Table of Contents
- NEW BOOK> Birth in Buddhism: The Suffering Fetus and Female Freedom, by Amy Paris Langenberg
- RESOURCE> May 2017 Update report for Digital Dictionary of Buddhism and CJKV-E Dictionary
- RESOURCE> New Website for International Journal of Buddhist Thought and Culture
- CFP> American Journal of Indic Studies
NEW BOOK> Birth in Buddhism: The Suffering Fetus and Female Freedom, by Amy Paris Langenberg
by Charles Muller
Hardback: 9781138201231
2017 – Routledge
210 pages | 4 B/W Illus.
About the Book
Recent decades have seen a groundswell in the
Buddhist world, a transnational agitation for better opportunities for Buddhist
women. Many of the main players in the transnational nuns movement
self-identify as feminists but other participants in this movement may not know
or use the language of feminism. In fact, many ordained Buddhist women say they
seek higher ordination so that they might be better Buddhist practitioners, not
for the sake of gender equality.
Eschewing the backward projection of secular liberal feminist categories,
this book describes the basic features of the Buddhist discourse of the female
body, held more or less in common across sectarian lines, and still pertinent
to ordained Buddhist women today. The textual focus of the study is an
early-first-millennium Sanskrit Buddhist work, "Descent into the Womb
scripture" or Garbhāvakrānti-sūtra. Drawing out the implications of
this text, the author offers innovative arguments about the significance of childbirth
and fertility in Buddhism, namely that birth is a master metaphor in Indian
Buddhism; that Buddhist gender constructions are centrally shaped by Buddhist
birth discourse; and that, by undermining the religious importance of female
fertility, the Buddhist construction of an inauspicious, chronically impure,
and disgusting femininity constituted a portal to a new, liberated, feminine
life for Buddhist monastic women. Thus, this study of the Buddhist discourse of
birth is also a genealogy of gender in middle period Indian Buddhism.Offering a new critical perspective on the issues of gender, bodies and suffering, this book will be of interest to an interdisciplinary audience, including researchers in the field of Buddhism, South Asian history and religion, gender and religion, theory and method in the study of religion, and Buddhist medicine.
Table of Contents
Reconceptions1: Suffering is Birth
2: Birth Narratives and Gender Identity
3: Disgust for the Abject Mother
4: The Inauspicious Mother
5: Fertile Ascetics
6: Female Impurity and the Female Buddhist Ascetic
Postpartum
https://www.routledge.com/Birth-in-Buddhism-The-Suffering-Fetus-and-Female-Freedom/Langenb...
RESOURCE> May 2017 Update report for Digital Dictionary of Buddhism and CJKV-E Dictionary
by Charles Muller
Dear Colleagues,The May 2017 update of the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism and CJKV-E Dictionary, includes 635 new entries. For details, please see http://www.buddhism-dict.net/ddb/monthlies/ddbcjkveMonthly2017-05.html
Regards,
Chuck
RESOURCE> New Website for International Journal of Buddhist Thought and Culture
by Charles Muller
Please see:http://ijbtc.dongguk.edu/
Regards,
Chuck
CFP> American Journal of Indic Studies
by Charles Muller
Please see:https://networks.h-net.org/node/22055/discussions/181821/cfp-american-journal-indic-studies
Regards,
Chuck
