Visiting Scholar
Masaryk University, Brno

Zuzana Kubovčáková is Assistant Professor at the Department of Japanese Studies at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. She earned her M.A.s in Japanese from the Department of Language and Cultures of East Asia (2005) at Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia, and in Japanese Religions (2005) from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, in both dissertations concentrating on the earliest history of Zen schools in Japan. After receiving a scholarship of the Japanese Ministry of Education (Monbukagakushō) and spending a one-year study programme at Ōsaka University of Foreign Studies (Ōsaka gaikokugo daigaku), she pursued her Ph.D. (2012) at the Department for the Study of Religions, Masaryk University in Brno. In her thesis she examined the politicisation of kami and the creation of a narrative ideology in ancient Japan. Acting as the Head of the Department of Japanese Studies at Masaryk University between 2013 and 2017, Professor Kubovčáková left the administrative position between 2017 and 2018 to serve as a Numata Visiting Professor in Buddhist Studies at Department of South Asian, Tibetan, and Buddhist Studies at the University of Vienna as well as to conduct research at the Center for Japanese Studies, Nanzan University in Nagoya, Japan. Her research interests include study and translation of the works of the medieval Japanese Zen master Dōgen, in particular the Shōbōgenzō 正法眼蔵 (Treasury of the True Dharma Eye), as well as the recent history of the Sōtō school in central Europe. While at the Department in the 2022 summer semester, Professor Kubovčáková co-ordinates a course on "Introducing Shinto."