Lucia Dora Maria DOLCE

Lucia Dolce is Professor of Japanese Buddhism in the Department of Asian and Northern African Studies. She holds a first degree (laurea magistralis) from Ca'Foscari University of Venice (Italy) and a PhD from Leiden University (Netherlands). Before joining CaFoscari in 2026, Professor Dolce held the Numata Chair in Japanese Buddhism at SOAS University of London, where for more than two decades she also directed the Centre for the Study of Japanese Religions and the Centre of Buddhist Studies. She has held affiliations at several research institutions in Europe and in Asia.

Professor Dolce's wide-ranging, interdisciplinary work sits at the intersection of Buddhist Studies and Japanese Studies. It brings together archival research, textual and visual analysis and ethnographic fieldwork to examine the hermenutical practices of East Asian Buddhism and the performative and visual dimension of religion in Japan. Her historical focus has primarily been on the medieval period. She has published extensively, in English and in Japanese, on distinct East Asian Buddhist traditions, including the Lotus Sutra and the Tiantai/Tendai and Nichiren schools, Tantric Buddhism, as well as Shinto-Buddhist combinatory cults and ritual iconography.

She is currently carrying out two main research projects. The first draws on unpublished documents that have recently been uncovered in Japanese temples to map out the Buddhist discourse on the body in the ritual landscape of mediaeval Japan. It calls attention to the fluidity of ritual knowledge and the need of linking Japanese notions to continental (Tantric) practices. The second project deals with the relation between Buddhism and ‘Shinto’ in contemporary Japan and explores the revival of premodern combinatory practices in shrines of the Kyoto area.

CV

PUBLICATIONS

Books

Shinbutsu shūgō saikō「神仏習合」再考 [Rethinking Syncretism in Japanese Religion], edited with Mitsuhashi Tadashi, Tokyo: Bensei shuppan, 2013.

Japanese Religions, 4 vols., editor, London: SAGE Publications (SAGE Benchmarks in Religious Studies), 2012.

Girei no chikara –chūsei shūkyō no jissen sekai 儀礼の力—中世宗教の実践世界 [The Power of Ritual: The World of Religious Practice in Medieval Japan], edited with Matsumoto Ikuyo, Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2010.

Grammars and Morphologies of Ritual Practices in Asia. II. Ritual Discourse, Ritual Performance in China and Japan, edited with G. Raz and K. Triplett, Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz Verlag, 2010.

The Worship of Stars in Japanese Religious Practice, special issue of Culture and Cosmos. A Journal of the History of Astrology and Cultural Astronomy, vol. 10, no. 1-2, Spring-Autumn 2006. Now freely available online http://www.cultureandcosmos.org/issues/vol10.php

Encyclopaedia of Buddhism, vol.1 (2015) & vol.2 (2019); J Silk general editor, 5 vols, Leiden: Brill (coeditor).

Book chapters            

“A debt to Godai’in Annen: Taimitsu and the yogin consecration,” in Tendaigaku to shoshisō 天台学と諸思想, Ōkubo Ryōshun sensei koki kinen ronbunshū kankōkai 大久保良峻先生古稀記念論集刊行会, eds. Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2025, pp. 756-704 (inverted numeration).

“Suchness,” in Doing Metaphysics in a Diverse World. How to make sense of things across cultures, S Green ed., London: Bloomsbury, 2025, pp.315-340.

“A (Presumably) Chinese Tantric Scripture and Its Ritual Exegesis,” in Esoteric Buddhism and Texts, Volume I: Manuscript Culture and Transborder Transmission, edited by Jinhua Chen, Routledge, 2024, pp. 138-159. [Republished from Studies in Chinese Religions 7, 3-4]

“The Buddhist World of Hokusai: Lotus Practices and the Religious Frenzy of Urban Edo,” in Late Hokusai: Thought, Technique, Society, Legacy, Timothy Clark ed. London: British Museum Press (Research Publications 231), 2023, pp. 89-102. [open source]

“The Abhiṣeka of the Yogin: Bodily Practices and the Interiorization of Ritual in Medieval Japan,” in Rituals of Initiation and Consecration in Premodern Japan: Power and Legitimacy in Kingship, Religion and the Arts, edited by Fabio Rambelli and Or Porath, Berlin: DeGruyter, 2022, pp. 275-320.

“Saints, Sects, and (holy) Sites: The Jesuit Mapping of Japanese Buddhism,” in Interactions Between Rivals: The Christian Mission and Buddhist Sects in Japan (c.1549-c.1647), Alexandra Curvelo and Angelo Cattaneo eds., Peter Lang, 2022, pp. 67-107.  (with Ana Fernandes Pinto and Linda Zampol D’Ortia). [open source]

“..and the zasu changes his shoes: Combinatory Rituals in Contemporary Japan,” in Itineraries of an Anthropologist. Studies in Honour of Massimo Raveri, Silvia Rivadossi e Giovanni Bulian eds., Venice: Edizioni CaFoscari, 2021, pp. 151-181. OPEN SOURCE

“Di embrioni e di monaci: la creazione rituale del corpo nel tantrismo medievale giapponese,” in Riflessioni sul Giappone antico e moderno III, Paolo Villani, Naomi Hayashi, Luca Capponcelli (a cura di), Aracne editrice, 2018, pp. 41-76. OPEN SOURCE

 “The Embryonic Generation of the Perfect Body: Ritual Embryology from Japanese Tantric Sources,” in Transforming the Void: Embryological Discourse and Reproductive Imagery in East Asian Religions, Anna Andreeva and Dominic Steavu, eds. Leiden: Brill (Sir Henry Wellcome Asian Series), 2016, pp. 253-310.

“The Practice of Religion in Japan: An Exploration of the State of the Field,” in Handbook of Modern Japanese Studies, James Babb ed., Sage Publications, 2015, pp. 33-63 (reprint, with amendments and photos, of Dolce 2012).

“Possession and Exorcism in Japanese Religions,” in Spirit Possession around the World: Possession, Communion and Demon Expulsion Across Cultures, Joseph Laycock ed., ABC-CLIO, 2015, pp. 178-185.

 “Hokekyō to mikkyō 法華経と密教 [The Lotus Sutra and Tantric Buddhism],” in Hokekyō to Nichiren 法華経と日蓮, vol. 1 of Shirizu Nichiren, 5 vols, Komatsu Hōshō and Hanano Jūdō, eds, Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 2014, pp. 268-293.

“Daiei hakubutsukan zō no “Sanshū no jingi” zu: shinbutsu shūgō bijutsu to 19seiki Igirisu ni okeru Nihonteki shinkuretisumu rikai大英博物館蔵の「三種の神器」図神仏習合美術と１９世紀イギリスにおける日本的シンクレティズム理解 [The British Museum “Three Regalia Scrolls:” Shinbutsu Art and the Nineteenth-Century Representation of Japanese “Syncretism”], in Shinbutsu shūgō saikō「神仏習合」再考　[Rethinking Syncretism in Japanese Religion] Dolce and Mitsuhashi eds.,Tokyo: Bensei shuppan, 2013, pp. 338-382.

““Shinbutsu shūgō” o saikō suru tameni「神仏習合」を再考するために [Revisiting the Concept of kami-buddha Combination: Issues and Perspectives],” in Shinbutsu shūgō saikō 神仏習合」再考 [Rethinking Syncretism in Japanese Religion], Dolce and Mitsuhashi eds.,Tokyo: Bensei shuppan, 2013, pp. 5-26. (with T Mitsuhashi)

 “Reconsidering the Origins of Nichiren's "Great Mandala of the Lotus Sutra," in The Universal and International Nature of the Lotus Sutra, Hokekyō gakkai jitsugyō iinkai eds, Tokyo: Sankibō shoten, 2013, pp. 187-209.

“Taimitsu Rituals in Medieval Japan: Sectarian Competition and the Dynamics of Tantric Performance,” in Transformations and Transfer of Tantra in Asia and Beyond, Istvan Keul ed., Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter Publishers, 2012, pp. 329-364.

“The Practice of Religion in Japan: An Exploration of the State of the Field,” in Japanese Religions, vol. 1, L. Dolce, ed., Sage Publications, 2012, pp. xix-lvii.

 “Taimitsu: The Esoteric Buddhism of the Tendai School,” in Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia, Charles Orzech general ed., Leiden: Brill, 2011, pp. 744-767.

“Godai’in Annen,” In Esoteric Buddhism And The Tantras in East Asia, Charles Orzech general ed., Leiden: Brill, 2011, p. 768-775. (with S Mano)

“The contested space of Buddhist public rituals: the shūnie of Tōdaiji,” in Grammars and Morphologies of Ritual Practices in Asia, Michaels, Mishra, Dolce, Raz and Triplett, eds., Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz Verlag, 2010, pp. 433-458.

 “Nigenteki genri no gireika: Fudō, Aizen to chikara no hizō 二元的原理の儀礼化——不動・愛染と力の秘像 [Ritualizing Duality: Fudō, Aizen and the Secret Iconography of Empowerment],” in Girei no chikara, Dolce L. and Matsumoto Ikuyo eds., Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2010, pp. 159- 206.

“Nihon shūkyō kenkyū ni okeru gireigaku no ronten 日本宗教研究における儀礼学の論点“ [Ritual Theories and the Study of Japanese Religious Practices]” in Girei no chikara 儀礼の力, Dolce L. and Matsumoto Ikuyo eds., Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2010, pp. 3-28. (with I. Matsumoto)

“Girei ni yori seisei sareru kanzen naru shintai: chūsei mikkyō no ‘hiseitōteki zuzō’ to shuhō 儀礼により生成される完全なる身体—中世密教の「非正統的図像」と修法 [The perfected body attained through ritual], in Nihon ni okeru shūkyō tekusuto no shoisō to tōjihō 日本における宗教テクストの諸位相と統辞法 (Proceedings of the International Conference on Topology and Methodology of Japanese Religious Texts), Abe Yasurō ed., Nagoya daigaku bungakubu gurobaru COE puroguramu, 2008, pp. 58-71.

“Mapping the “Divine Country:” Sacred Geography and International Concerns in Mediaeval Japan,” in Korea in the Middle, Remco E. Breuker ed., Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2007, pp. 288-312.

 “Reconsidering the Taxonomy of the 'Esoteric': Taimitsu Hermeneutical and Ritual Practices," in The Culture of Secrecy in Japanese Religion, Mark Teeuwen and Bernard Scheid eds., London & New York, Routledge, 2006, pp. 130-71.

“Icons, scriptures, and their ritual use: reflections on nineteenth-century European understandings of Japanese Buddhism,” in La rencontre du Japon et de l'Europe: Images d'une découverte, Paris: Publication Orientalistes de France, 2006, pp. 57-78.

"Nichiren (1222-1282) Leader of Japanese Buddhism", Encyclopaedia of Leadership, Geothals and Sorenson, gen. eds., vols. 4, Sage Publications, 2004, vol. 3, pp. 1087-1091.

“Hokke Shinto: Kami in the Nichiren Tradition,” in Buddhas and Kami in Japan: Honji Suijaku as a Combinatory Paradigm, M. Teeuwen and F. Rambelli, eds., London: Curzon/Routledge, 2003, pp. 222-254.

“On the Use of Prophecy in Mediaeval Japan,” in Hokke bukkyō bunkashi ronsō 法華仏教文化史論叢 (Essays on the culture history of Lotus Buddhism), Watanabe Hōyō sensei koki kinen ronbunshū kankōkai ed., Kyoto: Heirakuji shoten, 2003, pp. 57-90.

“Nel nome del ‘vero’ dharma: ortodossia, strategie di legittimazione e conflitti religiosi nel buddismo giapponese,“ in Verso l’altro. Le religioni dal conflitto al dialogo, Massimo Raveri, ed., Marsilio, 2003, pp. 241-62.

“Between Duration and Eternity: Hermeneutics of the “Ancient Buddha” of the Lotus Sutra in Chih-i and Nichiren,” in A Buddhist Kaleidoscope: Essays on the Lotus Sutra, G. Reeves, ed., Tokyo: Kosei Publishing Co., 2002, pp. 223-239. French translation online ttp://www.nichiren-etudes.net/articles/eternite.htm

“Buddhist Hermeneutics in Medieval Japan. Canonical Texts, Scholastic Tradition and Sectarian Polemics,” in Canonization and Decanonization, A. van der Kooij and K. van der Toorn, ed., Leiden: Brill, 1998, pp. 229-243.

Journal articles

“A Sutra as a Notebook? Printing and Repurposing Scriptures in Medieval Japan,” Ars Orientalis 52 (special issue on “Re-use and recycling in Japanese visual and material culture”), 2023, pp. 40-72.

 “A (Presumably) Chinese Tantric Scripture and Its Ritual Exegesis: The Yuqijing 瑜祇經 and the practices of the yogin,” Studies in Chinese Religions 7, 3-4 (2022), pp. 1-32.

 “Duality and the kami: Reconfiguring Buddhist notions and ritual patterns,” Cahiers d’Extreme-Asie 16 (special issue on “Medieval Shinto”), 2009, pp. 119-150. 

“Taimitsu ni okeru hokekyō kaishaku to girei: hokkehō to hokke mandala ni tsuite 台密における法華経解釈と儀礼—法華法と法華曼陀羅について,” [Hermeneutics and Rituals of the Lotus Sutra: The Lotus Rite and the Lotus Mandala],  Tendai gakuhō 天台学報 [Journal of Tendai Buddhist Studies], 48 (special issue “International Tendai Studies”), 2007, pp. 13-32.

“The worship of celestial bodies in Japan: politics, rituals and icons,” in Dolce, L., ed., The Worship of Stars in Japanese Religious Practice, special issue of Culture and Cosmos. A Journal of the History of Astrology and Cultural Astronomy, vol. 10, no. 1-2, Spring-Autumn 2006, pp. 3-44.

“The State of the Field: A Basic Bibliography on Astrological Cultic Practices in Japan,” in Dolce, L., ed., The Worship of Stars in Japanese Religious Practice, special issue of Culture and Cosmos. A Journal of the History of Astrology and Cultural Astronomy, vol. 10, no. 1-2, Spring-Autumn 2006, pp. 45-48.”

“Criticism and Appropriation: Ambiguities in Nichiren's Attitude Towards Esoteric Buddhism,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 26: 3-4 (special issue: Revisiting Nichiren), 1999, pp. 349-382.

“Hora Est. 'The End of the Dharma' and Notions of History in Medieval Japan“ (in Dutch) Leidschrift 14: 2, 1999, pp. 87-107 (with  I. Smits).

“Esoteric Patterns in Nichiren's Thought,” Studies in Central & East Asian Religions 9, 1996, pp. 89-95.

 “Awareness of Mappō. Soteriological Interpretations of Time in Nichiren,” Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan (fourth series), 7, 1992, pp. 81-106.

Monograph

Esoteric Patterns in Nichiren’s Interpretation of the Lotus Sutra, Leiden University, 2002. Awarded the 12th Nakamura Hajime Prize (Best Book in Religious Studies by a Young Scholar), Tokyo, 2004.

Other (selected)

 “Performance, Asceticism and the Power of Ritual: The Repentance Liturgy of Tōdaiji,” Dharma World, 2015. Available also online (without images): https://rk-world.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/DW15_789.pdf

“Faith and Power in Japanese Buddhist Art 1600-2005,” Review article, Nihon bukkyō sōgō kenkyū, 2010.

“You May Detest This World, But You Cannot Escape It:” Engaged Lotus Buddhism In Medieval Japan,” Dharma World, 2006. Available also online (without images): http://www.rk-world.org/dharmaworld/dw_2007jmengagedlotus.aspx [French translation also available]

CSJR Newsletter, 2003-2016 (editor) www.soas.ac.uk/csjr/newsletter/