For a number of years, William Deal and Brian Ruppert have talked about collaborating on a book about medieval Japanese Buddhism. This spring, the two religion scholars will move forward with their project, with support from the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities' Visiting Collaborators' Program.

Deal, associate professor and chair of CWRU's department of religion, first encountered Ruppert, an associate professor in the department of East Asian languages and cultures at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in 1986. Ruppert was a graduate student in Deal's seminar on reading Buddhist sutras at the University of Iowa.

Over the years, they corresponded from their respective cities and discussed taking a new approach to the study of medieval Japanese Buddhism from roughly 1000-1600 CE. Instead of examining the religion solely through its doctrines, Deal and Ruppert both are interested in exchanges between Japanese Buddhism and politics, society and other cultural contexts.

"This Baker-Nord program is enormously beneficial," Deal said. "Here is a way for the university as a whole to utilize the expertise of someone from the outside and to learn about the research of those of us engaged in the humanities."

The Baker-Nord center grant will bring the two together April 17-23 at CWRU so they can map out plans for a new manuscript, possibly an edited volume on Buddhism or a co-authored book.

At the same time, Ruppert will have several opportunities to talk about his work, including his book Jewel in the Ashes: Buddha Relics and Power in Early Medieval Japan (Harvard University Press, 2000).

Ruppert also will meet with students from Deal's "Interpreting Buddhist Text" class and give a presentation to the two-year-old Interdisciplinary Initiative on Religion and Culture.

Deal is particularly excited that Ruppert will present his work to the Initiative, because the religion department has been focusing its programs-including the major and mionor-on issues of religion and culture.

In a related program, Baker-Nord Center also offers grants through the CWRU Undergraduate Instruction and Graduate Research in the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. The instructional enhancement program funds activities like field trips, speakers or performers or special course materials to augment classroom instructions in the humanities.

Grant proposals for both programs are due March 21.