Lin New Holder of European Chair of Chinese Studies
The scholar of Buddhism, Professor Lin Chen-kuo, became the new holder of the European Chair of Chinese Studies in September of this year. Like his predecessors Fu and Shen, he will spend one year in Leiden carrying out research and lecturing at the Sinological Institute.
In1996 the Bureau of International Cultural & Educational Relations (BICER), Republic of China, and the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) signed a Memorandum of Understanding. It was decided to establish a 'European Chair of Chinese Studies at IIAS', in the field of the Humanities and Social Sciences for an initial period of five years.
Professor Fu Pei-jung, Department of Philosophy, Tai Da University in Taipei, was the first scholar to hold the Chair in 1997. Labelled 'the man with the golden mouth' in IIAS Newsletter 15, Fu considers it his moral duty to imbue youngsters with Confucian values. Besides organizing a seminar on 'Values in Chinese Philosophy' and writing productively, he taught a course on the Confucian Analects for students in Leiden.
One year later Professor Vincent Shen from the Department of Philosophy, National Cheng-Chi University, Taipei, was appointed the second occupant of the Chair. Shen, a scholar of Taoism, studied and lectured the philosophy of Chuang Tzu during his stay in the Netherlands. An interview with Professor Shen will be published in the next issue of the IIAS Newsletter.
Recently, in September of this year, Professor Lin Chen-kuo, like Shen attached to the Department of Philosophy at National Cheng-Chi University, became the new holder of the European Chair of Chinese Studies. He will to stay on until September 2000 and will teach a course on Chinese Buddhism at the Sinological Institute of Leiden University. Lin plans to concentrate on two specific topics of research during his stay at the IIAS: 'Yogacara Buddhism in China: a study and translation of the Samdhinirmocana Sutra' and 'Building a Pure Land at Earth: Master Yin-shun and Buddhism in Taiwan'. *