Dr J.L.Taylor, author of Forest Monks and the Nation-State (1993) is a Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the School of Social Sciences, University of Adelaide, Australia. His research and work experiences are in critical theory and practice of planned culture change and the transformation of rural society, the development discourse and anthropology, ethno-ecology, and Thai Buddhism.
摘要
This book presents a rethink on the significance of Thai Buddhism in an increasingly complex and changing post-modern urban context, especially following the financial crisis of 1997. Defining the cultural nature of Thai ’urbanity’; the implications for local/global flows, interactions and emergent social formations, James Taylor opens up new possibilities in understanding the specificities of everyday urban life as this relates to perceptions, conceptions and lived experiences of religiosity. Changes in the centre are also reverberating in the remaining forests and the monastic tradition of forest-dwelling which has sourced most of the nation’s modern saints. The text is based on ethnography taking into account the rich variety of everyday practices in a mélange of the religious. In Thailand, Buddhism is so intimately interconnected with national identity and social, economic and ethno-political concerns as to be inseparable. Taylor argues here that in recent years there has been a marked reformulation of important conventional cosmologies through new and challenging Buddhist ideas and practices. These influences and changes are as much located outside as inside the Buddhist temples/monasteries.
目次
Acknowlegements
1 Thai Buddhism in Postmodernity A Nation in Crisis and Salvation Histories Urban/Rural, Thai'ness, Identity and City-space Urban Buddhism and ' An-Other' Kind of Religiosity The Pragmatics and Motivations of Religious Life Non-desiring and Transcendent Buddhism Montage, Method and Modernity Entering New Space
2 Buddhist Modernities, Heresy and Hybridization: Thailand's Thammakaai Movement Modernity and Religious Spectacle The New Messiah and the Good Thammakaai Modernity, Nostalgia and Loss Rationality and the New Supra-monument Hersey, Text and Hybridization Gemeinschaft, Feeling and Family Rationalizing Merit Making
3 New Buddhism, Copying and the Art of the Imagination Going Shopping, Art and Religion in the City Simulation and the Reproduction of Buddha-images ' Superman' and the Carnivalesque Marginality and Difference
4 Buddhist Cyber-Worlds and Changing Urban Space The New Metropolis and Sites of Marginality The Virtual Present Marking Out New Maps The Bizarre New World of Digital Buddhism
5 Nation, Embodiment and the Charisma of a Thai Saint Recluse to National Saviour Body as Metaphor, Religion and Politics Social Body and the 'Save Nation' Campaign
6 Kammathaan Monks, Tradition and Sites of Memory Textual Bases and the Primitive Monks' Charter Starting Anew; Reform Vinaya and Forest Monasticism Locating Tradition; Sites of Memory Relics, Arahants and the Localization of Tradition Living the Arahant Ideals Liberation and Modernity in the Forest Monasteries
7 Sanctification of Place, Power and Mobility The Body, Ruse and the Making of Sacred Space Nomadism and the Power of Location Asceticism, Rigour and Practices of Wandering
