Modern Buddhism

Catalog description

An examination of Buddhism in Asia, Europe, and the United States from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. The course emphasizes how global exchanges resulted in the emergence of Buddhism in the United States and Europe, and the transformation of Buddhism in Asia. The course takes a number of case studies in the transformation of Buddhism including the emergence of humanistic Buddhism in modern China; the American encounter with Japanese Zen; and the relationship between Buddhism and ethnic militarism in Imperial Japan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. In all cases the course examines how Buddhism transformed in response to the emergence of new global contexts. 001337