Professor Meir Shahar

Professor Meir Shahar is a historian of Chinese religion and culture. His dual interest in Chinese and religious studies was kindled as an undergraduate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He pursued Chinese Studies in Taiwan and later the United States, where he was awarded his PhD in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California Berkeley, Meir Shahar chose Tel Aviv University as his academic home. He is currently the Shoul N. Eisenberg Chair for East Asian Affairs at Tel Aviv University.

Professor Shahar’s research interests span the diverse fields of Chinese religion and literature, Chinese Buddhism, Chinese martial-art history, Chinese psychology, and, most recently, animal studies. He is the author and/or editor of ten books and dozens essays, which have been published in six languages. Meir Shahar is currently leading a five-year research project on the lay Buddhist priests of rural South China. As part of this project, he leads young scholars to remote Southern-Chinese villages, where they interview local priests and scan their hitherto unstudied ritual manuscripts. These treasured texts attest to the astonishing historical continuity of the Chinese religious tradition. Transmitted from father to son over hundreds of years, they outline rites that are traceable all the way back to the early Medieval period.