Bernhard Scheid

Bernhard Scheid (born 1960) is an Austrian historian, academic and Japanologist, affiliated to the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Institute of East Asian Studies at the University of Vienna (Institut für Ostasienkunde der Universität Wien).

Scheid was six-times Austrian National Go Champion.^[1]

Early life

Scheid matriculated at the University of Vienna in 1980. His early interest in cultural anthropology led to a specialization in Japanese studies. He earned a master's degree in 1993. During 1994 to 1996, he studied at Waseda University in Tokyo. His Ph.D. was awarded by the University of Vienna in 1999.^[2]

Career

Scheid was a research fellow at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia (Institut für Kultur- und Geistesgeschichte Asiens) from 1997 through 2001. Since 2002, Scheid has been a permanent research fellow in the field of Japanese Studies at this institution. He also joined the faculty of the Department of East Asian Studies at Vienna University in 2001 as a lecturer on Japanese religion.^[2] In 2012 he was a guest professor at the University of Göttingen, faculty of religious studies.

His early research and writing investigated aspects of aging and becoming old in the Japanese Middle Ages (12th-16th centuries), from the late-Heian period through the Sengoku period.^[3] According to Scheid's first published work, Im Innersten meines Herzens empfinde ich tiefe Scham: das Alter im Schrifttum das japanischen Mittelalters (In my Heart of Hearts I feel Deep Shame: the Aged in the Japanese Medieval Literature) the perceived norm of old age primarily as a time of suffering and isolation changed in a context of the newly emerging feudal structures.^[4]

Scheid produced the first monograph of Yoshida Shinto in a Western language; and he published translations of three important Yoshida texts. The comprehensive religious system which became known as Yoshida Shinto was founded by Yoshida Kanetomo (1435–1511). Scheid's work investigated this seminal figure's influence on the evolution of Shinto ritual and theology in the Muromachi period through the Azuchi-Momoyama period.^[5]

Academic web projects

Scheid is a webmaster who has developed and maintained academic websites with the objective of advancing teaching and research in Japanese studies.^[2]

• Religion in Japan, since 2001.
• Kamigraphie, since 2011
• Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia, Vienna, since 1999.
• 11th International Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies (EAJS), 2004

Go

Scheid has been for many years an internationally ranked player of Go.^[6] In 2010, he tied for 16th place in the 31st World Amateur Go Championship (WAGC) in Hangzhou, China and he aspires to be taken seriously as a Go player.^[7]

The Austrian National Go Championships in 1990, 1992, 1998, 1999, 2003, and 2004 were won by Scheid. He participated as Austrian representative at World Amateur Go Championships in Japan, China and Korea.^[2]

Selected works

In a statistical overview derived from writings by and about Bernhard Scheid, OCLC/WorldCat encompasses roughly 10+ works in 20+ publications in 3 languages and 300+ library holdings.^[8]

• 2006 — The Culture of Secrecy in Japanese Religion. London: Routledge. ISBN 9780415546898; OCLC 318419669
• 2002 — Tracing Shinto in the History of Kami Workshop (with Mark Teeuwen). Nagoya, Japan: Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture. OCLC 51905524
• 2001 — Der eine und einzige Weg der Götter: Yoshida Kanetomo und die Erfindung des Shinto. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. ISBN 9783700129899; OCLC 186460367
• 1996 — Im Innersten meines Herzens empfinde ich tiefe Scham: das Alter im Schrifttum das japanischen Mittelalters. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. OCLC 123259411

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