Steven Heine

Steven Heine (born 1950) is a Professor of Religion and History as well as Director of the Institute for Asian Studies. He specializes in East Asian and comparative religions, Japanese Buddhism and intellectual history, Buddhist Studies, and religion and social sciences.

Dr. Heine’s research specialty is medieval East Asian religious studies, especially the transition of Zen Buddhism from China to Japan. In addition to 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals and outstanding edited volumes, he has published over two dozen books. Over a dozen of his books have been reviewed or noted in such publications as CHOICE, Chronicle of Higher Education, Booklist, Library Journal, or Times Literary Supplement, in addition to multiple reviews in various academic journals or professional outlets.He teaches a variety of courses including Modern Asia and Methods in Asian Studies at the graduate and undergraduate levels as well as Japanese Religion and Culture, Zen Buddhism, Asian Values in Business, and Religions of the Silk Road. He is also the recipient of the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette for his outstanding contribution to Japanese Studies.

Steven Heine received a B.A. in Religious Thought from the University of Pennsylvania in 1971. He then went on to study at Temple University where he received an M.A. (1976) and PhD (1980) in Religion. After obtaining his degrees, Heine received the Fulbright Fellowship for the study of Dogen’s collected Japanese poetry at Tokyo University and Komazawa University.

Dr. Steven Heine at the Blue Cliff Springs during a research trip to China in summer 2015.

Heine lectured at Villanova University in Religious Studies from 1982-1987. In 1987, he became an Assistant Professor of Religion at La Salle University and taught there until 1991 when he moved to Penn State University and became an Associate Professor of Religious Studies. He left Penn State University in 1997 to work as Director of Florida International University’s Institute of Asian Studies. Since his arrival at FIU, Steven Heine has expanded Asian Studies and helped facilitate its growth at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. The program also has an extensive outreach component. He is also editor of the Japan Studies Review and a review editor for Philosophy East and West.

Since joining Florida International University in 1997, Heine has created and developed the Asian Studies Program as one of the fastest growing interdisciplinary program in the southeastern region of the United States. From 2009-2012, Heine served as the founding Associate Director of the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Florida International University (FIU), where he created and implemented the Master of Arts in Global Governance (MAGG) Program, oversaw various programs and centers in SIPA, and created the SIPA InteRegional Initiative. Currently, the Asian Studies Program at FIU offers a Bachelors in Arts in Asian Studies and Master of Arts in Asian Studies as well as an Asian Studies minor. The Asian Studies Program also offers three graduate certificates in Asian Studies and Asian Globalization as well as several undergraduate certificates programs in Asian Studies, Asian Globalization and Latin American Studies, Chinese Studies, Japanese Studies and South and Southeast Asian Area Studies. A new interdisciplinary major in Japanese Area Studies and in Chinese Area Studies are now offered, as branches of the Asian Studies B.A. degree.

In 2011, Dr. Heine gave a number of lectures at national and international venues, including several lectures in March at McGill University in connection with the Montreal Zen poetry festival, a panel he organized on sacred sites in Tokyo at the Association for Asian Studies, the Harshbarger Lecture at Penn State University, and at a memorial conference for the late William LaFleur at the University of Pennsylvania. He also oversaw the inception of FIU as the main site of the National Consortium of Teaching About Asia (NCTA) in Florida, and a continuing rise in Asian Studies graduate and undergraduate enrollments and graduation rates. In fall 2015 he offered a block-seminar on the Life and Thought of Dōgen at the University of Zurich.

Heine has received numerous grants to develop Asian Studies at FIU and has overseen well over $2 million in external funding, including projects awarded by the U.S. Department of Education, the Japan Foundation, the Freeman Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Heine has also received grant funding that helped to create five full-time faculty positions, including three in Asian languages, resulting in a vigorous program at FIU. He has directed the "JapaNet" teacher training project funded by the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership and directs a branch of the National Consortium for Teaching About Asia (NCTA). In 2015, Dr. Heine received a grant from the National Endowment for Humanities for a Summer Institute for College and University Professors, titled "Tokyo: High City & Low City." The Summer Institute will be held in Summer 2016.

Dr. Steven Heine (left) with Mr. Ogino (right), Consulate General of Japan in Miami.

In spring 2004, Heine received the Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs Award. He was the only non-Japanese or Japanese-American among the recipients of the award in the Florida state district. This was bestowed for lifetime achievement in service to the exchanges between Japan and America and contributing to the benefit of Japan-U.S. relations.

Heine was awarded the Kauffman Entrepreneurship Professors Award in 2006 by the Florida International University’s Eugenio Pino and Family Global Entrepreneurship Center housed in the College of Business Administration that has led to research and a seminar on Asian cultural values in business. The project is based on Heine’s book White Collar Zen: Using Zen Principles to Overcome Obstacles and Achieve Your Goal.

On April 29, 2007, the Government of Japan conferred the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, which represents the fourth highest of eight classes associated with the award. This award is in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the advancement of the study of Japanese culture and the promotion of understanding of Japan.

In spring of 2009, Heine was appointed Associate Director of the School of International and Public Affairs, an assignment he performs along with his responsibilities as Director of Asian Studies. The following year, Heine completed his second two-term stint as a unit chair of the American Academy of Religion, including the chair of the Japanese Religions Group (1994-2000) and the founding co-chair of the Sacred Space in Asia Group (2004-2010).

An issue of the 2011 Religious Studies Review (Volume 37, Issue 3) was an examination of dedicated to Heine's work with two essays by him and one review article about him by Florida State University professor of religion Jimmy Yu. Yu’s essay shows that

"Heine occupies a unique position as an original thinker and synthesizer.As a preeminent scholar of Dôgen and Japanese Zen, he has given us new theoretical lenses to examine areas in both Chan and Zen that are rich in cultural dimensions. He shows us that future Chan and Zen studies must be multivalent and must go beyond the confines of philosophical analyses, historicism, and canonical studies."

Grants

• National Endowment for Humanities Summer Institute for College Teachers, "Tokyo: High City & Low City," 2016.
• Freeman Foundation, "National Consortium for Teaching about Asia" professional development and teacher training, 2007-continuous.
• Department of Education, in collaboration with Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Bilingual Education through Mandarin Instruction (BETMI) language development program, 2006-2009.
• National Endowment for the Humanities for "Miami-China Connection," 2006-2008.
• Center for Global Entrepreneurship, "Asian Values in Business," for graduate course and conference, 2006-2007.
• Japan Foundation, Center for Global Partnership for "JapaNet" professional development and teacher training, 2004-2007.
• Japan Foundation, Salary Assistance for language instruction, 2003-2006.
• Department of Education, Title VI International Undergraduate Programs and Foreign Languages grant, 2001-2004.
• National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship award for research on "Opening a Mountain," 2000-2001.
• Association for Asian Studies research award for "Opening a Mountain," 2001.
• Department of Education Title VI International Undergraduate Programs and Foreign Languages grant award for "Asian Globalization and Latin America" Project, 1999-2001.
• Department of Education Title VI grant award for Asian Studies Initiative 1997-1999.
• National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship award for research on the "Wild Fox Koan" project, 1996-97.
• American Academy of Religion for research on the "Wild Fox Koan" project, 1996.
• Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, research on "Tragedy and Salvation in the Floating World," 1993.
• Association for Asian Studies on Dogen's koan collection at Komazawa University in Tokyo, Summer 1992.
• Fulbright Senior Fellow for study of Dogen's collected Japanese poetry at Tokyo University and Komazawa University, 1981-1982.

In addition to his teaching career, Steven Heine is an accomplished author of various books and articles that discuss Japanese culture and religion - particularly Zen Buddhism and the life and teachings of the Zen Buddhist Dogen. He is a leading scholar of Dōgen and has incorporated the latest studies from Japan into his research. His book Did Dōgen Go to China? What He Wrote and When He Wrote It is a comprehensive textual biography and study of the full extent of Dōgen’s works. Furthermore, he is an innovative interpreter of Zen in both a traditional and modern context and has translated and edited works by Masao Abe, the eminent modern Japanese thinker. Heine has also helped promote outstanding scholarship on Japanese religion and society and has won two National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships.

Dr. Steven Heine has published more than two dozen books, both monographs and edited volumes (including a prestigious series co-edited by Dale Wright and another series on the works of Japanese philosopher Masao Abe) highlighting the life and thought of Dōgen, the history of Zen Buddhism in China and Japan, and the relation of East Asian religiosity to modern society. Heine has also published dozens of articles in refereed journals and collections such as Journal of Asian Studies, Philosophy East and West, The Eastern Buddhist, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, Journal of Chinese Philosophy, and Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Choice has reviewed several of his books as, Did Dōgen Go to China?, Zen Skin Zen Marrow, and Zen Masters.

Books on Dōgen

• A Blade of Grass: Japanese Poetry and Aesthetics in Dogen Zen (Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1989, ISBN 978-0-8204-0627-5)
• Did Dogen Go to China? What He Wrote and When He Wrote It (Oxford University Press, 2006, ISBN 978-0-19-530592-0)
• Dōgen and Sōtō Zen: New Perspectives (Oxford University Press, 2015, ISBN 978-0-1993-2486-6)
• Dogen and the Koan Tradition: A Tale of Two Shobogenzo Texts (SUNY Press, 1993, ISBN 978-0-7914-1773-7)
• Dōgen: Textual and Historical Studies (Oxford University Press, 2012 ISBN 978-0-19-975446-5)
• Existential and Ontological Dimensions in Heidegger and Dogen (SUNY Press, 1985, ISBN 978-0-88706-000-7)
• The Zen Poetry of Dogen: Verses from the Mountain of Eternal Peace (Dharma Communication, 2005, ISBN 978-1-882795-20-8)

Books on History and Thought of Zen Buddhism

• Chan Rhetoric of Uncertainty in the Blue Cliff Record: Sharpening the Sword at the Dragon's Gate (Oxford University Press, in press)
• The Kōan: Meaning and Metaphor (University of Hawai'i Press, in press)
• Like Cats and Dogs: Contesting the Mu Kōan in Zen Buddhism (Oxford University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-1998-3730-4)
• Opening a Mountain: Koans of the Zen Masters (Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN 978-0-19-517434-2)
• Shifting Shape, Shaping Text: Philosophy and Folklore in Fox Koan (University of Hawaii Press, 2000, ISBN 978-0-8248-2197-5)
• Zen and Material Culture (Oxford University Press, in press)
• Zen Koans (University of Hawai'i Press, 2014, ISBN 978-0-8248-3974-1)
• Zen Skin, Zen Marrow: Will the Real Zen Buddhism Please Stand Up (Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-532677-2)

Books on Asian Religion in Contemporary Culture: East and West

• A Dream Within a Dream: Studies in Japanese Thought (Peter Lang Publishing Group, 1991, ISBN 978-0-8204-1350-1)
• Bargaining for Salvation: Bob Dylan, a Zen Master? (Continuum Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-8264-2950-6)
• Buddhism in the Modern World: Adaptations of an Ancient Tradition (Oxford University Press, 2003, ISBN 978-0-19-514698-1)
• Japan in Traditional and Postmodern Perspectives (SUNY Press, 1995, ISBN 978-0-7914-2469-8)
• Sacred High City, Sacred Low City: A Tale of Religious Sites in Two Tokyo Neighborhoods (Oxford University Press, 2012, ISBN 978-0-19-986144-6)
• [https://global.oup.com/academic/product/white-collar-zen-9780195160031?cc=us&lang=en& White Collar Zen: Using Zen Principles to Overcome Obstacles and Achieve Your Career Goals] (Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN 978-0-19-516003-1)

Co-edited series with Dale S. Wright

• The Koan: Texts and Contexts in Zen Buddhism (Oxford University Press, 2000, ISBN 978-0-8248-2197-5)
• The Zen Canon: Understanding the Classic Texts (Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN 978-0-19-515068-1)
• Zen Classics: Formative Texts in the History of Zen Buddhism (Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN 978-0-19-517525-7)
• Zen Ritual: Studies of Zen Buddhist Theory in Practice (Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-530468-8)
• Zen Masters (Oxford University Press, 2010 ISBN 978-0-19-536765-2)

Edited books by Masao Abe

• A Study of Dogen: His Philosophy and Religion by Masao Abe (SUNY Press, 1991, ISBN 978-0-7914-0838-4)
• Buddhism and Interfaith Dialogue, Part One of a Two-Volume Sequel to Zen and Western Thought by Masao Abe (University of Hawaii Press, 1995, ISBN 978-0-8248-1752-7)
• Zen and Comparative Studies: Part Two of a Two-Volume Sequel to Zen and Western Thought by Masao Abe (University of Hawaii Press, 1997, ISBN 978-0-8248-1832-6)
• Zen and the Modern World: A Third Sequel to Zen and Western Thought by Masao Abe (University of Hawaii Press, 2003, ISBN 978-0-8248-2665-9)

• "Books | Asian Studies Program". 
• "Selected Journal Articles | Asian Studies Program". 
• "Books | Asian Studies Program".