Buddhism Beyond Borders: New Perspectives on Buddhism in the United States. Edited By Scott A. Mitchell and Natalie E. F. Quli. State University of New York Press; Reprint edition, January 2, 2016. 306 pages. ISBN-10: 1438456360 ISBN-13: 978-1438456362
摘要
This edited collection opens with T. Tweed's applying his “translocative” approach to religion to the study of Buddhism in the United States. Seeing religion as “confluences of organic‐cultural flows,” Tweed calls on Buddhist scholars to abandon the standard area study focus on static fixed location in favor of a more fluid dynamic approach that can track both crossings and dwellings. Tweed's call has been clearly heard by the editors who have assembled a collection of top‐rate essays here that expand both the geographical boundaries of American Buddhism and the theoretical parameters that have often defined its academic study. In doing so, they have replaced the static binary framework of traditional (authentic) Asian Buddhism versus modern (inauthentic) American Buddhism with a dynamic vision that displays fluidity, hybridity, and multiplicity. The text is organized into four main sections. “Boundaries, Borders, and Categories” is a reflection on and reconfiguration of core categories in the study of American Buddhism. “Crossing Borders” picks up on Tweed's notion of crossing by charting how Buddhist practitioners, thought, traditions, and material objects have negotiated and moved across spatial, cultural, and religious borders. “Free‐Floating Dharma Discourses” explores the ways in which Buddhist thought and practice have been spread beyond their institutional contexts. The theoretically sophisticated Section IV, “Modernity and Modernities,” tackles the lingering dichotomy of traditional versus modern Buddhism head‐on with essays by E. Braun, D. McMahan, and the editors. The main analytic strength of the collection is its nuanced interrogation of several categories that have served as foundational models in the study of Buddhism in the United States, but have become, as multiple chapters indicate, increasingly redundant and problematic. This text is an important and recommended contribution to the study of American Buddhism.
