About

Micah Auerback is an Associate Professor of Japanese Religion at the University of Michigan's Department of Asian Languages and Cultures. He holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University, obtained in 2007. His research focuses on Buddhist Studies, with particular interests in Korea and Japan, and he is involved in the study of religion within these cultural contexts. His office is located at 202 South Thayer Street, Ann Arbor, MI, and he can be contacted via email or phone at the provided contact details.

Research topics

• Theology
• Philosophy
• Religious studies
• History
• Art history
• Archaeology
• Art

Selected publications

• Book Reviews Hwansoo Ilmee Kim. Empire of the Dharma: Korean and Japanese Buddhism, 1877-1912

  Institutional Repositories DataBase (IRDB)

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  Hwansoo Ilmee Kim's Empire of the Dharma stands as the first published study, in any language, of the intertwined fates of Japanese and Korean clerical communities in the era surrounding the Japanese Empire's annexation of the Korean kingdom in 1910.Whether published in Korean, Japanese, or English, virtually all previous research on this topic has focused lopsidedly on only one of the two sides.In its effort to treat sources and perspectives from both the Japanese and Korean sides, and its use not only of republished and digitized sources but also of literature produced within the various denominations of Japanese Buddhism, this study indicates promising paths for further research.The content of the book falls into two sections, the first laying the ground for the second.Chapters 1 through 4 constitute the preparatory section for the main argument in the book.They summarize the very different histories of Buddhism on the Korean peninsula and the Japanese archipelago.These chapters show how Japanese Buddhist clerics began to arrive in Korea and to meet with interested Korean monks almost as soon as Korea was forcibly "opened" to enhanced contact with Japan in the 1870s.They then focus on the outreach activities of (and rivalries among) Japanese monks from various groups (Okumura Enshin of the tani-ha; Sano Zenrei of the Nichiren-sh; Hiroyasu Shinzui of the Jdo-sh; and tani Sonp of the Honganji-ha).Finally, they narrate how, after Korea's reduction to a Japanese protectorate in 1906, Korean monks and temples rushed to affiliate with Japanese denominations in a desperate attempt to secure their safety, property, and livelihood.The second part of this book-and its heart-lies in chapters 4 through 8.These track the most infamous case of Japanese Buddhist "spiritual conquest"

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• 釈迦像の近代化　—大正・昭和初期の演劇・脚本を中心に

  Institutional Repositories DataBase (IRDB) · 2024-03-31

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• The Institute for the Defense of the Dharma and the Study of Christianity in a Japanese Buddhist Context, 1858–1872

  BRILL eBooks · 2023 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Religious studies
  • Philosophy
  • Theology

  Threatened by an imminent influx of Euro-American Christian missionaries starting from the late 1850s, some Japanese Buddhist intellectuals began to study Christianity in order to refute it. Kōzan’in (Higuchi) Ryūon, of the Ōtani denomination of True Pure Land Buddhism, served in its short-lived Institute for the Defense of the Dharma, and he researched Christian texts produced by missionaries active in China. Ryūon’s multiple refutations of Christian doctrine reflect an unprecedented level of study in geopolitics and Protestantism, but his apologetics are also deeply informed by traditional Buddhist critiques of the “heresy” of monotheism.

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• Sasaki Gesshō, Seishinshugi, and the Buddha Śākyamuni

  University of Hawaii Press eBooks · 2022-04-30

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• Chapter 10. Sasaki Gesshō, Seishinshugi, and the Buddha Śākyamuni

  University of Hawaii Press eBooks · 2022

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  • Philosophy
  • Art
  • Theology
  PublisherDOI

• Behold the Buddha: Religious Meanings of Japanese Buddhist Icons. By James C. Dobbins. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2020. xiv, 269 pp. ISBN: 9780824879990 (paper).

  The Journal of Asian Studies · 2021

  1st authorCorresponding
  • History
  • Religious studies
  • Theology

  An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.

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• Recent Scholarship about Engaged Buddhism in Modern Japan

  History of Religions · 2019-10-23 · 1 citations

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• Seeking Śākyamuni: South Asia in the Formation of Modern Japanese Buddhism, by Richard M. Jaffe

  Journal of Religion in Japan · 2019-12-17

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• 1. The Buddha as Preceptor

  2016-01-01

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  Abstract Despite the long-term decline in institutional Buddhism in Japan, retellings and reworkings of the life of the Buddha there remain prominent in the public eye. The Introduction explains that this apparent paradox may be addressed by tracing its deep historical origins and development. From its start, the life of the Buddha in Japan was unusual: even the earliest scriptural versions of the life of the Buddha to become influential in Japan, such as the Guoqu xianzai yinguo jing, vary significantly from the humanist Buddha well known in the Anglophone world; nor does the Buddha in Japan necessarily appear in poses familiar elsewhere in Buddhist Asia, such as the bhumisparsa mudra; and jataka tales of the former lives of the Buddha reached Japan, but largely ceased to be important after its medieval period. The Introduction concludes with a summary of the book structure and individual chapters.

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• A Storied Sage: Canon and Creation in the Making of a Japanese Buddha

  2016-12-07 · 1 citations

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  Since its arrival in Japan in the sixth century, Buddhism has played a central role in Japanese culture. But the historical figure of the Buddha, the prince of ancient Indian descent who abandoned his wealth and power to become an awakened being, has repeatedly disappeared and reappeared, emerging each time in a different form and to different ends. A Storied Sage traces this transformation of concepts of the Buddha, from Japan's ancient period in the eighth century to the end of the Meiji period in the early twentieth century. Micah L. Auerback follows the changing fortune of the Buddha through the novel uses for the Buddha's story in high and low culture alike, often outside of the confines of the Buddhist establishment. Auerback argues for the Buddha's continuing relevance during Japan's early modern period and links the later Buddhist tradition in Japan to its roots on the Asian continent. Additionally, he examines the afterlife of the Buddha in hagiographic literature, demonstrating that the late Japanese Buddha, far from fading into a ghost of his former self, instead underwent an important reincarnation. Challenging many established assumptions about Buddhism and its evolution in Japan, A Storied Sage is a vital contribution to the larger discussion of religion and secularization in modernity.

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Frequent coauthors

• Kawase Takaya

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