MASATO KATŌ

Masato Katō is a PhD candidate in the Department of Religions and Philosophies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London (2013–). He earned his first MA in Religion and Society from Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA in 2009, and his second MA in Religions of Asia and Africa at SOAS in 2013. From December 2014 to May 2015, he was a visiting research fellow at Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture in Nagoya, Japan, as part of his doctoral fieldwork. His doctoral research explores the historical and social construction of the boundary between “religion” and “Japan” in Tenrikyō, particularly with regards to the perceived cultural particularity of the religious tradition as well as the cultural approach of propagation that the religious organisation has employed in the French context.