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Articles 1 - 10 of 10

Full-Text Articles in Comparative Methodologies and Theories

Buddhist Socialism In China, 1900–1930: A History And Appraisal, James Mark Shields Aug 2022

Buddhist Socialism In China, 1900–1930: A History And Appraisal, James Mark Shields

Faculty Contributions to Books

Although it is only in recent decades that scholars have begun to reconsider and problematize Buddhist conceptions of “freedom” and “agency,” the various thought traditions of Asian Buddhism have for some centuries struggled with questions related to the issue of “liberation,” along with its fundamental ontological, epistemological and ethical—if not economic and political—implications. With the development of Marxist thought in the mid to late nineteenth century, a new paradigm for thinking about freedom in relation to economics, history, identity and socio-political transformation found its way to Asia, where it soon confronted traditional religious interpretations of freedom as well as competing …


Skeptical Buddhism As Provenance And Project, James Mark Shields Sep 2020

Skeptical Buddhism As Provenance And Project, James Mark Shields

Faculty Contributions to Books

The past century and a half has seen various attempts in both Asia and the West to reform or re-conceptualize Buddhism by adding a simple, often provocative, qualifier. This paper examines some of the links between “secular,” “critical,” “sceptical,” and “radical” Buddhism in order to ascertain possibilities in thinking Buddhism anew as a 21st-century “project” with philosophical, ethical, and political resonance. In particular, I am motivated by the question of whether “sceptical” Buddhism can coexist with Buddhist praxis, conceived as an engaged response to the suffering of sentient beings in a globalized and neoliberal industrial capitalist world order. Let …


Listening To An/Other Voice: Gender, Creativity, And The Divine In The Works Of Female Christian Mystics And Women Surrealists, Stephanie Garboski Jan 2018

Listening To An/Other Voice: Gender, Creativity, And The Divine In The Works Of Female Christian Mystics And Women Surrealists, Stephanie Garboski

Honors Theses

This thesis will compare two groups, Christian women mystics and women surrealists, by analyzing select works by Hildegard of Bingen, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Leonora Carrington, and Dorothea Tanning. This analysis will involve a comparative, theoretical approach that draws connections between the way in which both groups utilize varying literary and artistic forms, symbols, and polyglottery. I will utilize Bourdieu’s terms of cultural production as a framework in which to better understand how women of both fields are used for their creativity and supposed connection to an/other, which is the source of inspiration native to each field, God and the unconscious. …


Essay: "“Never The ‘Twain Shall Meet: Disorienting East And West In Teaching And Scholarship.", James Shields Jun 2015

Essay: "“Never The ‘Twain Shall Meet: Disorienting East And West In Teaching And Scholarship.", James Shields

Other Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.


Essay: “Category Formation And ‘Eastern Traditions’”, James Shields Jun 2014

Essay: “Category Formation And ‘Eastern Traditions’”, James Shields

Other Faculty Research and Publications

Essay: “Category Formation and ‘Eastern Traditions’”


Awakening Between Science, Art & Ethics: Variations On Japanese Buddhist Modernism, 1890–1945, James Shields Jan 2012

Awakening Between Science, Art & Ethics: Variations On Japanese Buddhist Modernism, 1890–1945, James Shields

Faculty Contributions to Books

The half-century between the publication of the Imperial Rescript on Education (kyōiku chokugo 教育勅語, 1890) and the bombing of Pearl Harbor (1941) was one of tremendous institutional and intellectual tumult in the world of Japanese Buddhism. Buddhist sects and scholars were not immune to the changing political and cultural winds. While it is true that by the late 1930s, the majority of Buddhist leaders and institutions had capitulated to the status quo, preaching, in the words of Joseph Kitagawa “the virtues of peace, harmony, and loyalty to the throne,” the previous decades show anything but a continuous progression towards …


Sexuality, Exoticism, And Iconoclasm In The Media Age: The Strange Case Of The Buddha Bikini, James Shields Jan 2011

Sexuality, Exoticism, And Iconoclasm In The Media Age: The Strange Case Of The Buddha Bikini, James Shields

Faculty Contributions to Books

It is widely acknowledged that we in the West are living in an age of both rampant consumerism and competing religious faiths. In addition, those of us living in the United States of America inhabit a society with striking variation when it comes to what is considered appropriate sexual or bodily display, especially when it comes to women’s bodies. The hullabaloo surrounding Janet Jackson’s infamous “wardrobe malfunction” brought to light some of these tensions, at the single most important religious spectacle in America, no less, the Super Bowl. Though admittedly less well known, another recent scandal even more clearly raises …


The Pursuit Of Tangible Happiness: Religion And Politics In A Japanese New, New Religion, James Shields Feb 2010

The Pursuit Of Tangible Happiness: Religion And Politics In A Japanese New, New Religion, James Shields

Faculty Journal Articles

The decline of traditional religions in Japan in the past century, and especially since the end of World War Two, has led to an explosion of so-called “new religions” (shin shūkyō 新宗教), many of which have made forays into the political realm. The best known—and most controversial—example of a “political” new religion is Sōka Gakkai 創価学会, a lay Buddhist movement originally associated with the Nichiren sect that in the 1960s gave birth to a new political party, Komeitō 公明党 (lit., Clean Government Party), which in the past several decades has emerged as the third most popular party in Japan (as …


Beyond Belief: Japanese Approaches To The Meaning Of Religion, James Shields Jan 2010

Beyond Belief: Japanese Approaches To The Meaning Of Religion, James Shields

Faculty Journal Articles

For several centuries, Japanese scholars have argued that their nation’s culture—including its language, religion and ways of thinking—is somehow unique. The darker side of this rhetoric, sometimes known by the English term “Japanism” (nihon-jinron), played no small role in the nationalist fervor of the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While much of the so-called “ideology of Japanese uniqueness” can be dismissed, in terms of the Japanese approach to “religion,” there may be something to it. This paper highlights some distinctive—if not entirely unique—features of the way religion has been categorized and understood in Japanese tradition, contrasting these with Western (i.e., …


Marx And The Bible: José Miranda’S Critique Of The Philosophy Of Oppression, James Shields Aug 2008

Marx And The Bible: José Miranda’S Critique Of The Philosophy Of Oppression, James Shields

Faculty Journal Articles

This paper critically examines the liberation theology of José Porfirio Miranda, as expressed in his Marx and the Bible (1971), with a focus on the central idea (and subtitle) of this work: the “Critique of the Philosophy of Oppression.” Miranda’s critique is examined via certain key tropes such as “power,” “justice,” and “freedom,” both in the context of late twentieth-century Latin American society, and in the state of the “post-Christian” and “post-Marxist” world more generally, vis-à-vis contemporary liberal justice theory. Close examination of the potentialities, paradoxes and subtle evasions in Miranda’s critique leads not to the conclusion that Miranda does …