012-8708
Lo Breglio J, 'The revisions to the religious corporations law: an introduction and annotated translation'
Japanese Religions 22 (1) (1997)
ISSN: 0448-8954
Abstract [No abstract available]

Book chapters

LoBreglio J, 'Dashed hopes: Japanese Buddhist perspectives on the Paris Peace Conference' in Asia after Versailles: Asian perspectives on the Paris Peace Conference and the Post-War World, 1919-1933, Edinburgh University Press (2017)
ISBN: 9781474417167 eISBN: 9781474417181
Website
LoBreglio, J.S., 'Watanabe Kaigyoku: The Hopes of Buddhists for the Peace Conference (Japan 1918)' in Hans Martin Kraemer (ed.), Religious Dynamics in the Age of Imperialism and Colonialism, Leiden: Brill Publishers. (2016)
ISBN: 978-9004325111
LoBreglio, J.S., '“Genron no jiyū to sono aimai na genkai – Igirisu kara no hannō” (“Freedom of Expression and its Ambiguous Limits: The British Reaction,” in The Mohammed Cartoons”)' in Mori Koichi (ed.), EU to isuraamu no shūkyō dentō wa kyōzon dekiru ka: “Muhanmado no fūshiga” jiken no honshitsu EUとイスラームの宗教伝統は共存できるか: ｢ムハンマドの風刺画｣事件の本質., Tokyo: Meiseki shoten (2007)

Other publications

LoBreglio, J.S., 'Review of Purifying Zen: Watsuji Tetsuro’s Shamon Dogen, by Steve Bein'
Japan Review: Journal of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (2013) ISSN: 0915-0986
LoBreglio, J.S., 'Review of Yasukuni: the War Dead and the Struggle for Japan's Past, by John Breen, ed.'
School of Oriental and African Studies, Centre for the Study of Japanese Religions Newsletter (2009)
LoBreglio, J.S., 'Review of Neither Monk nor Layman: Clerical Marriage in Modern Japanese Buddhism, by Richard Jaffe.'
The Journal of Asian Studies (2003) ISSN: 0021-9118 eISSN: 1752-0401
LoBreglio, J.S., '“Japan Buddhist Federation”'
(2001)
LoBreglio, J.S., '“Nipponzan Myohoji”'
(2001)

Professional information

Conferences

February 2016, 'Early 20th c. Japanese Buddhist Perceptions of Western Imperialism and Why they Matter’, Europe Japan Research Centre (EJRC), Oxford Brookes University.
September 2015, 'Japanese Buddhist Perceptions of Western Imperialism', British Association of Japanese Studies (BAJS) Annual Conference, the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.
July 2015, ‘Japanese Buddhist Perspectives on the Paris Peace Conference and Early Twentieth-Century Imperialism’, Ōtani University, Kyoto, Japan, Department of Buddhist Studies, Faculty of Letters, ‘Public Talks’ Series.
October 2013 'Japanese Buddhists and Twentieth-Century Imperialism,' Centre for the Study of Japanese Religions, School of Oriental and African Studies.
June 2009 'Buddhist Visions of Race Before, During and After Versailles', Symposium: Asia after Versailles, 1919-1933, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München, Germany.
April 2009 'Standardizing Lay Training in Meiji-period Sōtō Zen', Numata Buddhist Studies Conference: Buddhist Training in Japan, University of Toronto.
April 2009 'Orthodox, Heterodox, Heretical: Defining Doctrinal Boundaries in Meiji-period Sōtō Zen',Workshop: Defining Religion, Defining Heresy in Meiji-period Japan, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
March 2005 'On the Fault Lines of Japanese Buddhism: Takada Dōken's Vision of a Non-sectarian Buddhism', International Association for the History of Religion (IAHR) Conference, Tokyo.
December 2001 'The Essence of Sōtō Zen', School of Oriental and African Studies, London University.
October 1999 'Fashioning Doctrine in Meiji Sōtō Zen: The Case of the Shushōgi', Sōtō Zen Conference, Stanford University.
August 1999 'Fashioning Doctrine in Meiji Sōtō Zen: The Case of the Shushōgi', International Association of Buddhist Studies Conference, Lausanne, Switzerland.
November 1998 'Ōuchi Seiran and Buddhist Modernization in Meiji Japan', at meeting of the 'Asian Studies Group', Stanford Center, Kyoto, Japan.
May 1998 '神道とエコロジー’ ('Shinto and Ecology') at the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine, Kyoto, Japan.

Staff Profiles