Fabio Rambelli

My main field of research and teaching is Japanese religions and cultural history, and especially the Esoteric Buddhist tradition (mikkyō) and the history of Shinto. In particular, I have been studying the interactions between Buddhism and local cults in several Asian traditions on the one hand, and the history of the development of the Shinto discourse in Japan on the other. I envision Shinto as the result of complex processes involving both the localization of Buddhism (as an originally translocal religion) in Japan and the opening of the Japanese tradition to several Asian intellectual trends (such as Neo-Confucianism and Daoism from China, but also Neo-Brahmanism from India, and, later, Christianity from the West), together with an enhanced awareness of cultural identity and specificities. I am currently working on the religious and intellectual components of gagaku and bugaku, the music and dance of the Japanese imperial court, and more specifically on a cultural history of one of this genre’s instruments, the shō (a bamboo mouth organ). As part of that project, I have created a study group where we practice instruments and organize events and initiatives related to Gagaku. I am also interested in the impact (often downplayed or ignored) of Indian cultural elements on pre-modern Japan; in issues of cultural identity (especially in Japan and in Italy, and on the representations of Italy circulating in Japan); and in more general themes in the history of religions (such as materiality, semiotics, iconoclasm, and syncretism).