Christopher Harding
Senior Lecturer in Asian history, University of Edinburgh
Christopher Harding is a cultural historian specialising in modern India and Japan. He is a senior lecturer in Asian history at the University of Edinburgh. His latest book is The Light of Asia: A History of Western Fascination with the East (Allen Lane, January 2024). He also writes the IlluminAsia substack: www.IlluminAsia.org.
Written by Christopher Harding
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Thinkers and theories
On knowing who he was
Alan Watts, for all his faults, was a wildly imaginative and provocative thinker who reimagined religion in a secular age
Christopher Harding
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Stories and literature
Ghosts on the shore
In Japan, ghost stories are not to be scoffed at, but provide deep insights into the fuzzy boundary between life and death
Christopher Harding
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Death
The be all and end all
Being with someone in death entails more than just physical wellbeing. Can end-of-life care make space for spirituality?
Christopher Harding
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Philosophy of religion
Into nothingness
In the 1940s, Japan’s search for a national philosophy became a battle for existence. Did Zen ideas create the kamikaze?
Christopher Harding
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Philosophy of religion
Silent communion
Christian meditation may sound like an uneasy hybrid, but that awkwardness is hiding something important
Christopher Harding
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Psychiatry and psychotherapy
Couched in kindness
Jakucho Setouchi is a revered nun and famous novelist, yet few know how psychoanalysis shaped her spiritual life
Christopher Harding