Christian Wedemeyer (University of Chicago)

Christian K. Wedemeyer
Assistant Professor of the History of Religions
The University of Chicago Divinity School
1025 East 58th Street
Chicago, IL 60637  USA

phone: 773-702-8265
fax:   773-702-8223
email: wedemeyer-at-uchicago.edu
email: ckw1-at-columbia.edu 

Description of Work:

My work centers primarily on the history, literature, philosophy, and 
praxis of Indian and Tibetan Buddhism(s).  Within this very general 
domain, the focus of my research has been the esoteric Buddhist traditions 
of the Mahaayoga Tantras, in particular that of the Guhyasamaaja Tantra.  
In addition to classical philological and historical methods, my approach 
to the field of Buddhist Studies stresses a critical attention to issues 
of epistemology and ideology native to modern scholarly inquiry.

My dissertation (Columbia, 1999) was entitled "Vajrayana and its
Doubles: A Critical Historiography, Exposition, and Translation of
the Tantric Works of Aryadeva."  I am currently finishing work on a 
text-critical edition of Aryadeva's Caryaa-melaapaka-pradiipa (editions of 
Sanskrit text and Rin-bzang's Tibetan translation, annotated English 
translation, and introduction).  My next project will likely focus on 
exegesis, hermeneutics, and the uses of language in Buddhist Tantric 
traditions.

I work in English, French, Tibetan (classical and modern), Sanskrit, and 
some Japanese, Hindi, Danish, Greek and Latin sources.

Areas of interest include: India, Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, and Mongolia.

Relevant disciplines include: history and historiography, semiotics, 
philosophy, religion / religious studies.

Special topics: Buddhist philosophy, Tantra / Tantrism, history of 
Buddhist Studies, hermeneutics, methodology.