Laurent Van Cutsem 方洛杭, Ph.D.
BOF Postdoctoral Fellow, Ghent University

I am a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Languages and Cultures at Ghent University and a member of the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies. I hold a Ph.D. in Oriental Languages and Cultures (Sinology) from Ghent University (2023) and have been a long-term Visiting Researcher at Zhejiang University and the University of Tokyo.

I am a historian of Buddhist textual culture in medieval China, specializing in Chan (Zen) 禪 literature from the mid-Tang 唐 to the early Song 宋 (ca. 750–1050). My research investigates the formation, transmission, and canonization of Chan texts, with particular attention to manuscripts from the northwestern Silk Road oasis of Dunhuang 敦煌 and to woodblock editions of the Chinese Buddhist canon, beginning with the Kaibao Canon 開寶藏 in the late tenth century. Methodologically, my work is grounded in philology, codicology, and textual criticism, while also engaging Digital Humanities approaches.

My doctoral dissertation, “The Zutang ji 祖堂集: Aspects of Textual History, Genealogy, and Intertextuality” (Ghent University, 2023), analyzed the compilation history, genealogical structure, and textual sources of this mid-tenth-century anthology. Preserved only in the woodblock edition of the second Goryeo Buddhist canon, the Zutang ji is the earliest extant Chan history organized around a complex, multi-branched genealogical framework and remains the principal source for the lives and recorded exchanges of hundreds of Chan masters active during the Tang and Five Dynasties periods. My study reassessed long-standing assumptions about its textual history and lineage model, while clarifying its relationship to earlier Chan literature such as the Baolin zhuan 寶林傳 (ca. 801) and the Quanzhou Qianfo xinzhu zhuzushi song 泉州千佛新著諸祖師頌 (ca. 926–944).

My current monograph project focuses on the formation of Chan historiography between the early ninth and early eleventh centuries. It examines the earliest extant Chan “lamp records” (denglu 燈錄) from this period, from the Baolin zhuan to the Tiansheng guangdeng lu 天聖廣燈錄 (prefaced in 1036), analyzing how their compilers constructed genealogical frameworks, reshaped bio-hagiographic narratives, and adapted historiographical conventions from both Buddhist and court histories. Particular attention is given to the incorporation of these works into state-sponsored canonical projects and to the dynamics of manuscript and print transmission. Related projects address the fourteenth-century Japanese commentary Keitoku dentōroku shōchū 景德傳燈錄抄註 (post-1316) and its use of quotations from otherwise lost sections of the Baolin zhuan, as well as the different Song recensions of the Tiansheng guangdeng lu.

I also contribute to the Database of Medieval Chinese Texts (DMCT), particularly in the collection and encoding of variant characters (yitizi 異體字) and by producing XML-based, TEI-compliant scholarly editions of Chan texts, including Dunhuang manuscripts such as Or.8210/S.1635 (Quanzhou Qianfo xinzhu zhuzushi song) and Or.8210/S.4478 (Shengzhou ji 聖冑集).

My research interests include premodern Chan/Zen literature; Chinese Buddhism through the Song; Dunhuang manuscripts; East Asian manuscript and print culture; Chinese writing systems and variant characters; and Digital Humanities methodologies for East Asian studies, including TEI-based scholarly digital editions and historical social network analysis.

Links:
Curriculum Vitae
Ghent University Research Portal & Database of Medieval Chinese Texts
Google Scholar
Orchid ID
Academia.edu

Contact Information:
Dr. Laurent Van Cutsem
Email: laurent.vancutsem[at}ugent.be (replace {at} with @)
Ghent University, Department of Languages and Cultures
Blandijnberg 2, 5th Floor, Office 150.008, B-9000 Gent, Belgium