Scholars@Duke
Ben Van Overmeire

Ben Van Overmeire

Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Duke Kunshan University
DKU Faculty

Scholarly Works - Journal articles

Enlightenment in the Dark Forest: Chan/Zen in Cixin Liu’s Three Body Trilogy

Journal article Journal of Chinese Philosophy · January 1, 2024 This article explores the Chan/Zen Buddhist elements in Cixin Liu’s Three Body science fiction trilogy, particularly through the character of Luo Ji 羅輯. By exploring these references, the provocative moral and political philosophy articulated in the books ... Full text Cite

Introduction

Journal article Religious Studies Review · March 1, 2021 Full text Cite

Zen and the Body: A Postmodern Ascetic? Bodily Awakening in the Zen Memoirs of Shozan Jack Haubner

Journal article Religions · February 15, 2021 In this article, I examine two memoirs by the American Zen Buddhist author Shozan Jack Haubner. Within the contemporary genre of American Zen autobiographical literature, Haubner’s books are special in that they explore Zen awakening as driven by t ... Full text Open Access Cite

HARD-BOILED ZEN: JANWILLEM VAN DE WETERING’S THE JAPANESE CORPSE AS BUDDHIST LITERATURE

Journal article Contemporary Buddhism · July 3, 2018 Though many studies of the contemporary Buddhist literature exist, such studies often limit their purview to canonised, ‘high-brow’ authors. In this article, I read Janwillem van de Wetering’s The Japanese Corpse, a detective novel, for how it portrays Zen ... Full text Open Access Cite

“Mountains, rivers, and the whole earth”: Koan interpretations of female zen practitioners

Journal article Religions · April 11, 2018 Though recent years have seen a critical reappraisal of Buddhist texts from the angle of performance and gender studies, examinations of Zen Buddhist encounter dialogues (better known under their edited form as “koan”) within this framework are rare. In th ... Full text Open Access Cite