Diego Loukota Sanclemente, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures (ALC), has been awarded the prestigious Robert N. Ho Family Foundation Dissertation Fellowship in Buddhist Studies for the 2018-19 academic year. Administered by the American Council of Learned Societies, the Dissertation Fellowships in Buddhist Studies are awarded following a global competition with no restrictions on the location of the research, citizenship of the applicants, or the language of the final product. Diego is one of twelve recipients of the fellowship for the coming year.
With a BA in Asian History from Bologna University in Italy and an MA in Sanskrit & Pāli from Peking University in China, Diego is entering his fifth year in Asian Languages and Cultures working under the guidance of Distinguished Professor Gregory Schopen. He will conduct research and writing related to his dissertation project “The Goods That Cannot Be Stolen: Mercantile Faith in Kumaralata’s Row of Examples Adorned by Poetic Fancy,” which explores a third century collection of Sanskrit novellas in order to highlight the intersection between Buddhist faith and socioeconomic ideology. In particular, Diego plans to evaluate Buddhist attitudes towards work and wealth in the context of Indian Buddhism and in the larger context of the deurbanization of India, in part by placing the work in the broader context of ancient Indian literature in terms of language, style, and literary lineage.