Vernacular Landscapes and Global Dialogues: Understanding Buddhist Monasticism Seminar
Vernacular Landscapes and Global Dialogues: Understanding Buddhist Monasticism Seminar aims to advance the scholarly and public understandings of Buddhism monasticism beyond the textual while acknowledging the importance of monasticism as a defining aspect of Buddhist traditions across the globe. This five-year seminar will explore the intersection of Buddhism with modernity, education, gender, and social institutions, among other themes.
One of our theme for the 2025 Annual Meeting is "Social Dimensions of Monastic Education." We would also like to see proposals addressing the theme of Buddhist monasticism, violence, and abuse.
Below are the calls and ideas we have received so far:
- Monastic Lineages: Rebirth, Karma, and Succession (Contact: Nicole Willock, nwillock@odu.edu): Invites participants on a roundtable with pre-circulated short research papers to explore how succession works in different monastic institutions across varying Buddhist traditions in modern and contemporary period (from 19th century to now) with particular attention to the role of karma and rebirth, or the lack thereof.
- Monastic Rituals in Education, Rohit Singh (singhr@denison.edu)
- The Social Dimensions of Monastic Curriculums: This panel will not only compare different Buddhist monastic curriculums themselves, but also the social effects of how monastic programs, curriculums, and institutions are structured. This topic is deliberately broad; please email Andrew Taylor (ataylor9@css.edu) to discuss how we can make our proposal fit your research
- Films and documentaries centering on monasticism
We particularly invite early-career scholars and scholars from underrepresented groups to apply.
This five-year seminar brings together the rich threads of Buddhist monasticism, especially the current changes found in Buddhist monastic communities throughout the world, to rethink scholarly definitions of Buddhism from the perspective of how it is defined, envisioned, and practiced within Buddhist monasteries. While we would welcome scholars who study the history of Buddhist monasticism, we aim to explore what Buddhist monasticism looks like today. Bringing together scholars from diverse disciplines and backgrounds, with localized expertise in Buddhist traditions, the seminar contributes to a holistic theoretical understanding of Buddhist monasticism as an embodied system of religious ideals, as well as a new vision of teaching Buddhism in the classroom.