Winners of the 2014
Toshihide Numata Book Prize
by Robert H Sharf
The Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, is
pleased to announce two winners of the 2014 Toshihide Numata Book Prize: Erik
Braun, Professor of Religious Studies at The University of Oklahoma, for The
Birth of Insight: Meditation, Modern Buddhism, and the Burmese Monk Ledi
Sayadaw (University of Chicago Press, 2013), and John K. Nelson,Professor of
Theology and Religious Studies at the University of San Francisco, for
Experimental Buddhism: Innovation and Activism in Contemporary Japan
(University of Hawaii Press, 2013).
The Toshihide Numata Book Prize in Buddhism is awarded on an annual basis to an
outstanding book or books in the area of Buddhist studies. The selection is
made by an annually appointed outside committee. The members of this year's
committee praised The Birth of Insight, with one reviewer commenting “The book
is so well written, conceived, and theoretically grounded that at times I found
myself amazed that this is Braun’s first book.”
Committee members were equally impressed by Experimental Buddhism as “path
breaking in its attention and quick work on very recent transformations of
Japanese Buddhism,” and “full of fascinating details and vivid observations, .
. . a corrective to the usual books which tend to approach Buddhism through
official forms and dogmas.”
Professors Braun and Nelson will be presented with the Toshihide Numata Book
Prize on the afternoon of Friday, November 14, 2014, at the Jodo Shinshu Center
in Berkeley (2140 Durant Avenue, at the south west corner of the Berkeley
campus). The prize presentation, which will begin at 3 PM, will be followed by
two keynotes and a symposium.
For more information on the Toshihide Numata Book Prize, please contact:
Sanjyot Mehendale
Vice Chair, Center for Buddhist Studies
University of California, Berkeley
Tel: (510) 643-5104
Email: buddhiststudies@berkeley.edu
Website: http://buddhiststudies.berkeley.edu
