Adrian Snodgrass

Adrian Snodgrass is Adjunct Professor with the Centre for Cultural Research at the University of Western Sydney, and was formerly at the University of Sydney. He is an internationally renowned authority in Buddhist studies and Buddhist art. He has developed important theories in the area of hermeneutical philosophy and its application to knowledge production and cross-cultural understanding. Snodgrass is co-editor of the journal "Architectural Theory Review" and Editor of "Architectural Theory". He is President and Honorary Life Member of the Asian Arts Society of Australia.

Snodgrass is renowned for several influential books on Asian art and symbolism, [Snodgrass, A. "The Symbolism of the Stupa" 1985, Architecture, "Time and Eternity", (Satapitaka Series, No. 356–7, two vols) 1988] [Snodgrass, A. "The Taima Mandala: A Descriptive Guide" 1995] [Snodgrass, A. "The Matrix and Diamond World Mandalas in Shingon Buddhism" (Satapitaka Series, No. 354–5, two vols) 1997] [Snodgrass, A. "Architettura, Tempo, Eternità" 2004] and for work developing the theme of hermeneutics in relation to architectural design. [Snodgrass, A. and R. Coyne. "Interpretation in Architecture: Design as a Way of Thinking", Routledge 2006] His scholarship draws substantially on the work of Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer and numerous Japanese and Indian Scholars to demonstrate that for us one of the chief values of historical study, and the study of cultures other than our own, resides in our encounter with their "otherness":

Asian Studies should aim not only to provide a knowledge of language, factual information and skills in critical analysis, but also to foster in a learning and research community the dialectics of interpretation, in which what is alien in the text of the other becomes the starting point for a process of questioning the horizons of our own prejudicial world in the hope of expanding and transforming them. [Ibid., p.164]

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