1 Curriculum Vitae Indiana University, Department of Central Eurasian
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Curriculum Vitae CHRISTOPHER I. BECKWITH PROFESSOR Indiana University, Department of Central Eurasian Studies 157 Goodbody Hall, Bloomington, Indiana, 47405, USA (812) 855-2428 (office), (812) 855-2233 (department main office), (812) 361-1661 (mobile) [email protected], [email protected] EDUCATION Ph.D. specializing in Inner Asian studies, Department of Uralic and Altaic Studies, Indiana University, minoring in East Asian (Chinese and Japanese) studies and Altaic (Turkic and Mongolian) studies, November, 1977. Dissertation: ‘A Study of the Early Medieval Chinese, Latin, and Tibetan Historical Sources on Pre-Imperial Tibet’. Thesis director: Professor Dr. Helmut Hoffmann. Special Student, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan (dissertation research in Fu Ssu-nien Library, Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan) l974-l975. M.A. specializing in Tibetan, Department of Uralic and Altaic Studies, Indiana University, May, l974. Research Fellow, U.S. Department of State, Afghan-American Educational Commission, Kabul, 1972. M.A. Student, Graduate Department of Chinese Literature, National Taiwan University, Taipei, l968-l969. B.A. in Chinese, Ohio State University, March, l968. B.A. Student, School of Design, Architecture, and Art, University of Cincinnati, 1963-1965. ACADEMIC EMPLOYMENT Visiting Research Fellow, Käte Hamburger Kolleg “Dynamics in the History of Religions between Asia and Europe”, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, June 2011-August 2012. Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Humanities and Cultural Studies, Universität Wien (Institut für Orientalistik, Institut für Ostasienwissenschaften, and Institut für Südasien, Tibet und Buddhismuskunde), Febru- ary-June, 2009. Professeur Invité & Directeur d’Études, École Pratique des Hautes Études, IVe section (Section des Sciences Historiques et Philologiques), Sorbonne, Paris, May-June, 2008. Visiting Professor, Department of Religious Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara, June, 2007. Visiting Research Fellow, Institute for the Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Tokyo, Japan, August 2001-2002; September 2004-2005; July-August, 2007. Visiting Professor, National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan, May-December 1996. Full Professor, Department of Central Eurasian Studies, Indiana University, 1994–present. (Associate Professor with tenure, Department of Uralic and Altaic Studies, Indiana University, 1987-1994. Full member of the Graduate School, 1984–present. Tenure track, January, 1983. Member, East Asian Studies Center, 1983–present. Member, Medieval Studies Institute, 1980–present. Assistant Professor, Department of Uralic and Altaic Studies, January l978-1987. Lecturer, part-time, Department of Uralic and Altaic Studies, 1976-1977.) Visiting Professor of Chinese Studies and of Japanese Studies, School for Hawaiian, Asian, and Pacific Studies, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1987-1988. Instructor, English Department, Chih-li College, Pan-ch’iao, Taiwan, 1968-1969. SELECTED AWARDS AND HONORS Academy of Korean Studies, World Distinguished Scholar series lecturer, November 25-30, 2013. Japan Foundation (Kokusai Kôryû Kikin) Short-Term Fellowships; Tokyo, summer 2007, 2013. Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Long-term Research Fellowship, Tokyo, May-August, 2010. 2009 PROSE Award (first prize) of the Association of American Publishers (AAP) in the category ‘World History & Biography/Autobiography’ for Empires of the Silk Road (Princeton University Press 2009). Numata Distinguished Guest Speaker Series Lecturer, University of Oxford, June, 2008. Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (2004); Bloomington and Dénia, Spain, September 2005-June 2006. Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad Fellowship; Tokyo, 2004-2005. Japan Foundation (Kokusai Kôryû Kikin) Long-term Fellowship; Tokyo, 2001-2002. Indiana University Overseas Research Grant for ‘Tangut Phonology Project’; Leiden, June 2000. Outstanding Young Faculty Award, Indiana University, summer 1986. MacArthur Fellowship, The MacArthur Foundation, 1986-1991. 1 RESEARCH Current Primary Research Fields Early Buddhism and Early Pyrrhonism; Central Eurasian and East Asian history and linguistics; religious and philosophical interaction between Central Eurasian and peripheral cultures; early Indic epigraphy; Old Chi- nese reconstruction; Old Tibetan linguistics; Southeast Asian linguistics; Tokharian; Aramaic. BOOKS Research Books in Progress Greek Buddha: Pyrrho’s encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia and India and the reshaping of European thought. On the philosophy of Pyrrho of Elis; the kind of Buddhism that influenced him when he was in Bactria and Gandhāra with Alexander the Great; the near-contemporary evidence of Megasthe- nes and the Mauryan inscriptions; and the impact of Pyrrho’s revolutionary philosophy in the West. Completed manuscript submitted to Princeton University Press, December 23, 2013. Chinese and Central Eurasians in Contact: Language and Culture from the Bronze Age to the Middle Ages. A strictly linguistic reconstruction of the morphophonology of early Chinese, based on texts and loanwords shared in both directions with neighboring languages, especially Tibetan and Japanese-Koguryoic. Long-term project making steady progress. Four new papers written in summer, 2013. The spread of Scythian and Persian political-religious systems and the accumulation of wealth in the Axial Age. A study of the Central Eurasian Culture Complex in the Scythian Empire and the Persian Empire, focusing on the the stunning financial success of the ruling class and the merchants, and its implications for the development of rulership theories, metaphysics, and other topics dwelt on by ancient philosophers. Large-scale project seeking major grant funding. A Korean translation of my book Empires of the Silk Road has been accepted and is to be published in 2014. A Japanese translation of my book Empires of the Silk Road is underway; it will hopefully be published soon. Research Books Published Tufan zai zhongya: zhonggu zaoqi tufan, dashi, tangchao zhengduo shi [吐蕃在中亚 : 中古早期吐蕃、 大食、唐朝 争夺史]. Chinese translation of Tibetan Empire in Central Asia (1993). Urumchi: Xinjiang renmin chu- banshe, 2012. Warriors of the Cloisters: The Central Asian Origins of Science in the Medieval World. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012. (On the Buddhist origins of the college and the scientific method.) İpek Yolu İmparatorlukları: Bronz Çağı’ndan Günümüze Orta Asya Tarihi. (Turkish translation of Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009.) Ankara: ODTÜ Yayıncılık, 2011. Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. Revised paperback edition, 2011. ★ Medieval Tibeto-Burman Languages III. Halle: IITBS GmbH, 2008. Majority author and editor. Koguryo, the Language of Japan’s Continental Relatives: An Introduction to the Historical-Comparative Study of the Japanese-Koguryoic Languages, with a Preliminary Description of Archaic Northeastern Middle Chinese. Second Edition. Leiden: Brill, 2007. (Third printing, 2008.) ★ Phoronyms: Classifiers, Class Nouns, and the Pseudopartitive Construction. New York: Peter Lang, 2007. ★ Medieval Tibeto-Burman Languages II. Leiden: Brill, 2006. Majority author and editor. Koguryŏ: Ilbon-ŭl taeryuk-kwa yŏngyŏlsik’yŏ junŭn ŏn’ŏ. Korean translation of 2004 book. Seoul: Koguryŏ yŏn’gu chaedan, 2006. Koguryo, the Language of Japan’s Continental Relatives: An Introduction to the Historical-Comparative Study of the Japanese-Koguryoic Languages, with a Preliminary Description of Archaic Northeastern Middle Chinese. Leiden: Brill, 2004. ★ Medieval Tibeto-Burman Languages. Leiden: Brill, 2002. Editor and major contributor. The Tibetan Empire in Central Asia: A History of the Struggle for Great Power among Tibetans, Turks, Ar- abs, and Chinese during the Early Middle Ages. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987; revised edi- tion with a new afterword, 1993; reprinted continuously to present. Silver on Lapis: Tibetan Literary Culture and History. Bloomington: Tibet Soc., 1987. Ed. and contributor. 2 ARTICLES Research Articles in Progress The earliest Chinese words for ‘the Chinese’ and ‘China’: At the inception of the Axial Age in China. Manuscript undergoing revision, 19 pp. single spaced. On the authenticity of the “Aśokan” inscriptions. International Association for Buddhist Studies, Vienna, 2014, conference paper accepted; manuscript draft, 6 pp. single spaced. Apocope of Late Old Chinese short *a. Manuscript, 7 pp. single spaced. Joint paper with G.N. Kiyose, in progress. From Early Old Tibetan to Late Old Tibetan: Analysis of the major narrative texts on the Tibetan Empire. Joint paper with M.L. Walter, in progress. The Earliest Attested Turkic Language: The Chieh 羯 (*Kɨr) Language of the Fourth Century A.D. Jointly with Andrew Shimunek, Jonathan Anderson, Nicholas Kontovas, and Kurban Niyaz. Final manuscript, 15 pp. single-spaced. (On a Buddhist prophecy in an archaic Turkic language.) Research Articles Accepted and Forthcoming The Aramaic source of the East Asian word for ‘monastery’: Aspects of the Central Asian origin of the Buddhist vihāra in the Saka-Kushan Period. Journal Asiatique 302.1 (2014): 109-136. The pronunciation, origin, and meaning of A-shih-na in early Old Turkic. Eurasia in the Middle Ages: Studies in Honour of Peter B. Golden. Ed.