Episodios

  • Nile Green, "Serendipitous Translations: A Sourcebook on Sri Lanka in the Islamic Indian Ocean" (U Texas Press, 2026)

    Nile Green, "Serendipitous Translations: A Sourcebook on Sri Lanka in the Islamic Indian Ocean" (U Texas Press, 2026)
    Jan 7 2026
    Sri Lanka has long sat astride the monsoon winds between the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea – a small island at the centre of a very big story. For over a thousand years, Muslim pilgrims, merchants, scholars, and soldiers have passed through “Lanka” or “Sarandib”, leaving traces in Arabic, Tamil, Persian, Malay, Ottoman Turkish, Urdu, Dhivehi, and Sinhala. Serendipitous Translations: A Sourcebook on Sri Lanka in the Islamic Indian Ocean (University of Texas Press, 2026) brings together many of those voices for the first time in English. From medieval travellers marvelling at Adam’s Peak to modern novelists and newspaper editors wrestling with reform, nationalism, and civil conflict. Dr. Nile Green holds the Ibn Khaldun Endowed Chair in World History at UCLA. A former Guggenheim Fellow, he is the celebrated author of ten monographs and the editor of seven books and several journal issues, with a particular focus on Islam and the Indian Ocean world. He also hosts the excellent podcast Akbar’s Chamber: Experts Talk Islam. Dr. Ahmed AlMaazmi is Assistant Professor of History at the United Arab Emirates University. His research explores the intersections of empire, occult sciences, slavery, law, environmental infrastructures, and material culture in the Arabian Peninsula and the wider Indian Ocean world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies
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    1 h y 2 m
  • Thomas J. Mazanec, "Poet-Monks: The Invention of Buddhist Poetry in Late Medieval China" (Cornell UP, 2024)

    Thomas J. Mazanec, "Poet-Monks: The Invention of Buddhist Poetry in Late Medieval China" (Cornell UP, 2024)
    Jan 5 2026
    Poet-Monks focuses on the literary and religious practices of Buddhist poet-monks in Tang-dynasty China to propose an alternative historical arc of medieval Chinese poetry. Combining large-scale quantitative analysis with close readings of important literary texts, Thomas J. Mazanec describes how Buddhist poet-monks, who first appeared in the latter half of Tang-dynasty China, asserted a bold new vision of poetry that proclaimed the union of classical verse with Buddhist practices of repetition, incantation, and meditation. Mazanec traces the historical development of the poet-monk as a distinct actor in the Chinese literary world, arguing for the importance of religious practice in medieval literature. As they witnessed the collapse of the world around them, these monks wove together the frayed threads of their traditions to establish an elite-style Chinese Buddhist poetry. Poet-Monks shows that during the transformative period of the Tang-Song transition, Buddhist monks were at the forefront of poetic innovation. This book is open access, you can find the download link here. You can find the statistics and social network analysis in this book as well as links to Prof. Mazanec's codes in this book. You can find the online bibliography of Chinese poetry in translation here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies
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    1 h y 15 m
  • Shuchen Xiang, "Chinese Cosmopolitanism: The History and Philosophy of an Idea" (Princeton UP, 2023)

    Shuchen Xiang, "Chinese Cosmopolitanism: The History and Philosophy of an Idea" (Princeton UP, 2023)
    Jan 4 2026
    A provocative defense of a forgotten Chinese approach to identity and difference. Historically, the Western encounter with difference has been catastrophic: the extermination and displacement of aboriginal populations, the transatlantic slave trade, and colonialism. China, however, took a different historical path. In Chinese Cosmopolitanism: The History and Philosophy of an Idea (Princeton UP, 2023), Shuchen Xiang argues that the Chinese cultural tradition was, from its formative beginnings and throughout its imperial history, a cosmopolitan melting pot that synthesized the different cultures that came into its orbit. Unlike the West, which cast its collisions with different cultures in Manichean terms of the ontologically irreconcilable difference between civilization and barbarism, China was a dynamic identity created out of difference. The reasons for this, Xiang argues, are philosophical: Chinese philosophy has the conceptual resources for providing alternative ways to understand pluralism. Xiang explains that "Chinese" identity is not what the West understands as a racial identity; it is not a group of people related by common descent or heredity but rather a hybrid of coalescing cultures. To use the Western discourse of race to frame the Chinese view of non-Chinese, she argues, is a category error. Xiang shows that China was both internally cosmopolitan, embracing distinct peoples into a common identity, and externally cosmopolitan, having knowledge of faraway lands without an ideological need to subjugate them. Contrasting the Chinese understanding of efficacy--described as "harmony"--with the Western understanding of order, she argues that the Chinese sought to gain influence over others by having them spontaneously accept the virtue of one's position. These ideas from Chinese philosophy, she contends, offer a new way to understand today's multipolar world and can make a valuable contribution to contemporary discussions in the critical philosophy of race. For readers interested in how GCB and the Greek philosophical justification of GCB, domination, and destruction of barbarians still inform productions and consumptions of racist ideology as embodied in The Turner Diaries, see for example, here, here, and here. Readers interested in the Vāda project that employs Indian epistemology to evaluate contemporary political claims, see here. Jessica Zu is an intellectual historian and a scholar of Buddhist studies. She is an assistant professor of religion at the University of Southern California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies
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    1 h y 30 m
  • Megan Bryson and Kevin Buckelew eds., "Buddhist Masculinities" (Columbia UP, 2023)

    Megan Bryson and Kevin Buckelew eds., "Buddhist Masculinities" (Columbia UP, 2023)
    Jan 2 2026
    While early Buddhists hailed their religion's founder for opening a path to enlightenment, they also exalted him as the paragon of masculinity. According to Buddhist scriptures, the Buddha's body boasts thirty-two physical features, including lionlike jaws, thighs like a royal stag, broad shoulders, and a deep, resonant voice, that distinguish him from ordinary men. As Buddhism spread throughout Asia and around the world, the Buddha remained an exemplary man, but Buddhists in other times and places developed their own understandings of what it meant to be masculine. This transdisciplinary book brings together essays that explore the variety and diversity of Buddhist masculinities, from early India to the contemporary United States, and from bodhisattva-kings to martial monks. Buddhist Masculinities (Columbia UP, 2023) adopts the methods of religious studies, anthropology, art history, textual-historical studies, and cultural studies to explore texts, images, films, media, and embodiments of masculinity across the Buddhist world, past and present. It turns scholarly attention to normative forms of masculinity that usually go unmarked and unstudied precisely because they are "normal," illuminating the religious and cultural processes that construct Buddhist masculinities. Engaging with contemporary issues of gender identity, intersectionality, and sexual ethics, Buddhist Masculinities ushers in a new era for the study of Buddhism and gender. MEGAN BRYSON is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and chair of the Asian Studies program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She received her B.A. in Religious Studies and Chinese from University of Oregon, and her Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Stanford University. Her research focuses primarily on themes of gender and ethnicity in Chinese religions, especially in the Dali region of Yunnan Province. The geographical specificity of her work is balanced by its temporal breadth, which ranges from the Nanzhao (649-903) and Dali (937-1253) kingdoms to the present, as reflected in her monograph, Goddess on the Frontier: Religion, Ethnicity, and Gender in Southwest China (Stanford University Press, 2016, an interview with her about this book is also on the New Books Network), which traces the worship of a local deity in Dali from the 12th to 21st centuries. KEVIN BUCKELEW is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Northwestern University. He received his B.A. in the liberal arts from Sarah Lawrence College, and his Ph.D. from Columbia University's Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. His research focuses on Buddhism in premodern China, with special attention to the rise of the Chan (Zen) Buddhist tradition and to interactions between Chinese Buddhists and Daoists. Thematically, his work explores how religious identities take shape and assume social authority; how materiality, embodiment, and gender figure into Buddhist soteriology; and how Buddhists have grappled with the problem of human agency. Jue Liang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Case Western Reserve University. She is currently completing her first book, entitled Conceiving the Mother of Tibet: The Early Literary Lives of the Buddhist Saint Yeshé Tsogyel. She is also working on a second project, tentatively titled i. As a scholar of Buddhist literature, history, and culture in South and East Asia, she reflects in her research and teaching continuities as well as innovations in the gender discourses of Buddhist communities. She is also interested in the theory and practice of translation in general, and translating Tibetan literature in particular. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies
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    55 m
  • Scott A. Mitchell, "The Making of American Buddhism" (Oxford UP, 2023)

    Scott A. Mitchell, "The Making of American Buddhism" (Oxford UP, 2023)
    Dec 30 2025
    Scott A. Mitchell is the Dean of Students and Faculty Affairs and holds the Yoshitaka Tamai Professorial Chair at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley. He teaches and writes about Buddhism in the West, Pure Land Buddhism, and Buddhist modernism. As of 2010, there were approximately 3-4 million Buddhists in the United States, and that figure is expected to grow significantly. Beyond the numbers, the influence of Buddhism can be felt throughout the culture, with many more people practicing meditation, for example, than claiming Buddhist identity. A century ago, this would have been unthinkable. So how did Buddhism come to claim such a significant place in the American cultural landscape? The Making of American Buddhism (Oxford UP, 2023) offers an answer, showing how in the years on either side of World War II second-generation Japanese American Buddhists laid claim to an American identity inclusive of their religious identity. In the process they-and their allies-created a place for Buddhism in America. These sons and daughters of Japanese immigrants-known as “Nisei,” Japanese for “second-generation”-clustered around the Berkeley Bussei, a magazine published from 1939 to 1960. In the pages of the Bussei and elsewhere, these Nisei Buddhists argued that Buddhism was both what made them good Americans and what they had to contribute to America-a rational and scientific religion of peace. The Making of American Buddhism also details the behind-the-scenes labor that made Buddhist modernism possible. The Bussei was one among many projects that were embedded within Japanese American Buddhist communities and connected to national and transnational networks that shaped and allowed for the spread of modernist Buddhist ideas. In creating communities, publishing magazines, and hosting scholarly conventions and translation projects, Nisei Buddhists built the religious infrastructure that allowed the later Buddhist modernists, Beat poets, and white converts who are often credited with popularizing Buddhism to flourish. Nisei activists didn't invent American Buddhism, but they made it possible. Dr. Victoria Montrose is an Assistant Professor of Religion and Asian Studies at Furman University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies
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    59 m
  • Integral Perspectives: From Kashmiri Shaivism to Tibetan Buddhism with Sean K. MacCracken

    Integral Perspectives: From Kashmiri Shaivism to Tibetan Buddhism with Sean K. MacCracken
    Dec 20 2025
    In this episode, Sean MacCracken reflects on his experience at the American Academy of Religion, noticing a shift toward more participatory, contemplative, and integrative approaches in religious studies. He discusses his course, Kashmiri Shaivism: Supreme Non-Dualism, highlighting how meditation, contemplation, and embodied practices cultivate awareness, ethical self-reflection, and creative engagement with the world. Sean also explores how his study of Indian philosophy and Tantric traditions opens broader, integral ways of knowing that move beyond reductionist frameworks. He discusses his article, “Regarding Humanism: Some Observations Concerning the Tibetan Buddhist and Transhumanist Dialogue,” showing how Buddhist and Tantric insights deepen our understanding of humanism, development, and collective ethical responsibility. This episode offers listeners a glimpse into how contemplative and Integralist approaches can reshape learning, thinking, and living—showing philosophy as a path toward grounded, ethically engaged, and transformative ways of being in the world. Sean K. MacCracken is adjunct faculty at California Institute of Integral Studies. He recieved a M.A. and Ph.D in Asian and Comparative Studies from CIIS, and a M.A. in Religious Studies from University of Virginia. “Regarding Humanism: Some Observations Concerning the Tibetan Buddhist and Transhumanist Dialogue” https://processcenturypress.com/unprecedented-evolution-continuities-and-discontinuities-between-human-and-animal-life-and-the-future-of-humanity/ The EWP Podcast credits Connect with EWP: Website • Youtube • Facebook Hosted by Stephen Julich (EWP Core Faculty) and Jonathan Kay (EWP PhD grad) Produced by: Stephen Julich and Jonathan Kay Edited and Mixed by: Jonathan Kay Music: Mosaic, by Monsoon on the album Mandala Introduction Voiceover: Roche Wadehra Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies
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    1 h y 31 m
  • Yasmin Cho, "Politics of Tranquility: The Material and Mundane Lives of Buddhist Nuns in Post-Mao Tibet" (Cornell UP, 2025)

    Yasmin Cho, "Politics of Tranquility: The Material and Mundane Lives of Buddhist Nuns in Post-Mao Tibet" (Cornell UP, 2025)
    Dec 15 2025
    Politics of Tranquility: The Material and Mundane Lives of Buddhist Nuns in Post-Mao Tibet (Cornell University Press, 2025) concerns the Tibetan Buddhist revival in China, illustrating the lives of Tibetan Buddhist nuns and exploring the political effects that arise from their nonpolitical daily engagements in the remote, mega-sized Tibetan Buddhist encampment of Yachen Gar. Yasmin Cho's book challenges two assumptions about Tibetan Buddhist communities in China. First, against the assumption that a Buddhist monastic community is best understood in terms of its esoteric qualities, Cho focuses on the material and mundane daily practices that are indispensable to the existence and persistence of such a community and shows how deeply gendered these practices are. Second, against the assumption that Tibetan politics toward the Chinese state is best understood as rebellious, incendiary, and centered upon Tibetan victimhood, the nuns demonstrate how it can be otherwise. Tibetan politics can be unassuming, calm, and self-contained and yet still have substantial political effects. As Politics of Tranquility shows, the nuns in Yachen Gar have called forth an alternative way of living and expressing themselves as Tibetans and as female monastics despite a repressive context. ------------------ Jing Li teaches Chinese language, literature, and cinema. Her research focuses on rural China, independent filmmaking, and digital media cultures. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies
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    53 m
  • Dr. Michael Uebel on Reimaging Equanimity

    Dr. Michael Uebel on Reimaging Equanimity
    Dec 13 2025
    Michael Uebel is a psychotherapist and researcher currently based in Austin, Texas. He is recognized as a pioneer in applying psychological insights to the historical intersections of social, personal, and imaginative phenomena. He is a Research Affiliate at the University of Texas at Austin and a psychotherapist in both the public sector and in private practice. Uebel has taught literature and critical theory at several universities, including the University of Virginia, Georgetown University, and the University of Kentucky. Seeds of Equanimity: Knowing and Being (Mimesis, 2025), is an innovative introduction to the philosophy and psychology of equanimity. Uebel challenges the popular modern view often associated with certain mindfulness practices that equanimity is a state of impartial quiescence, solidity, or inner stillness, achieved through emotional regulation. His book reanimates the concept of equanimity by drawing on its philosophical and psychological genealogy by tracing its origins and development, framing it as a dynamic, active, and flexible existential condition. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies
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    46 m
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