William LaFleur
Professor William LaFleur is E. Dale Saunders Professor in Japanese Studies and distinguished professor of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He did graduate work in Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan and received the Ph.D. in the History of Religions at the University of Chicago. He has taught at Princeton, UCLA, and Sophia University in Tokyo and in 1989 was the first non-Japanese recipient of the Watsuji Tetsurô Culture Prize for scholarship. His research interests are primarily in two areas: Buddhism and the literary arts in medieval Japan and comparative ethics, particularly with regard to the ways the religious and philosophical traditions of Japan impact Japanese attitudes regarding sexuality, abortion, medicine, and bioethics. Among his books are Mirror for the Moon: Poetry by Saigyô 1118-1190 (1978); The Karma of Words: Buddhism and the Literature Arts in Medieval Japan (University of California Press, 1986), Buddhism: A Cultural Perspective (Prentice-Hall, 1988); Liquid Life: Abortion and Buddhism in Japan (Princeton University Press, 1992). He edited Zen and Western Thought: Essays by Masao Abe (1985), recipient of a prize from the American Academy of Religion, and Dôgen Studies (1985), both books published by the University of Hawaii Press, and his monograph Awesome Nightfall: The Life, Death, and Poetry of Saigyô was published in 2003. He is currently completing work on a volume that studies Japanese critics of American biotechnology and bioethics and co-editing a volume entitled Practicing the Afterlife: Perspectives from Japan.