NEW AT CERES

Henry Albery joins CERES as a new research associate

CERES welcomes Henry Albery as a new research associate in the field of South Asian Religions. With his internationally recognized research on the history of Buddhism in South and Central Asia, he enriches CERES’s profile by adding further important dimensions related to the history of Buddhist texts, rituals, and knowledge.

Henry Albery focuses his research in particular on the history of Buddhism in Gandhara and Kashmir—regions in present-day eastern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan that were major centers of Buddhist culture in antiquity. His work combines philological, historical, and religious studies approaches and examines Buddhist inscriptions, narrative traditions, and the formation of the Buddhist canon. His research focuses, among other things, on Buddhist dedicatory inscriptions in the Brāhmī and Kharoṣṭhī scripts, Buddhist narrative traditions in art and literature, and the development of monastic norms and philosophical systems. In his work, Albery draws on sources in Gāndhārī, Chinese, Pali, and Sanskrit, examining their interconnections across South, Central, and East Asia.

His current research projects also include the collaborative edition and translation of the so-called “Yoga Textbook,” a Sanskrit manuscript from Qïzïl that offers insights into Buddhist yoga traditions and philosophical systems of thought. The project is funded by the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation.

Before joining Ruhr University, Henry Albery served as a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia at the University of Tokyo and at the Centre for Buddhist Studies at Ghent University, among other positions. Prior to that, he earned his Ph.D. from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich with a dissertation titled “Buddhism and Society in the Indic North and Northwest, 2nd century BCE–3rd century CE.” His research to date has been supported by numerous prestigious grants, including fellowships from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, the Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, and the German Research Foundation (DFG). In addition, he is a co-founder and former editor of the academic journal Distant Worlds Journal.

With his expertise in Buddhist traditions, transregional knowledge networks, and premodern religious practices, Henry Albery will bring valuable insights to religious studies research at CERES. CERES wishes Henry Albery a warm welcome and looks forward to working with him.