SEMINAR IN S,SEASN
Buddhism has inspired a wide spectrum of religious, textual, and political movements in modern Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka, ranging from millenarian movements and scriptural reform projects to the secular nationalism of Young Men’s Buddhist Associations. This interdisciplinary course explores the individuals, beliefs, influences, practices, and institutional developments that shaped, led and framed such movements in 19th and 20th century Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka with particular emphasis on the contested terrains of text, monument, and material culture. We will examine the tensions between purist prescriptions, colonial categorizations, European heritage conventions and popular practice as played out in Laos, Burma, Siam/Thailand and Cambodia. We will examine diverse articulations of sacred space; tensions between modernization projects to centralize and nationalize Buddhist learning and forest-based dhutanga practices involving cross-boundary mobility, and the transnational traction between M. K. Gandhi and Buddhist resistance movements in Southeast Asia. Our focus areas are Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
Required Textbooks:
Locations of Buddhism: Colonialism and Modernity in Sri Lanka by Anne Blackburn
The Birth of Insight by Erik Braun
Cambodge: The Cultivations of a Nation, 1860-1945 by Penny Edwards
How to Behave: Buddhism and Modernity in Colonial Cambodia by John Holt
Curators of the Buddha: The Study of Buddhism under Colonialism by Donald S. Lopez
The Lovelorn Ghost and the Magic Monk: Practicing Buddhism in Modern Thailand by Justin McDaniel
Modern Buddhist Conjunctures in Myanmar: Cultural Narratives, Colonial Legacies, and Civil Society by Juliane Schober
Harp of Burma by Michio Takeyama
Buddha in the Jungle by Kamala Tivanavich
