Caleb Carter is the Japan Foundation
Post-doctoral Fellow in the Program of East Asian Studies at Johns Hopkins
University (2016-2018). He received his B.A. in Continental Philosophy from Colorado
College and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies, both from the Department of
Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA. He is currently preparing a book
manuscript (based on his dissertation) on the historical formation of a
mountain-based school of Buddhism in Japan known as Shugendō through a case
study of Mount Togakushi (Nagano Prefecture). As a second project, he is investigating
the recent conceptualization of certain Shinto shrines in Japan as “power spots”
(
pawa-supotto), or places believed to
emit special energies. His publications include “Constructing a Place,
Fracturing a Geography: The Case of the Japanese Tendai Cleric, Jōin,”
History of Religions 56.3 (February
2017); and “Jōin no tsukurikaeta Sannō Ichijitsu Shintō: Togakushisan no ichi
wo meggute” [Jōin’s Transformation of Sannō Ichijitsu Shintō: Considering the
Role of Mount Togakushi],
Kikan Nihon
Shisōshi, vol. 82 (July 2017).