New Books in Buddhist Studies

Today I sit down with Dr. Tawni Tidwell, a biocultural anthropologist and Tibetan medicine doctor at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Together we discuss how Tibetan medicine approaches the challenges that arise in the course of meditation. Along the way, we talk about reconnecting with indigenous knowledge, establishing a more intimate relationship with the body and the land, and the importance of social context in supporting spiritual practice. If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in deep conversations about the dark side of Asian religions and medicines, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. Also check out our members-only benefits on Substack.com to see what our guests have shared with you. Enjoy the show! Resources related to this conversation: Tawni Tidwell, “Life in Suspension with Death: Biocultural Ontologies, Perceptual Cues, and Biomarkers for Tibetan Tukdam Postmortem Meditative State” (2024) Tawni Tidwell et al, “Effect of Tibetan Herbal Formulas on Symptom Duration Among Ambulatory Patients with Native SARS-CoV-2 Infection: A Retrospective Cohort Study” (2024) Tawni Tidwell, “Tibetan Medical Paradigms for the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic: Understanding COVID-19, Microbiome Links, and Its Sowa Rigpa Nosology” (2021) New open access book! Crafting Potency: Sowa Rigpa Artisanship Across the Himalayas Tawni’s research profile at the Center for Healthy Minds Please note that Tawni is not taking new patients at this time, but she recommends the American Tibetan Medical Association Become a paid subscriber on blackberyl.substack.com to unlock our members-only benefits, including downloading scholarly articles by Dr Tidwell Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University’s Abington College, located near Philadelphia. See www.piercesalguero.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies

Himanshu Prabha Ray, archaeologist and maritime historian at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, discusses decolonizing heritage and reviving India’s maritime links with Southeast Asia. Short takes cover colonial reshaping of regional histories, Buddhist and Hindu afterlives of temples, Japan–Southeast Asia religious ties, shipwrecks and coastal networks, and a push for underwater archaeology and crossregional perspectives.

Vanessa R. Sasson, a professor of religious studies who specializes in early Buddhist literature and women in Buddhism. She recounts retelling the story of the first Buddhist women who sought ordination. The conversation covers her research-driven storytelling approach, choice of Vimala and companions, themes of motherhood, grief, friendship, and how the living forest and communal renunciation shape the narrative.

Natasha Heller, associate professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia who studies Chinese Buddhism, discusses Buddhist picturebooks and family Buddhism in modern Taiwan. She examines picturebooks as a new Buddhist genre. She explores how families and publishers shape child-focused religious education. She describes cute portrayals of buddhas, storytelling strategies, and home-based learning.

Sara Swenson, Assistant Professor at Dartmouth College and author of "Near Light We Shine," discusses her path from a Christian upbringing to studying Vietnamese Buddhism. She shares insights about the role of charity in fostering community and belonging in urban Vietnam. Topics include the diverse landscape of Vietnamese Buddhism, the emergence of volunteer groups like the Sunshine Volunteer Corps, and how social media transforms charitable efforts. Swenson also explores the intersection of class, queer identity, and moral practices among volunteers.

Mercedes Valmisa, a philosopher and scholar of Chinese philosophy, discusses her groundbreaking book, All Things Act, which redefines agency as collective rather than individual. She argues that actions arise from networks of both human and nonhuman actors, challenging traditional concepts of intention and capacity. Valmisa also explores the idea of 'wu wei' as an enabling force for self-organization, and critiques the pessimism surrounding individual responsibility, advocating for a shift towards a more relational understanding of agency and social conditions.

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/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies

Thomas J. Mazanec, an Associate Professor at UC Santa Barbara, dives into the fascinating world of Buddhist poet-monks from Tang-dynasty China. He reveals how these monks forged a unique poetic identity that interwove Buddhism with classical Chinese traditions. Topics include the emergence of the poet-monk figure, the cultural networks that supported their craft, and the innovative blend of meditation techniques within poetry. Mazanec also shares insights on how these literary practices reflected their turbulent times and the transformative power of language.

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/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies

Megan Bryson, an Associate Professor at the University of Tennessee specializing in gender in Chinese religions, and Kevin Buckelew, an Assistant Professor at Northwestern focusing on premodern Chinese Buddhism, dive into the exploration of Buddhist masculinities. They discuss the evolution of male ideals from early texts to contemporary interpretations. The conversation highlights diverse representations, from martial monks to the 'great man' archetype. They also emphasize the importance of masculinity studies in revealing ingrained norms and intersecting with modern gender issues.