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A.E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist Studies
Department Chair

• Affiliation(s)

  • Asian Languages and Cultures
  • Center for Chinese Studies
  • Center for South Asian Studies
  • Center for Southeast Asian Studies
  • Michigan Society of Fellows

• About

  Research Interests

  Professor Lopez has written widely on Indian Mahayana Buddhism and on Tibetan Buddhism.  He has also explored the European encounter with Buddhism and the formation of the category of Modern Buddhism, including claims for the compatibility of Buddhism and Science. His current projects include the translation (in collaboration with Thupten Jinpa) of a refutation of the Buddhist doctrines of emptiness and rebirth by the Jesuit missionary to Tibet, Ippolito Desideri (1684-1733); a study of the influence of the Lotus Sutra; a study of the medieval tale Barlaam and Josaphat (in collaboration with Peggy McCracken), and a translation of an eighteenth-century Tibetan compendium of Buddhist philosophy. Professor Lopez advises graduate students working in a range of traditions and periods in the history of Tibetan Buddhism.

  Recent Courses Taught

  Introduction to Buddhism
  Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism
  History of Buddhist Studies
  Advanced Classical Tibetan

  Recent Publications

  • A Short History of the Buddha, University of Chicago Press, forthcoming
  • Buddhism: Norton Anthology of World Religions, Norton, forthcoming  
  • The Tibetan Book of the Dead: A Biography, Princeton University Press, 2011
  • Introduction to the History of Indian Buddhism by Eugène Burnouf (translated with Katia Buffetrille), University of Chicago Press, 2010
  • In the Forest of Faded Wisdom: 104 Poems by Gendun Chopel, University of Chicago Press, 2009
  • Buddhism and Science: A Guide for the Perplexed, University of Chicago Press, 2008

• Education

  • Ph.D., University of Virginia, 1982