Jack Meng-Tat Chia

Jack Meng-Tat Chia (simplified Chinese: 谢明达; traditional Chinese: 謝明達) FRHistS is a Singaporean Buddhologist and historian. He is currently the Foo Hai Ch'an Monastery Fellow in Buddhist Studies and an associate professor of history at the National University of Singapore. Chia is the founding chair of the Buddhist Studies Group and the convenor of the GL Louis Religious Pluralism Research Cluster at NUS.

Jack Meng-Tat Chia
謝明達
Born	Singapore
Nationality	Singaporean
Alma mater	National University of Singapore (BA) (MA) Harvard University (MA) Cornell University (PhD)
Occupation	Academic
Notable work	Monks in Motion (2020)
Website	https://jackchia.com/

Education

Born and raised in Singapore, Chia received his BA and MA in history from the National University of Singapore and his second MA in East Asian Studies from Harvard University, where he was a Harvard-Yenching Institute Fellow. He received his PhD in history at Cornell University, where his dissertation won the Lauriston Sharp Prize. He studied with Anne Blackburn, P. Steven Sangren, and Eric Tagliacozzo at Cornell.

Research

Chia specializes in Buddhism and Chinese religions in Southeast Asia and authored Monks in Motion: Buddhism and Modernity Across the South China Sea (Oxford, 2020), which won the 2021 EuroSEAS Humanities Book Prize and shortlisted for the 2023 Friedrich Weller Prize.Monks in Motion explores the intertwined history of Buddhist communities across China and maritime Southeast Asia during the twentieth century. It introduces the concept of "South China Sea Buddhism" to describe the form of Buddhism that developed in maritime Southeast Asia through a complex web of correspondence networks, forced exiles, voluntary visits, missionary efforts, institution-building campaigns, and the organizational work of Chinese and Chinese diasporic Buddhist monks.

Chia is currently developing three book projects: Buddhayana: The Making of an Indonesian Buddhist Movement, Southeast Asia’s Dharma: Essays on Buddhism in Singapore, and Figures of Buddhist Diplomacy in Modern Asia, the last of which is funded by the 2020 Social Science and Humanities Research Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council Singapore.

Selected publications

Books

• Kiprah Para Mahabiksu: Agama Buddha dan Modernitas di Asia Tenggara Maritim. Jakarta: Penerbit Karaniya, 2022.

• Monks in Motion: Buddhism and Modernity Across the South China Sea. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.

• Living with Myths in Singapore. Singapore: Ethos Books, 2017. (Co-editor)

Articles

• “Curating Buddhism, Fostering Diplomacy: The ‘Secrets of the Fallen Pagoda’ Exhibition in Singapore.” The Review of Faith & International Affairs 22, no. 1 (2024): 43–58. (with Darryl Kangfu Lim)

• “The Making of a Local Deity: The Patriarch of Sanping’s Cult in Post-Mao China, 1979–2015.” Critical Asian Studies 54, no. 1 (2022): 86–104.

• “Singing to Buddha: The Case of a Buddhist Rock Band in Contemporary Indonesia.” Archipel 100 (2020): 175–197.

• “Diaspora’s Dharma: Buddhist Connections across the South China Sea, 1900–1949.” Contemporary Buddhism 21, nos. 1-2 (2020): 33–50.

• “Neither Mahāyāna Nor Theravāda: Ashin Jinarakkhita and the Indonesian Buddhayāna Movement.” History of Religions 58, no. 1 (August 2018): 24–63.

• “Who is Tua Pek Kong? The Cult of Grand Uncle in Malaysia and Singapore.” Archiv Orientální 85, no. 3 (December 2017): 439–460.

• “Toward a Modern Buddhist Hagiography: Telling the Life of Hsing Yun in Popular Media.” Asian Ethnology 74, no. 1 (2015): 141–165.

• “A Recent Quest for Religious Roots: The Revival of the Guangze Zunwang Cult and its Sino-Southeast Asian Networks, 1978–2009.” Journal of Chinese Religions 41, no. 2 (November 2013): 91–123.

• “Managing The Tortoise Island: Tua Pek Kong Temple, Pilgrimage, and Social Change in Pulau Kusu, 1965–2007.” New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies 11, no. 2 (December 2009): 72–95.

• “Teaching Dharma, Grooming Sangha: The Buddhist College of Singapore.” SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 24, no. 1 (April 2009): 122–138.

• “Buddhism in Singapore-China Relations: Venerable Hong Choon and his Visits, 1982–1990.” The China Quarterly 196 (December 2008): 864–883.

External links

• Homepage at NUS