Dixie Dharma

Wilson, Jeff:
Dixie Dharma : Inside a Buddhist Temple in the American South / by Jeff Wilson. - Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 2012. - viii, 281 S. : Ill.
ISBN 978-0-8078-3545-6
US$ 36,95
DDC: 294.30975

Beschreibung
Buddhism in the United States is often viewed in connection with practitioners in the Northeast and on the West Coast, but in fact, it has been spreading and evolving throughout the United States since the mid-nineteenth century. In Dixie Dharma, Jeff Wilson argues that region is crucial to understanding American Buddhism. Through the lens of a multidenominational Buddhist temple in Richmond, Virginia, Wilson explores how Buddhists are adapting to life in the conservative evangelical Christian culture of the South, and how traditional Southerners are adjusting to these newer members on the religious landscape.
   Introducing a host of overlooked characters, including Buddhist circuit riders, modernist Pure Land priests, and pluralistic Buddhists, Wilson shows how regional specificity manifests itself through such practices as meditation vigils to heal the wounds of the slave trade. He argues that southern Buddhists at once use bodily practices, iconography, and meditation tools to enact distinct sectarian identities even as they enjoy a creative hybridity. [Verlagsinformation]

Inhalt
Acknowledgments. vii
Introduction: Encounters at a Multidenominational Temple in the South. 1
1. Bringing a Regional Perspective to American Buddhism. 17
2. The Gift of Light: Buddhist Circuit Riders and New Religious Developments in Richmond, Virginia. 47
3. The Buddhist Confederacy: Differentiation and Identity in Buddhist Spaces. 89
4. There's No Such Thing as "Not My Buddhism": Hybridity, Boundary-Crossing, and the Practice of Pluralistic Buddhism. 120
5. Buddhism with a Southern Accent: American Buddhists in a Southern Culture. 153
6. The Reality of Our Collective Karma: Slave Trade Meditation Vigil as Southern Buddhist Ritual. 185
Conclusion: Buddhas on the Backstretch. 218
Appendix: Statistical Data and Questionnaire. 233
Notes. 237
Bibliography. 261
Index. 277

Autor
JEFF WILSON is assistant professor of religious studies and East Asian studies at Renison University College, University of Waterloo. Profile page.

Quellen: University of North Carolina Press; WorldCat; Google Books; Amazon