Lionel M. Jensen, Ph. D.

2011

Lionel Jensen has been on the faculty at the University of Notre Dame since the fall of 2000. He is the author of Manufacturing Confucianism: Chinese Traditions and Universal Civilization, recognized in 1998 as the Best First Book in the History of Religions by the American Academy of Religion.

He has edited or co-edited five other works, China In and Beyond the Headlines (2011), China’s Transformations: the Stories beyond the Headlines (2007), China Off Center: Mapping the Margins of the Middle Kingdom (2002), China Beyond the Headlines (2000), and Early China (1997).

His research interests are in the areas of Chinese religion and thought, folklore, early Sino-western contact, and nationalism: he has published numerous articles and book chapters on these topics. He is currently at work on a book titled “Found and Lost in Tradition: the Mythistories of Confucianism,” for which he was granted a research fellowship from the International Research Consortium at the University of Erlangen-Nurnberg in Germany.

In 2010 he was the recipient of the Edmund Joyce CSC Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, the University’s award for pedagogical distinction.

Jensen has lived, studied, and worked in East Asia for a number of years including time in China, Taiwan, and Japan. He is married to Professor Susan D. Blum of the Department of Anthropology at Notre Dame and they are the parents of two daughters.