Episodes
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Mushrooms for Enlightenment or Why Buddhism is Like Shrek: A Conversation about Teaching with Sangseraima Ujeed
Episode 22
Recorded: June, 21 2022
Duration: 56:02
DescriptionIn this conversation with Sangseraima Ujeed, Assistant Professor of Tibetan Buddhism at the University of Michigan, she talks about teaching in a Public University as a practising Buddhist, the draw to teach and grow students in the knowledge of her native Mongolian language, and how she carefully works through primary texts with her students. An avid forager she hopes to build courses that bring students out into nature and sees the potential of Buddhist theories and concepts to build resilience, tolerance and alternative worldviews in her students.
Memorable Quotes"What I really care about in my teaching, and I try to bring in as much as I can, is getting the students to engage with primary sourcesâŠwe try to read about three or four texts from beginning to end.
"The style of writing is so alien to them. This is a fourth century text that writes in a specific way. It's a commentarial literature genre which has its own thing. But at the end of it, they were like, we just read this thing from this period! And they felt proud.
"37 Practices of a Bodhisattva is 37 verses, about 37 practices. That part was really valuable because as we started reading the 37 Practices, the war in Ukraine broke out. So taking little chunks of it and conceptualizing the suffering of other beings and the inability to really actually do something, but to have to think about situations like that when they arise, we could really bring in real life situations.
"As a devoted forager, I would love to be able to take the students out into nature in the fall when species are abundant and just talk about the interconnectedness of an ecosystem whilst we go and forage and learn about the ecosystem or the forest and try to put that parallel to interconnectedness, what that looks like from the Buddhist position. In there with fungi, decomposition and the ecosystem, there's a lot to be said also about rebirth.
Links and ReferencesSangseraima Ujeed https://lsa.umich.edu/asian/people/faculty/sujeed.html
Donald Lopez https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_S._Lopez_Jr.
Lopez Jr., Donald S. 2005. Critical Terms for the Study of Buddhism. University of Chicago Press. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo3534242.html
Buddhaghosa, and NÌaÌnÌŁamoli. 1976. The Path of Purification: (Visuddhimagga). Berkeley, CA [etc.]: Shambhala Publications. https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nanamoli/PathofPurification2011.pdf
Dzatrul Ngawang Tenzin Norbu and Stagg, C. 2020. A Guide to the 37 Practices of a Bodhisattva. Snow Lion. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/608046/a-guide-to-the-thirty-seven-practices-of-a-bodhisattva-by-ngawang-tenzin-norbu-translated-by-christopher-stagg-foreword-by-dzogchen-ponlop/9781559394918
"How mindfulness changes the emotional life of our brains", a talk by Richard J. Davidson, (TEDxSanFrancisco) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CBfCW67xT8
Advanced Buddhist Meditation: The Investigation of Dr. Hebert Benson, MD. Russ Pariseau, USA, 2008. https://vimeo.com/248297652
Benjamin Brose https://lsa.umich.edu/asian/people/faculty/bbrose.html
Sisse Budolfsen https://himalayanhermitage.com/
Tsongkhapa, https://treasuryoflives.org/biographies/view/Tsongkhapa/TBRC_P64
Facebook Group "I Love Wild Mushrooms" https://www.facebook.com/groups/730397800439930
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Description
Trained in religion at Harvard, Kate Hartmann started her teaching job in Wyoming during the pandemic and has heartily embraced the challenges and possibilities of online and virtual modes of teaching. She also speaks eloquently about what her students in Wyoming need and want from her in person teaching about Buddhism. Founder of the new Buddhist Studies Online course platform, Kate shares academically and historically grounded studies of Buddhism with the wider public. She emphasizes the importance of applying Buddhist texts to contemporary issues such as structural racism and climate justice. In this episode you will hear Kate share numerous tips and strategies to engage students and use new technologies for teaching.
QuotesâA world in which religion is treated with a kind of sense of history and diversity and respect is a world that I want us to live in.â Kate Hartmann
âI created my classes to be taught hybrid⊠I could really start from scratch and say, âWhat is the thing that I want to get across and how can I make this work for my students?ââ Kate Hartmann
âIt's hard to talk to the public. One, it's hard to get their attention, two it's hard to do it kind of responsibly, and three, it's hard because you don't get a lot of institutional recognition for this. None of this stuff counts for tenure or job applications for many of us in the field.â Kate Hartmann
âWhat we wanted to do is take the resources of the academy, the kind of rigor, the scholarship, the training, and bring it to this general audience that's interested and that otherwise might be consuming garbage nonsense on Instagram and YouTube. There's a lot of stuff out there and we as academics should be proactively reaching out to that community.â Kate Hartmann
Links and ReferencesEpisode webpage http://teachingbuddhism.net/episode-21-kate-hartmann-online-teaching-beyond-the-pandemic/
Dr. Hartmannâs website https://www.drkatehartmann.com/
Perusall https://www.perusall.com/
Buddhist Studies Online https://www.buddhiststudiesonline.com/
Seth Powellâs Yogic Studies https://www.yogicstudies.com/
ReligionForBreakfast YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/ReligionForBreakfast/featured
Bodhicharyavatara https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Bodhicharyavatara
Bloomâs Taxonomy https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/
Dreamer, R. Charles Johnson https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Dreamer/Charles-Johnson/9780684854434
The Advice to Layman Tundila https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781400880072-024/pdf
Himalayan Hermitess, Kurtis Shaeffer https://global.oup.com/academic/product/himalayan-hermitess-9780195152999?cc=ca&lang=en&
Love and Rage, Lama Rod Owens https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/608716/love-and-rage-by-lama-rod-owens/
Radical Dharma, Angel Kyodo Williams https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/547708/radical-dharma-by-rev-angel-kyodo-williams-lama-rod-owens-and-jasmine-syedullah/
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Description
JosĂ© CabezĂłn is the Dalai Lama Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara. Among his many contributions to the field of Buddhist Studies, JosĂ© served as the president of the American Academy of Religion in 2020 and his Presidential Address (published in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion in September 2021) surveyed the study of Buddhism in North America as an academic discipline within religious studies. In this episode, he reflects on how he balances his research with teaching various undergraduate and graduate courses. His teaching is organised around a spectrum of topics that give students skills they need while also developing their engagement with Buddhism, historical and in the contemporary moment. He brings his own experiences as a Buddhist monk into his courses which can help students engage with the worlds of religion and the context of Tibetan Buddhism, which is foreign to most undergraduate students in the US. In addition to reflecting on how his teaching has changed during his career, he also analyses how the backgrounds, interests, and skill-sets of his undergraduate students have shifted. Are humanities degrees less âpragmaticâ than other programs? We invite you to listen and hear how JosĂ© would respond to this assumption.
Memorable QuotesâI'm a Buddhist and I have a long background as a Buddhist. Many of my colleagues have said that they'd like to keep students guessing about their own religious background and that this serves a good pedagogical function in the class that kind of keeps students asking questions and wondering what the professors' relationship to the material is. I, from the very beginning, have taken a different tack, and I've kind of come clean at the beginning about what my background is, the fact that I was a Buddhist monk for ten years.â JosĂ© CabezĂłn
âI have a colleague who retired recently. She works in the area of religion and cognitive science. We talked about this once, about whether or not it was legally kosher to teach meditation in a public university. Her response to me, I thought it was very interesting that she said "athletes are trained and they're told to do things, so why is this any different?" JosĂ© CabezĂłn
âIn the case of Tibet, it is important to kind of break stereotypes. I mean, the glamorization or the fetishization of Tibet as a kind of magical, mystical place where there's flying lamas and things like that.â JosĂ© CabezĂłn
âSimply to be able to see the history of Tibet presented, at least until a certain period of time, but more or less independent of Chinese history, that it isn't as the history of a province of China, that Tibet kind of had its own history up until the present, that in itself is kind of eye opening for many students.â JosĂ© CabezĂłn
âThe goal in the undergraduate course, as I said, is to kind of expose them to a culture that's very different from their own and to have them think about what it means that there are people in the world who think in this very different way. In the graduate classroom it's really to prepare them to be experts in Buddhism.â JosĂ© CabezĂłn
âThe language class is a kind of third component to my teaching that in many ways is my favorite form of teaching because I like reading texts and I like reading texts with the graduate students. Apart from teaching them Tibetan and the nuances of reading classical Tibetan, it's also an opportunity to have them think critically about texts, to teach them to ask questions about what the text is saying.â JosĂ© CabezĂłn
âUndergraduates have changed insofar as we have fewer majors than we used to, maybe about a third of the majors that we used to have. I think when I first arrived here religious studies had something like 200 majors and now we have maybe 60 or 70. This is true across every discipline of the humanities, it's not just religious studies. In part, I think that's because students are thinking and they're being pushed by parents to think more pragmatically, and they tend to think that humanities degrees, degrees in religious studies aren't useful for future careers. So as a result, they tend to major in something else, but they still love the study of religion and they still love the study of Buddhism.â JosĂ© CabezĂłn
âThere is a kind of more pragmatic, professionalized mindset among undergraduates now than there was, say, 20 years ago when I first arrived at UCSB.â JosĂ© CabezĂłn
âAt the graduate level, maybe there's more concern about professional issues, like kind of preparing for the professorhood. I mean, when I was a graduate student, we basically took classes almost in a kind of haphazard way. I think if I saw a syllabus at all throughout my entire graduate training, I don't really remember it. It was mostly the professor would come in and say, "okay, now we're going to read this book" or "now we're going to study this text", and it was very disorganized, but also kind of refreshing.â JosĂ© CabezĂłn
"I tend to think about what makes for interesting conversations rather than what's going to make the field or the discipline grow. I think people of my generation, in fact, I think all buddhologists in general don't think very much, at least I don't think very much about what the future will bring. I think more about trying to wrap up a project I started a long time ago and try to finish. So I really don't have these kind of broad visions about what the future should be like.â JosĂ© CabezĂłn
âThe whole idea of approaching religion, approaching Buddhism objectively or scientifically, or maintaining critical distance from Buddhism as an object of study really wasn't as strong as it is today. I mean, today people talk about the insider/outsider question and whether or not insiders are kind of compromised or whether an insider perspective gives you a greater sympathy or understanding for the religion. These questions weren't really being asked when I first started, and therefore maybe we just kind of approached the study of Buddhism naively, in many ways.â JosĂ© CabezĂłn
Links and ReferencesJosĂ© CabezĂłnâs profile page at the Department of Religious Studies, University of California Santa Barbara
The 84000 Initiative
The Life of Milarepa by Tsangnyön Heruka, introduction by Donald Lopez, translation by Andrew Quintman
Tibetan Lamrim
Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism by John Powers
The Buddha directed by David Grubin
2020 AAR Presidential Address: The Study of Buddhism and the AAR
Tantric Mysticism Of Tibet by John Blofeld
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Dr. Jan Willis discusses her lifetime of teaching Buddhism and Buddhist studies courses. She reflects on helping students broaden their horizons and find their true selves, just as she discovered the wider world of higher education after surviving childhood in the segregated south. In her teaching, she uses stories to connect students with the pivotal moments in history that shape our understanding of social justice and engaged Buddhism. Jan is a Professor Emerita of Religion at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and Visiting Professor of Religion at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia. In addition to her research on Tibetan Buddhism, Buddhist saintsâ lives, and women and Buddhism, she also publishes on her personal experience of being a Black woman in Buddhist studies. This episode was recorded in January 2022.
Memorable Quotations
âI was raised in a mining camp outside of Birmingham, a town that was a mining camp that was split down the middle by one street. Blacks on one side, whites on the other. We dare not cross the road.â Jan Willis
âI praise all of my strong black women teachers.â Jan Willis
âI saw math and music as having universal languages. Here are languages that can be understood by anyone who reads that language.â Jan Willis
âI was one of those faceless 15 year olds, tenth graders, who marched with King. So in '63 that had happened and that transformed my whole life. But in '65, when I got these scholarships, the Klan marched on our home. This was something that we'd grown up knowing about, the Klan targeted people from time to time.â Jan Willis
âIt was very, very dangerous I knew from the beginning, to be conspicuous in the south. It was frightening.â Jan Willis
âSo the Klan comes,⊠They set up a cross, 12 or 15 foot in front across the street from the house in an alleyway. And they light it. So I'm amazed. I'm awestruck. I'm dumbfounded, gobsmacked. Because first, the robes are not all white. There are red robes and there are purple robes, and the second thing is that they're men and women and children enrobed. This really strong urge came up in me to go out and talk to them⊠I wanted to teach them that just as they were a family, we were a family inside this house just like them.â Jan Willis
âI call it a 'dual education,' our teachers made sure that we not only learned English literature, but we learned black literature. That we not only sang the national anthem, but we sang the negro National anthem as well. That we recited poems... That I can meet people, African-Americans today, a number of times I can meet them if they are my same age we can start reciting the same poem, we'll make the same hand gestures. So there was this dual education going on all the time which said 'you are somebody,' 'You have a tradition,' and we celebrated that.â Jan Willis
âThose teachers were practicing âfugitive pedagogy,â what Jarvis Givens calls it, because it's an education that's meant to uplift the spirit as well as to uplift self-esteem.â Jan Willis
âI don't want to convert those students, but I want those students to find their true selves, which I think are compassionate and capable. I want to help them discover that.â Jan Willis
âMy mission turned out to be helping them discover what they knew and helping them find the tools to research it further.â Jan Willis
âCulturally, I'm African-American, but if I want to solve a problem, Buddhism has a lot of answers.â Jan Willis
âI say, '10-20 years from now you won't remember all these dates, and this, that, the other. What do you think you'll carry forward as the most important teaching of the Buddha?' I think early on they're saying things, they come into the class some of them might say 'wisdom,' 'emptiness,' they don't understand any of that, but they've read it somewhere in there.â Jan Willis
âDhammapada 183, which says 'Do no harm, practice virtue, discipline the mind. This is the teaching of all the buddhas' I think that summarizes the whole thing. If you can get that flavour to students, it's the whole kit and caboodle right there.â Jan Willis
âDoing no harm is right there, it's Martin Luther King's nonviolent resistance⊠Because we're all in this together and we'll all go down together unless we can learn to live together.â Jan Willis
âKing used to say there are three evils of society: over consumerism, militarism, and racism. Now in Buddhism, that racism would be the ignorance, the militarism is hatred, and the consumerism is greed, right? But in his last year he changed consumerism to poverty.â Jan Willis
âWe're all connected. I can't be who I am until you are who you ought to be, and you can't be who you ought to be until I am who I ought to be. It's so clear.â Jan Willis
LINKS
Jan Willis https://www.janwillis.org/
Jan Willis. Dreaming Me: Black, Baptist and Buddhist- One Womanâs Spiritual Journey (Wisdom Publications, 2008) buy it here https://www.amazon.ca/Dreaming-Me-Baptist-Buddhist-Spiritual/dp/0861715489
Jan Willis Articles on Lionâs Roar https://www.lionsroar.com/author/jan-willis/
Birmingham childrenâs march 1963 https://www.biography.com/news/black-history-birmingham-childrens-crusade-1963
Jarvis R. Givens, Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674983687
bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (Routledge 1994) https://www.routledge.com/Teaching-to-Transgress-Education-as-the-Practice-of-Freedom/hooks/p/book/9780415908085
Arthur Llewellyn Basham, The Wonder that Was India. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonder_That_Was_India
Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught. https://www.amazon.ca/What-Buddha-Taught-Expanded-Dhammapada/dp/0802130313
Steven Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs. https://www.amazon.ca/Buddhism-without-Beliefs-Contemporary-Awakening/dp/1573226564
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In this episode Professor Todd Lewis discusses the importance of reaching students where they are, of unsettling their assumptions, and of teaching broad religious literacy in a world where much religious illiteracy prevails. He centers ritual and art in much of his teaching, wanting to balance the focus on elite and textual arts with popular practices and an awareness of the diversity of practitioners. He also communicates the complexity of different types of Buddhism through the use of diagrams like ones he has made that show different methods between Theravada and Mahayana understandings of the Buddhist path. Lewis is a Distinguished Professor of Arts and Humanities and Professor of World Religions in the Religious Studies Department at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester MA. He teaches and publishes research on Buddhism, Hinduism, East Asian religions, anthropology of religions, modernization, ecology and religion, and he has won numerous awards for both his teaching and his research. This episode was recorded in December 2020.
Quotes
âI think the bell curve is essential for studying all religions. There are really dedicated followers who may become monks and nuns, in the case of Buddhism, and there are people who barely show up or don't show up or who don't even believe this stuff unless they're pressed on the other tail of that. Then you have people in the middle, and every religion in every place can maybe be filled out in terms of the way these are specifically fulfilled.â Todd Lewis
âYou can't essentialize Buddhism as any part of that bell curve.â Todd Lewis
âAll social life is based on exchange.â Todd Lewis
âNot all monks are virtuoso meditators.â Todd Lewis
âYou need to show students Buddhists doing rituals. You need to show them gathering on full moon days and circumambulating stupas by the tens of thousands today.â Todd Lewis
âI don't want to get too sidetracked with the students about how some of these museums actually got their art but that's how we circle back to Orientalism.â Todd Lewis
âYou want to make students aware and think about what their biases are as they enter in.â Todd Lewis
âI want to provide a social context so that Buddhism doesn't just float out in our imaginations as something that exists without being grounded in particular places and times.â Todd Lewis
âWe're going to disproportionately study the intellectuals and the philosophers, but I am trying to have them read and describe and see rituals, to see how Buddhism is lived in different times and places.â Todd Lewis
âMuseums are not the place to really understand the fullness of art, you have to see how it works.â Todd Lewis
âThe context of our teaching is a huge part of how we should teach... I think you have to really meet your students where they are, and every institution has a slightly different culture.â Todd Lewis
âI want them to just see how they may have seen Buddhism dismissed as something that's flaky or not to be taken seriously. But there also is this hyper-idealizing of Buddhism in which Buddhism is accepted uncritically.â Todd Lewis
âWe are still dealing with some of the distortions and misconceptions and stereotypes that Westerners brought to Buddhism.â Todd Lewis
âReligion always has to take into account both the transcendental elements and the pragmatic elements. If you neglect that, you're really missing something.â Todd Lewis
âWe have religious illiteracy as a problem.â Todd Lewis
Links and References
8-fold path schema of Buddhaghosa Link on Teaching Buddhism website
Todd Lewis, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Religious Studies faculty profile page
Stolen Images of Nepal, Lain Singh Bangdel, purchase book here
Encyclopaedia of Buddhism, Robert Buswell, purchase book here
Pancha Raksha, link to website
"Transcendental and Pragmatic Aspects of Religion,â David G. Mandelbaum link to article
Buddhist Nuns, Monks, and Other Worldly Matters, Gregory Schopen, purchase book here
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Description
This conversation with Susie Andrews (Mount Allison University) highlights how she uses creative and hands-on approaches to teaching Asian religions. Susie talks about the importance of building a culture of support and shared success in her teachingâand in academia more broadly. An inspired teacher who has her students build models of ancient Chinese burials using cardboard boxes and who regularly brings homemade playdough to her University classes, she will expand your thinking about the possibilities of embodied and creative practice in all stages of learning. This interview was recorded in the summer of 2021 and released in the Fall of 2021.
Quotes
âSome types of doing invite themselves (into) reflection on the significance of doing as a way to know.â Susie Andrews
âOne of the joys of this project is not only the ability to become experts in the material, to really understand that, but also to be together and, maybe for a moment, giggle and find some of that creativity that is so welcome.â Susie Andrews
âHow am I going to facilitate this learning opportunity for the students in my class, both locally and then around the globe? It takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of effort, it takes a lot of creativity, and it's so valuable.â Susie Andrews
âI think that learning in the COVID-19 pandemic has been important for me because it asked me to be the person I want to be, the person whose foremost concern walking into a classroom is to let people know they matter, even if they feel lonely, even if in that moment our inevitable suffering individually and as a group, even if that is very present for them.â Susie Andrews
âWe tell our stories through the objects around us, and those objects also shape how we can imagine ourselves.â Susie Andrews
Links and References
Susie Andrews, Mount Allison University, Department of Religious Studies
https://mta.ca/directory/susie-andrews
Nathan Hesselink, South Korean Drumming and Dance
https://music.ubc.ca/nathan-hesselink
Michael Puett and Christine Gross-Loh, The Path
https://www.simonandschuster.ca/books/The-Path/Michael-Puett/9781476777849
Sharon Suh, Occupy This Body
https://sumeru-books.com/products/occupy-this-body
Ken Bain, What the Best College Teachers Do
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674013254
Joan Halifax, Being with Dying
https://www.shambhala.com/being-with-dying-223.html
Jessica Zitter, MD
https://jessicazitter.com/
Katheryne Mannix, With the End in Mind
https://withtheendinmind.co.uk/
Wheel of Sources
https://uclalibrary.github.io/research-tips/primary-secondary/
Simran Jeet Singh, Sikh Coalition
https://www.sikhcoalition.org/people/simran-jeet-singh/
Natasha Heller, University of Virginia, Department of Religious Studies
https://religiousstudies.as.virginia.edu/faculty/profile/%20nlh4x
Barbara Clayton, Mount Allison University
https://mta.ca/directory/barb-clayton
Ann Gleig
https://crcc.usc.edu/people/ann-gleig/
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Description
In this episode, Dr. Janet Gyatso discusses how she teaches her students about posthumanism and animal ethics in her courses on Buddhist Studies. She is the Hershey Professor of Buddhist Studies and Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs at Harvard Divinity School.
Quotes
âPart of what I'm trying to do is set aside all the mythology and ideology that we have and try to see animals for what they are.â Janet Gyatso
âPosthumanism is an attempt to ratchet down the centrality of humans, in our thought, in our discourse, in our vision of what's important, and to decenter the human.â Janet Gyatso
âWe don't only use our rational minds, we never only use our rational minds, we always are embodied, it's only the question of what we can foreground and be aware of.â Janet Gyatso
Links and References
Autobiography of Jigme Lingpa https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691009483/apparitions-of-the-self
Donna Haraway
Rosi Braidotti https://rosibraidotti.com/publications/the-posthuman-2/
Dipesh Chakrabarty
Amitav Ghosh, The Great Derangement https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/G/bo22265507.html
Eduardo Kohn, How Forests Think https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520276116/how-forests-think
Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter https://www.dukeupress.edu/vibrant-matter
Franz De Waal
Carl Safina, Beyond Words https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780805098884
Barry Lopez, Of Wolves and Men https://bookshop.org/books/of-wolves-and-men/9780684163222
Robert Macfarlane
My Octopus Teacher https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s0LTDhqe5A&ab_channel=Netflix
Peter Singer, Animal Liberation https://www.amazon.ca/Animal-Liberation-Definitive-Classic-Movement/dp/0061711306
Christine Korsgaard, Fellow Creatures https://global.oup.com/academic/product/fellow-creatures-9780198753858?cc=ca&lang=en&
Alice Crary, Inside Ethics https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674967816
Thomas Nagel, What is it like to be a bat? https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/study/ugmodules/humananimalstudies/lectures/32/nagel_bat.pdf
Cows coming out after winter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA8dAnlD51o&ab_channel=CowSignals
James Rebanks, The Herdy Shepherd
Janet Gyatso on Harvard Divinity School website https://hds.harvard.edu/people/janet-gyatso
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Description
Marcus Evans teaches courses on Asian religions at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, exploring new perspectives and incorporating different voices that help students access and interpret old texts. His teaching integrates and combines classical Buddhist works and contrasts and compares these with the works of modern hip hop artists, helping students to see ways that art, literature, and religion evolve and respond in interrelated ways. In this episode, Sarah Richardson asks him about his research and how he brings fresh voices and perspectives into conversation, taking these as strategies for greater student inclusion and antiracist teaching in the University.
Quotes
"The Bhagavad Gita means the Song of the Lord. These brothers, way back in the ancient days, they were rhyming. They were kicking raps.â Marcus Evans
âI wanted them to see if they can pick up on this notion of change in itself and how change and impermanence support a Buddhist concept, because that was something that was very subtle in the lyrics.â Marcus Evans
âI decided to incorporate black American voices into this [course]. I was thinking about it in a way of decentering whiteness and looking at the narrative of transmission of Asian texts to North America by decentering the white gaze.â Marcus Evans
"Which voices can I bring in to challenge the standard way that we do it? This is effective in itself, even in just the people that we attract to the course.â Marcus Evans
âYou know, when I taught my course the Great Books of Asian Religions, it was so fascinating because when I looked into the audience it was the first time that I saw a lot of black in the audience, I had never really seen that in a religious studies course.â Marcus Evans
Music References
RZA
Wu-Tang Clan
Nicki Minaj
T.I., âI Believeâ https://youtu.be/0GsVTsuPyOg
Killer Mike
KRS-One
Tina Turner
Dead Prez, âLearning, Growing, Changingâ https://youtu.be/ttHukW70TAM
Stic.man, The Workout, 2011 https://open.spotify.com/album/5LHhOmal06SQEBREgV7hR1?si=ikA7LKDlQWuy_lkW3AMwIQ
Dead Prez, Letâs Get Free, 2000 https://open.spotify.com/album/7gXuElmegVReY7imkb5bf8?si=ubkZ20qGTX6UYWJzsjrbyg
Dead Prez, Information Age, 2013 https://open.spotify.com/album/1ctEzpKcYukYAOXpyXx7C9?si=WNdJii0qQkmk4-zNcb7CVg
Links to articles and books
Marcus Evans, PhD Candidate at McMaster University
https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/people/evans-marcus
James Robson. âDaoism.â In Norton Anthology of World Religions, edited by James Miles. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2015. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/563049/the-norton-anthology-of-world-religions-daoism-by-james-robson/9780393355000
Malory Nye. Religion: The Basics. New York, NY: Routledge, 2008. https://www.routledge.com/Religion-The-Basics/Nye/p/book/9780415449489
KRS-One. Ruminations: A Philosophical Outlook on Urban Hip-Hop. New York, NY: Welcome Rain Publishers, 2003. https://www.amazon.com/KRS-ONE-Ruminations/dp/1566492742
KRS One. The Gospel of Hip Hop: First Instrument. Brooklyn, NY: PowerHouse Books, 2009. https://powerhousebooks.com/books/the-gospel-of-hip-hop-first-instrument/
Ellie Hisama. ââWeâre All Asian Reallyâ: Hip Hopâs Afro-Asian Crossings.â In Critical Minded: New Approaches to Hip Hop Studies, edited by Ellie Hisama and Evan Rapport, 1â21. Brooklyn, NY: Institute for Studies in American Music, 2005.
Bill V. Mullen. Afro-Orientalism. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2004. https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/afro-orientalism
Deborah Elizabeth Whaley. âBlack Bodies/Yellow Masks: The Orientalist Aesthetic in Hip-hop and Black Visual Culture.â In Afro-Asian Encounters, edited by Heike Raphael-Hernandez and Shannon Steen, pp. 188â203. New York, NY, New York University Press, 2006. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40301281
Christopher M. Driscoll and Monica R. Miller. Method as Identity: Manufacturing Distance in the Academic Study of Religion. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2019. https://www.amazon.ca/Method-Identity-Manufacturing-Distance-Academic/dp/149856562X
Adeana McNicholl. âBeing Buddha, Staying Woke: Racial Formation in Black Buddhist Writing.â Journal of the American Academy of Religion 86, no. 4 (December 2018): 883â911. https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfy019
Ann Gleig https://dib.harvard.edu/event/ann-gleig-undoing-whiteness-american-buddhist-modernism
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Description
Rima Vesely-Flad teaches at Warren Wilson College exploring the intersections of Buddhism, race, and gender. Her teaching is deeply entwined with her current research on Buddhist teachers of African descent in the United states, particularly in the Vipassana tradition.
Buddhism as it was adopted in North America has reflected the racism and discriminatory ideologies of this society. Rima researches how Black Buddhist teachers are doing things differentlyâand how Buddhist institutions in North America and contemporary Buddhist teachings are changing as a result. As more Black teachers are coming into positions of power in the US, authoring books, providing teachings, they are making new articulations of the dharma and carving spaces of liberation from dominant social messages.
Black Buddhist teachers, many of whom also self-identify as queer, show how dharma can be a great vehicle for recognizing that historical harm was done and continues to be done, and to working with that recognition. They disrupt the status quo, bringing about new awareness based on embodied experience, and bringing attention to internalized racism and inter-generational trauma.
With the tools that Buddhism provides to address, name, and be in discomfort, these teachers are making a different dharma possible: a space of resistance and healing to the pervasive ideologies of white supremacy. Teaching and reading this material with students, both white and marginalized, and gender non-conforming, Rima provides expansive opportunities for all to recognize the work that remains.
Quotes
âLetâs take not only Black people who are marginalized in society and value their bodies and value their spirits and value their persons, but letâs also take the most marginalized folks within Black communities and privilege their voices and their experiences so that in this movement not only do we have many, many self-identified queer leaders, but we also have an emphasis on transgender persons and the disproportionate violence especially against Black transgender women.â Rima Vesely-Flad
âSpirit Rock just graduated a teacher group that was 90% people of colour. Thatâs unprecedented!â Rima Vesely-Flad
âIMS is about to graduate a teacher group that is 70% people of colour.â Rima Vesely-Flad
âWhen I did the research for my book, which pertains only to people of African descent both who are recognized teachers but also who are long-time practitioners, it turns out that almost 63% self-identify as queer. Thatâs a very big deal.â Rima Vesely-Flad
âIn that privileging of the body, these teachers are saying we work with the body, the body is our vehicle towards liberation and our social experiences and how weâre constructed needs to get named as much as they need to be transcended. So that there is within these spaces a recognizing of how racism is internalized, the overt violence that gets enacted, the level of fear with which we move in our broader society, all of that gets named and put out there.â Rima Vesely-Flad
âThe practice of liberation is not simply to achieve these different states of mind, but itâs also to say that liberation means a kind of transcending of those dominant, damaging messages that we have internalized so that we are not always in reaction to white supremacy.â Rima Vesely-Flad
âOne of the reasons I think these teachings from these Black teachers are so profound is that you can tell that they have managed to live in a different way. They are not always moving against white supremacy. They are not changing their patterns, not changing their bodies, not always in reaction to the degradation that has been part of the waters we all swim in.â Rima Vesely-Flad
âPredominantly white Buddhist sanghas and retreat structures and governing structures in the United States have not taken seriously that fact that racism can flourish in those communities and that that needs to be named and confronted and worked with through dharma practice.â Rima Vesely-Flad
âLeadership matters â who is on the podium or on the platform or holding the mic â those sets of voices matter a lot in terms of trying to shift a culture, to simply invite more people in but not shift the power structure is really not enough.â Rima Vesely-Flad
âIn the concept of decolonization, we are not talking about reclaiming land. We are talking about reclaiming rituals and we are talking about implementing new rituals and there is a lot to be said for symbolic power.â Rima Vesely-Flad
âThese are more liberal communities â politically liberal communities â and yet not dissimilar to having a group of white students in my classroom who self-silence around race and racism.â Rima Vesely-Flad
âThat is precisely where white people need to do some work and to really work with that fear, that self-silencing, and that inhibition, and again I think the dharma is such a great place to start with that because you have tools to sit with discomfort.â Rima Vesely-Flad
Links and References
Thich Nhat Hanh and rigorous sitting https://www.lionsroar.com/thich-nhat-hanh-sit/
Theravada Buddhism or Insight Meditation or âvipassana movementâ from South East Asia https://www.lionsroar.com/theravada-buddhism-america/
Names of newly trained Black Buddhist teachers:
Jozen Tamori Gibson https://www.spiritrock.org/jozen-gibsonLeslie Booker https://www.lesliebooker.com/Kate Johnson https://www.katejohnson.com/DaRa Williams https://www.dharma.org/teacher/dara-williams/Noliwe Alexander https://www.spiritrock.org/noliwe-alexanderSolwazi Johnson https://www.spiritrock.org/solwazi-johnsonDevin Barry https://www.spiritrock.org/devin-berryRima Vesely-Flad, Racial Purity and Dangerous Bodies: Moral Pollution, Black Lives and the Struggle for Justice, 2017 https://www.fortresspress.com/store/productgroup/1634/Racial-Purity-and-Dangerous-Bodies
Examines the grassroots protest work in Ferguson and beyond to dismantle systems of oppression and disproportionate policing and mass incarcerationUses and critiques liberation theologyHealing Justice https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2019/5/16/what-healing-justice
Insight Meditation Society https://www.dharma.org
Spirit Rock https://www.spiritrock.org
Kevin Manders and Elizabeth Marston, Transcending: Trans Buddhist Voices, 2019 https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/608719/transcending-by-kevin-manders-and-elizabeth-marston/9781623174156
Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmotherâs Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to mending Our Hearts and Bodies, 2017 https://centralrecoverypress.com/product/my-grandmothers-hands-racialized-trauma-and-the-pathway-to-mending-our-hearts-and-bodies-paperback
Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, The Way of Tenderness: Awakening through Race, Sexuality, and Gender, 2015 https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Way-of-Tenderness/Zenju-Earthlyn-Manuel/9781614291251
Lama Rod Owens, Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation through Anger, 2020 https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/608716/love-and-rage-by-lama-rod-owens/
Rev. angel Kyodo Williams, Lama Rod Owens, and Jasmine Syedullah, Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation, 2016 https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/547708/radical-dharma-by-rev-angel-kyodo-williams-lama-rod-owens-and-jasmine-syedullah/
Rema Vesely-Flad, Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition The Practice of Stillness in the Movement for Liberation, 2021 (forthcoming from NYU Press)
Rema Vesely-Flad, âBlack Buddhists and the Body New Approaches to Socially Engaged Buddhism,â Religions, 2017
âInside Outâ prison teaching program at Warren-Wilson College https://www.warren-wilson.edu/2017/08/24/inside-out-program/
Jan Willis, Dreaming Me: One Womanâs Spiritual Journey, 2008 https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Dreaming-Me/Jan-Willis/9780861715480
angel Kyodo Williams, Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living with Fearlessness and Grace, 2002 https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/332699/being-black-by-angel-kyodo-williams/
Sebene Selassie, You Belong: A Call for Connection, 2021 (Forthcoming) https://www.harpercollins.com/products/you-belong-sebene-selassie?variant=32894632755234
Names of Black feminist writers and Black writers on Dharma
bell hooksAudre LordeJames Baldwin -
Description
How do students learn and what do they value six months after a course? What do students get from embodied and experiential learning? In this episode, Sarah interviews five students who all took the same course about interdependence at the University of Toronto in the Fall of 2019. In these interviews, conducted well after the course and when the world has been plunged into a global pandemic, students reflect on how the course changed them and their ways of understanding themselves and their worlds. Hear from students about just how transformational these embodied practices were, and how this kind of learning that intentionally used class time to work with putting things into a physical practice changed their relationship to a core Buddhist studies concept-- interdependence-- and what they are doing with that six months on. Listen and find inspiration to try new things in your classes too!
Quotes
âI wasn't just learning about interdependence, but I was learning also about myself.â Xinran Huang
âI had an incredible sense of gratitude and awe at what my body was and what it gives me. It was pretty powerful. Sam Keravica
âI found out that memory isn't real, it's practiced.â Sally Andrews
âI'm struggling to articulate the kind of bodily realization of how we are intimately connected with each other, even beyond thoughts.â Richard Wu
âWe have to open our circle of concern for this collective self that we're trying to protect.â Aaron Marshall
Links and References
Kriti Sharma, Interdependence, Biology and Beyond
https://www.fordhampress.com/9780823265534/interdependence/
Alexis Shotwell, Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times
https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/against-purity
Frances Garrettâs description of the course
http://francesgarrett.chass.utoronto.ca/interdependence/
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Description
Gathering data about student expectations and experiences with new technology is essential to developing effective courses to be delivered online during the pandemic. In this interview we spoke with Daigengna Duoer, who taught an online course on Zen Buddhism at UC Santa Barbara this past summer. Daigengna repeatedly surveyed her students to evaluate their preferences and comfort with the format and content of the course. In this episode, we hear about some creative and specific ways she created an engaging asynchronous learning experience in a course that was taught entirely remotely. Some key take-aways? One-on-one zoom meetings to develop paper topics, a preference for asynchronous, but also short, lectures, and being sure to build a course that allows students to focus on topics of real interest to them.
Quotes
"74% of my students actually preferred asynchronous. I was really shocked. 0% preferred 100% synchronous formats." Daigengna Duoer
"Teaching in covid-19 really made me become more aware about how students learn, how they want to learn, what they want to learn, especially when it comes to Buddhism and also Zen, things like this, so they are really technology-oriented, but they're also very flexible, I think, and they really want relevant information and material and also arguments for their immediate concerns." Daigengna Duoer
"One of the advantages we have as instructors of humanities courses where we can definitely teach this exciting content, but we can also teach, useful transferable skills through this content to students." Daigengna Duoer
Links and References
Daigengna Duoer, UC Santa Barbara, Department of Religious Studies
https://www.religion.ucsb.edu/people/student/daigengna-duoer/
Daigengnaâs Personal Website
https://www.daigengnaduoer.com
Panopto video recording and sharing software
https://www.panopto.com/
Ronald Purser, McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/600158/mcmindfulness-by-ronald-purser/
Hwansoo Kim, "The Adventures of a Japanese Monk in Colonial Korea: SĆma ShĆei's Zen Training with Korean Masters"
www.jstor.org/stable/30233856
Joshua Irizarry, "Putting a Price on Zen: The Business of Redefining Religion for Global Consumption"
http://www.globalbuddhism.org/jgb/index.php/jgb/article/view/147
Peter Romaskiewicz, Mind Lab exercises
PRE-Course Survey
POST-Course Survey
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Description
Dr. Kerry Lucinda Brown is a professor of art history at Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah Georgia and has a research focus on the religious arts of the Newar community of Nepal. In this episode we speak with Kerry about how she teaches Asian and Buddhist art topics in her context: that is, to students in a design college for whom the materials may be new and distant. Teaching Asian and Buddhist arts and their long and complex histories can be complicated, but Kerry finds tangible ways to make the experience of her courses unforgettable for students. From visiting local religious sites, to scheduling collaborative review sessions with her students after their final exam, Kerry shares the breadth and depth of Asian religious art, and her infectious enthusiasm for a form of teaching that is like sports coaching with her students. Fail! Practice! Repeat!
Quotes
"Images are not just powerful as things. They have presence and aliveness." Kerry Brown
"Once I say that they are allowed to fail and they should fail, itâs the easiest way to learn, then they take a deep breath and are a little easier on themselves." Kerry Brown
"Thereâs all different kinds of Buddhisms, and I think once they get that they realize that itâs easier to understand the different variations, thereâs not just one Buddhism." Kerry Brown
Links and References
Kerryâs profile page at SCAD
https://www.scad.edu/academics/faculty/kerry-brown
Kerry Lucinda Brown on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerrylucinda
Sanjay Patel, Little Book of Hindu Deities: From the Goddess of Wealth to the Sacred Cow
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/298724/the-little-book-of-hindu-deities-by-sanjay-patel/
Carlelton-Antioch Buddhist Studies Program
https://www.carleton.edu/global-engagement/buddhist-studies-india/
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Description
Dr. Luther Obrock from the University of Toronto shares about teaching an undergraduate course on bodies and embodiment in early Indian Buddhist texts. He wants to use his course, a seminar, to help students understand how theories are not just modern constructions, but instead can also emerge from ancient religious texts. He leads his students through ways to mine data and information about how the writers of ancient Indian texts, themselves embodied, understood and spoke about their (gendered) bodies. From analyzing the representation of the "hyper-masculine" Buddhaâs body, or the status of the female body as attested in literature by or about nuns, a theory, or an "imaginary relationship to a real problem" of the body, can emerge.
Quotes
"Letâs imagine these texts as coming from embodied people." Luther Obrock
"We can use the Buddhist texts as theory to think about our own positionality." Luther Obrock
Links and References
Dr. Luther Obrock
https://www.utm.utoronto.ca/historical-studies/people/obrock-luther
Therigatha
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/thig/index.html
John Powers, A Bull of a Man: Images of Masculinity, Sex, and the Boyd in Indian Buddhism
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674064034&content=reviews
Charles Hallisey, Therigatha: Selected Poems of the First Buddhist Women
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674427730
I.B. (Isaline Blew) Horner â https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaline_Blew_Horner
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Description
In this episode, Dr. Rongdao Lai discusses her approach to teaching Buddhism as a living religion, and not only as a philosophy. As an ordained Buddhist nun in the Chinese tradition, she is intimately familiar with the contrasts between the academic study of religion and her own training in Buddhist practices at temples. She aspires to teach all of her students how to develop a critical approach to evaluating the study of Buddhism and its canonical objects: why are certain texts and topics treated as core to the study of Buddhism? The possibility of attending to lived Buddhism and contemporary problems in the study of Buddhism and the world opens up a world of new possibilities for students and professors.
Quotes
"I want students to see how people live their Buddhism." Rongdao Lai
"If Buddhism is the only course in the humanities that students take, this is an amazing opportunity to give them something theyâll never forget." Rongdao Lai
Links and References
Rongdao Lai, McGill University https://www.mcgill.ca/religiousstudies/rongdao-lai
Bill 21, Quebec http://www.assnat.qc.ca/en/travaux-parlementaires/projets-loi/projet-loi-21-42-1.html?appelant=MC
Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei, Japan Documentary by Christopher Hayden, 2002 https://youtu.be/M4tcN2YfA-k (duration 52:14)
Kwaidan, 1965 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwaidan_(film)
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Description
Dr. Frances Garrett from the University of Toronto discusses how she designs courses in creative ways that focus on developing student skills as well as sharing Buddhist studies content. She develops creative courses for her students, leading them through experiences like an immersive year-long embodied role playing game, or a seminar where the students collaborate on writing and publishing an academic journal. As a self professed introvert for whom teaching has always been a struggle of a sort, Frances shares ways that she centers the mental health and needs of her undergraduate and graduate students, and creates a more compassionate University.
Quotes
"I think as a teacher you have to model appreciative criticism." Frances Garrett
"Studentsâ subjective experience can be a way into learning about interdependence." Frances Garrett
Links and References
Frances Garrettâs website and profile page
https://www.religion.utoronto.ca/people/directories/all-faculty/frances-garrett
http://francesgarrett.chass.utoronto.ca
Antioch Universityâs study abroad program in Bodhgaya, India (See also episode with Kerry Brown)
https://www.carleton.edu/global-engagement/buddhist-studies-india/
David Germano and the Tibetan Himalayan Digital Library
http://www.thlib.org/about/wiki/thdl%20home%20overview.html
Barnard College, Reacting to the Past - Role-playing game for undergraduate students
https://reacting.barnard.edu
Todd Lewis, "Getting the Foundations Right when Teaching Asian Religions," Education about Asia, 2010
https://college.holycross.edu/faculty/tlewis/PDFs/teaching_about_asian_religions.pdf
Todd Lewis, "Representations of Buddhism in Undergraduate Teaching: The Centrality of Ritual and Story Narratives," Teaching Buddhism in the West Routledge 2002
https://college.holycross.edu/faculty/tlewis/PDFs/Representations_of_Buddhism_in_Undergraduate_Teaching.pdf
Matt King, Barbara Hazelton, Andrew Erlich, and Nicholas Field, "Narratives of Hospitality and Feeding in Tibetan Ritual," Journal of the American Academy of Religion - article co-written by grad students https://academic.oup.com/jaar/article/81/2/491/805712
3 Domains of Learning in Bloomâs Taxonomy
https://thesecondprinciple.com/instructional-design/threedomainsoflearning/
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Description
In this interview, Sarah Richardson sits down with Dr. Ellen Katz, who has a unique lens as both a practising Social worker and a practising Buddhist, and a professor who marries these two experiences in and for her students. She discusses how she teaches her students about experiential and embodied learning, and meditation practices, in an undergraduate course on mindfulness and mental health interventions, and in graduate courses on mindfulness for social work students who may apply this one day in the field. For Ellen though, it is important that mindfulness is not a tool, but instead a practice that all must experience to understand.
Quotes
"I tell them that mindfulness is something like present moment awareness that welcomes all experience without preconception or judgment. It accepts what is with curiosity and compassion." Ellen Katz
"Mindfulness isnât a techniqueâitâs a process and you are the tool." Ellen Katz
"Social work is still focused on identity: duality and division. Buddhism can take social work further, looking at what we share as human beings." Ellen Katz
"I find they are so engaged and again so hungry for this knowledge, theory, and practice." Ellen Katz
Links and References
Dr. Ellen Katz, Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto
https://socialwork.utoronto.ca/profiles/ellen-katz/
Dr. Diane R. Gehart, Mindfulness and Acceptance in Couple and Family Therapy
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9781461430322
Rodger Kamenetz, The Jew in the Lotus
https://www.amazon.ca/Jew-Lotus-Rediscovery-Identity-Buddhist/dp/0061367397
Toronto Zen Centre
https://torontozen.org
Reggie Ray, Dharma Ocean
https://www.dharmaocean.org
Gregory Kramer, Insight Dialogue: The Interpersonal Path to Freedom
https://www.amazon.ca/Insight-Dialogue-Interpersonal-Path-Freedom/dp/1590304853
Discusses relational mindfulness
Gillian Straker, The Talking Cure: Normal People, their Hidden Struggles and the Life-Changing Power of Therapy
https://www.amazon.ca/Talking-Cure-Struggles-Life-Changing-Therapy/dp/1760781169/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Yuk-Lin Renita Wong, "Knowing through Discomfort: A Mindfulness-based Critical Social Work Pedagogy," Critical Social Work 5.1 (2004).
https://ojs.uwindsor.ca/index.php/csw/article/view/5636/4606
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In this episode, Sarah Richardson speaks with Norman Farb, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto Mississauga, about teaching contemplative science.
Sarah and Norm talk about the benefits and drawbacks of secularizing Buddhist practices such as mindfulness, and about his use of exercises such as mindfulness and body scanning in his courses.
Resources MentionedJon Kabat-Zinnâs guided mindfulness practices, at https://www.mindfulnesscds.com/
An APS article on the concept of interoception
Ronald Purserâs book, McMindfulness
Zindel Segal and the Mindful Awareness Lab
See show notes at http://teachingbuddhism.net/norman-farb/.
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In this episode, Sarah Richardson talks with Wen-shing Chou, Associate Professor of Art History at Hunter College in New York, where she specializes in the art of China and the Himalaya.
Sarah and Wen-shing discuss digital photography projects such as the Dunhuang Cave Foundationâs work with preserving and digitally archiving the contents of each cave, and they talk about taking students to see Buddhist art in galleries and museums in New York City during Asia Week.
Resources mentioned
Wen-shing Chou, Mount Wutai: Visions of a Sacred Buddhist Mountain, Princeton University Press, 2018 https://press.princeton.edu/our-authors/chou-wen-shing
Her book received an honorable mention for the AAS Levenson prize: https://www.asianstudies.org/aas-2020-prizes/
Digital Dunhuang: https://www.e-dunhuang.com/index.htm (register to see virtual caves in high-resolution)
For manuscripts, paintings, textiles and artifacts from Dunhuang, see International Dunhuang Project website: http://idp.bl.uk/idp.a4d
For an archive of photographs, rare books, and other materials on the Silk Road, see http://dsr.nii.ac.jp/
See show notes at http://teachingbuddhism.net/wen-shing-chou/.
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In this episode, Sarah Richardson speaks with Abishek Amar, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Hamilton College. Abhishek specializes in the archaeological history of South Asian religions, and he is leading a digital research project, Sacred Centers in India, which examines material, culture and texts that reveal histories of the Hindu and Buddhist cities of Gaya and Bodhgaya.
Sarah and Abishek talk about what it means to teach about Indian Buddhism in a small liberal arts college in the U.S. They discuss some of the many ways that Buddhism can be studied, and how a nuanced understanding of the history of Buddhism can be gleaned from modern archaeological sites and how theyâve been reconstructed, and from the examination of material culture more generally.
Resources MentionedKevin Trainorâs book, Buddhism: The Illustrated Guide, published by Oxford University Press, in 2004.
Gregory Schopenâs 1991 article, âArchaeology and Protestant Presuppositions in the Study of Indian Buddhismâ in History of Religions 31(1), pp. 1-23.
Abhishek Amarâs book, Cross-disciplinary Biography of a Contested Buddhist Site, edited jointly with David Geary (Oxford University, UK), and Matthew R. Sayers (Lebanon Valley College, USA), London: Routledge Publication, 2012.Abhishek Amarâs 2012 article, âBodhgaya and Gaya: Buddhist Responses to the Hindu Challenges in Early India,â in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 22(1), pp. 155-185.
See show notes at http://teachingbuddhism.net/abishek-amar/.
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In this episode, Sarah Richardson speaks with Natalie Avalos, now a Chancellorâs Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, but joining the department as an Assistant Professor in the 2020-21 academic year.
Sarah and Natalie discuss Natalieâs unusual research specialization in both Tibetan Buddhism and Native American and Indigenous religions traditions. They explore how she prioritizes the undoing of colonization through her teaching, covering somatic and affective dimensions of colonial legacies, historical trauma, and how to make the mechanisms of power visible to students.
Resources MentionedReligious Studies News issue on decolonial approaches to teaching religious studies
Linda Tuhiwai Smithâs book, Decolonizing Methodologies
All Buddhism is Engaged: Thich Nhat Hanh and the Order of Interbeing, by Patricia Hunt-Perry and Lyn Fine, a chapter in Christopher S. Queenâs book, Engaged Buddhism in the West
bell hooks on Contemplation and Transformation, in the book, Buddhist Women on the Edge
bell hooks on Building a Community of Love, an interview with Thich Nhat Hanh
A video of birds flying in murmuration
See show notes at http://teachingbuddhism.net/natalie-avalos/
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