Brian Victoria

Brian Victoria is a native of Omaha, Nebraska. He holds an M.A. in Buddhist Studies from Sōtō Zen sect-affiliated Komazawa University in Tokyo and a PhD from the Department of Religious Studies at Temple University. He has taught Japanese Studies at various universities across the US, New Zealand, and Australia. From 2013 to 2015 he was a Visiting Research Fellow at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto, Japan. Brian’s major writings include ‘Zen Terror in Prewar Japan: Portrait of an Assassin’, a second, enlarged edition of ‘Zen At War’, ‘Zen War Stories’, and an autobiographical work in Japanese entitled ‘Gaijin de ari, Zen bozu de ari’ (‘As a Foreigner, As a Zen Priest’). In addition, Brian has published numerous journal articles, focusing on the historical relationship of not only Buddhism but religion in general to violence and warfare. Some of his articles may be found on The Zen Site here: http://www.thezensite.com/MainPages/critical_zen.html. Brian currently lives in Kyoto, Japan where he continues his research as a non-resident Senior Research Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies. He is a citizen of Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. He is also a fully ordained Buddhist priest in the Sōtō Zen sect.