Tori Montrose is a scholar of modern religion specializing in Buddhism and Japanese religions. Her current research looks at the modernization of Buddhist education in Japan. Specifically, she examines the founding of Buddhist universities from the nineteenth century to the present day. In this work she focuses on changes to Buddhist clerical identity. In both her teaching and research, she is interested in the ways in which modernizing and globalizing forces intersect and interact with traditional religious groups. Tori’s work has been published in the journal Japanese Religions, and in the edited volumes, Brill Handbook of East Asian New Religious Movements (Brill, 2018) and Methods in Buddhist Studies (Bloomsbury, 2019). She received her Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Cultures from the University of Southern California, a M.A. in Buddhist Studies from the Graduate Theological Union, and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego.

Education

• Ph.D., University of Southern California
• M.A., Graduate Theological Union
• B.A., University of California, San Diego