Heather Blair has been nominated by the ACLS to receive a translation grant from the Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation for Buddhist Studies for her new book project, Reverently I Pray. By providing literary translations of three dozen Buddhist prayer-texts (ganmon) written in Japan between the ninth and twelfth centuries, Blair’s book aims to stretch and alter how we think about prayer. Focusing on an expressly literary, non-theistic understanding of what it means to pray, this project invites English-language readers into the aesthetic and ritual dimensions of devotion to the buddhas. It also explores how doctrinal and devotional commitments play out in the everyday by asking how early medieval Buddhists grappled with life, death, anxiety, love, and hope.
The College of Arts