David (Max) Moerman
Department
Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures
Office
303 Milbank
Office Hours
Contact
D. Max Moerman is Professor in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures. He is Co-Chair of the Columbia University Seminar in Buddhist Studies and an Associate Director of the Columbia Center for Buddhism and Asian Religions. He holds an A.B. from Columbia College and a Ph.D. from Stanford University. His research interests are in the visual and material culture of Japanese religions.
- A.B. 1986 Columbia College, Religion
- Ph.D. 1999 Stanford University, Religious Studies
The Japanese Buddhist World Map: Religious Vision and the Cartographic Imagination. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2022.
“India Through the Japanese Looking Glass: Cartographic Encounters and the Buddhist World Picture.”
In Mia M. Mochizuki and Ines G. Zupanov, ed., Palimpsests of Religious Encounter in Asia: 1500-1800. Leiden: Brill, 2025.
“The Japanese Image of the Buddhist Earth: Geography, Cosmology, and the Culture of Vision.” In Jeffrey Moser and Jason Protass, ed., Countless Sands: Medieval Buddhists and their Environments. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2024.
“Japan, Cartography, and the Art of World-Making.” In Christine Guth, Melanie Trede, and Mio Wakita, ed., Japanese Art: Transcultural Perspectives. Leiden: Brill, 2024.
“The Buddhist World Map in Edo Print Culture: Religious Vision in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” In Joshua Schlachet and William C. Hedberg, ed. Interdisciplinary Edo:Towards an Integrated Approach to Early Modern Japan. New Abingdon: Routledge, 2024.
“The Buddhist Universe in Early Modern Japan. In Eric Huntington and Bill Mak, ed., Overlapping Cosmologies in Asia: Transcultural and Interdisciplinary Approaches. Leiden: Brill, 2022.
“The Epistemology of Vision. Buddhist versus Jesuit Cosmology in Early Modern Japan. In Angelo Cattaneo and Alexandra Curvelo, ed., Interactions Between Rivals: The Christian Mission and Buddhist Sects in Japan (c.1549-c.1647). Bern: Peter Lang, 2021.
“Shugendō as Social Practice: Kumano Talismans and Inscribed Oaths in Premodern Japan. In Andrea Castiglioni, Fabio Rambelli, and Carina Roth, ed. Defining Shugendō: Critical Studies in Japanese Mountain Religion. London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2020
“Buddhist Japan and the Global Ocean.” In Fabio Rambelli, ed., The Sea and the Sacred: Aspects of Maritime Religion. London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2018.