ASIAN 4020 - [Buddhist Moderns: Visions of Human Flourishing]

(crosslisted) RELST 4020
(ALC-AS)

Fall. Not offered: 2023-2024. Next offered: 2024-2025. 3 credits. Student option grading.

Permission of instructor required. Co-meets with ASIAN 6020/RELST 6022.

A. Blackburn.

Do modern times (which are experienced and conceptualized in varied ways) pose distinctive problems and opportunities for Buddhists? How are Buddhist teachings drawn into forms of social and political critique, activist and advocacy projects, and theorizing about human communities and social processes? In the 20th and 21st centuries, how do Buddhist teachings and practices inform practical and conceptual approaches to human flourishing? Drawing on thinkers from several parts of Asia and the Americas, this seminar highlights how persons work creatively with Buddhist teachings. We shall explore how Buddhist teachings are interpreted to address painful circumstances, as well as how such hermeneutics may offer new (and sometimes liberatory) ways of seeing selves, others, and communities. Writers and artists considered in this seminar interpret Buddhist teachings and practices in relation to capitalism, race, gender, sexuality, environmental ethics, and nationalism. (RL)