Overview
The motivation behind this important volume is to weave together two distinct, but we think complementary, traditions – the philosophical engagement with race/whiteness and Buddhist philosophy – in order to explore the ways in which these traditions can inform, correct, and improve each other. This exciting and critically informed volume will be the first of its kind to bring together essays that explicitly connect these two traditions and will mark a major step both in understanding race and whiteness (with the help of Buddhist philosophy) and in understanding Buddhist philosophy (with the help of philosophy of race and theorizations of whiteness). We expand upon a small, but growing, body of work that applies Buddhist philosophical analyses to whiteness and racial injustice in contemporary U.S. culture. Buddhist philosophy has much to contribute to furthering our understanding of whiteness and racial identity, the mechanisms that create and maintain white supremacy, and the possibility of dismantling white supremacy. We are interested both in the possible insights that Buddhist metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical analyses can bring to understanding race and whiteness, as well as the potential limitations of such Buddhist-inspired approaches. In their chapters, contributors draw on Buddhist philosophical and contemplative traditions to offer fresh, insightful, and powerful perspectives on issues regarding racial identity and whiteness, including such themes as cultural appropriation, mechanisms of racial injustice and racial justice, phenomenology of racial oppression, epistemologies of racial ignorance, liberatory practices with regard to racism, Womanism, and the intersections of gender-based, raced-based, and sexuality-based oppressions. Authors make use of both contemporary and ancient Buddhist philosophical and contemplative traditions. These include various Asian traditions, including Theravada, Mahayana, Tantra, and Zen, as well as comparatively new American Buddhist traditions.
Full Product Details
Author: George Yancy ,
Emily McRae, associate professor, Univ ,
Jan Willis, Jan Willis ,
Sharon Suh
Publisher: Lexington Books
Imprint: Lexington Books
Dimensions:
Width: 15.40cm
, Height: 2.10cm
, Length: 22.00cm
Weight: 0.513kg
ISBN: 9781498581042
ISBN 10: 1498581048
Pages: 384
Publication Date: 02 July 2021
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Reviews
With essays from more than 15 thinkers, including Tricycle contributing editor Charles Johnson, this book offers new scholarly ideas on Buddhism's equal access to liberation in the context of the persistent racism experienced in America and beyond. The editors write in the introduction that racism or white supremacy is like the water in which we all swim -though only some of us notice that we're submerged. Contributors from across traditions, who also draw on feminist and cultural studies in addition to race theory, ask whether we can use Buddhist philosophy to put an end to racism and white supremacy just as we apply teachings to cut through our sense of self. * Tricycle: The Buddist Review * Part of the importance of this collection of essays lies in its multipronged approach to both naming the white supremacist bedrock of whiteness and describing Buddhist models for understanding how it arises. . . Authors in this volume bring to light a number of attitudes that help the reader see white ignorance in action. . . . Relinquishing the privilege of being the authority on what constitutes real Buddhism, who is a real American, and what counts as real practice involves giving something up. That act, and all the myriad ways whites can practice giving away unearned privilege, can itself become a powerful method of merit-making, of dana as a form of moral development in the pursuit of benefiting others. In this respect and others, Buddhism and Whiteness offers gifts of insight that constitute a wise and compassionate act of merit. * Buddhadharma * It is high time for a book like this. For too long the story of the transmission of Buddhism to the West has been told without attention to the ways that transmission is inflected by race and racism. This carefully curated collection of essays opens that question, and offers a rich set of perspectives on the complex interaction of Buddhist transmission, ideology, and practice with race and racism in the West. A must read for anyone interested in contemporary global Buddhism. -- Jay Garfield, Smith College It is impossible to read Buddhism and Whiteness and not experience an itch for action. This timely-and indeed, futurely - volume challenges all of us to reflect creatively and imaginatively about how we can best make a politics of the possible a constitutive contour of our religious lives, our efforts to learn about and from Buddhism, and especially our everyday lives, even as all of these are deeply conditioned and distorted by structural racism together with other oppressive and exclusionary structures. -- Charles Hallisey, Harvard Divinity School Buddhism and Whiteness instructs with the spirit of Thich Naht Hanh- Freedom is not given to us by anyone, we have to cultivate it. Composting ignorance and violence, this volume seeds peace for local and global care from US to Rohingya and Yemen communities. -- Joy James, author of Seeking the Beloved Community
Buddhism and Whiteness instructs with the spirit of Thich Naht Hanh- Freedom is not given to us by anyone, we have to cultivate it. Composting ignorance and violence, this volume seeds peace for local and global care from US to Rohingya and Yemen communities. -- Joy James, author of Seeking the Beloved Community It is impossible to read Buddhism and Whiteness and not experience an itch for action. This timely-and indeed, futurely - volume challenges all of us to reflect creatively and imaginatively about how we can best make a politics of the possible a constitutive contour of our religious lives, our efforts to learn about and from Buddhism, and especially our everyday lives, even as all of these are deeply conditioned and distorted by structural racism together with other oppressive and exclusionary structures. -- Charles Hallisey, Harvard Divinity School It is high time for a book like this. For too long the story of the transmission of Buddhism to the West has been told without attention to the ways that transmission is inflected by race and racism. This carefully curated collection of essays opens that question, and offers a rich set of perspectives on the complex interaction of Buddhist transmission, ideology, and practice with race and racism in the West. A must read for anyone interested in contemporary global Buddhism. -- Jay Garfield, Smith College Part of the importance of this collection of essays lies in its multipronged approach to both naming the white supremacist bedrock of whiteness and describing Buddhist models for understanding how it arises. . . Authors in this volume bring to light a number of attitudes that help the reader see white ignorance in action. . . . Relinquishing the privilege of being the authority on what constitutes real Buddhism, who is a real American, and what counts as real practice involves giving something up. That act, and all the myriad ways whites can practice giving away unearned privilege, can itself become a powerful method of merit-making, of dana as a form of moral development in the pursuit of benefiting others. In this respect and others, Buddhism and Whiteness offers gifts of insight that constitute a wise and compassionate act of merit. * Buddhadharma * With essays from more than 15 thinkers, including Tricycle contributing editor Charles Johnson, this book offers new scholarly ideas on Buddhism's equal access to liberation in the context of the persistent racism experienced in America and beyond. The editors write in the introduction that racism or white supremacy is like the water in which we all swim -though only some of us notice that we're submerged. Contributors from across traditions, who also draw on feminist and cultural studies in addition to race theory, ask whether we can use Buddhist philosophy to put an end to racism and white supremacy just as we apply teachings to cut through our sense of self. * Tricycle: The Buddist Review *
Author Information
George Yancy is professor of philosophy at Emory University. Emily McRae is assistant professor of philosophy at the University of New Mexico.
