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Stephan Kigensan Licha joined the University of Chicago Divinity School from the Department of Japanese Studies at the University of Heidelberg. He received his PhD from SOAS (London) in 2012. Prof. Licha specializes in the intellectual history of Japanese Buddhism, with an emphasis on the interactions between the pre-modern tantric, Tendai, and Zen traditions, and the global history of Buddhist modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His monograph is entitled Esoteric Zen: Zen and the Tantric Teachings in Premodern Japan (Brill, 2023).

His appointment is part of our ongoing emphasis on extending our teaching and research capacities into new disciplines, traditions, time periods, and geographical locales. It is made possible through the generous support of the Numata Foundation.