Jessica Main
Research Area
About
Office: Enter the Choi Building and proceed up the stairs to second floor. At the top of the stairs, you will be facing the IAR main office in Room 251. Turn left and go to the very end of the hallway. My office is in the last cluster on the right. Office hours are by appointment here
Jessica began work at UBC in 2009 as the Tung Lin Kok Yuen Canada Foundation Chair and Director of UBC’s Buddhism and Contemporary Society Program. In 2014, the program was renamed The Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhism and Contemporary Society, and both the chair and program form part of a network of academic institutions and scholars around the world supported by The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation 何鴻毅家族基金. Her research concerns modern Buddhist ethics, social action, and institutional life in East and Southeast Asia. She completed her dissertation on the modern history of human rights and descent-based discrimination in Japanese True Pure Land, or Shin Buddhism, at McGill University. She has had the opportunity to work with a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) funded project on religion and health, investigating possible contributions of Buddhism to a physician’s ethic. She is also a member of the steering committee for the International Association of Shin Buddhist Studies (IASBS).
https://ubc.academia.edu/JessicaMain
Teaching
Research
Buddhism, Ethics, and Human Rights
Modern Buddhist Institutions, Law, and Governance
Buddhists and Buddhist Institutions Active in Modern Society: Social Welfare, Healthcare and Healing, Rehabilitation, Incarceration and Corrections
Modern Japanese Religions and Society
Japanese True Pure Land Buddhism (Jōdo Shinshū 浄土真宗)