Table of Contents
New Book
Announcement
by Richard Jaffe
Dear Colleagues,Two new books published by the University of North Carolina Press that are listed below may be of interest to list members. (The book descriptions are from the UNC Press website.)
Regards,
Richard M. Jaffe, Duke University
Prescribing the Dharma: Psychotherapists, Buddhist Traditions, and Defining Religion
By Ira Helderman
Interest in the psychotherapeutic capacity of Buddhist teachings and practices is widely evident in the popular imagination. News media routinely report on the neuropsychological study of Buddhist meditation and applications of mindfulness practices in settings including corporate offices, the U.S. military, and university health centers. However, as Ira Helderman shows, curious investigators have studied the psychological dimensions of Buddhist doctrine for well over a century, stretching back to William James and Carl Jung. These activities have shaped both the mental health field and Buddhist practice throughout the United States.
This is the first comprehensive study of the surprisingly diverse ways that psychotherapists have related to Buddhist traditions. Through extensive fieldwork and in-depth interviews with clinicians, many of whom have been formative to the therapeutic use of Buddhist practices, Helderman gives voice to the psychotherapists themselves. He focuses on how they understand key categories such as religion and science. Some are invested in maintaining a hard border between religion and psychotherapy as a biomedical discipline. Others speak of a religious-secular binary that they mean to disrupt. Helderman finds that psychotherapists’ approaches to Buddhist traditions are molded by how they define what is and is not religious, demonstrating how central these concepts are in contemporary American culture.
328 pp., 6.125 x 9.25
• PAPERBACK ISBN: 978-1-4696-4852-1
Published: March 2019
• HARDCOVER ISBN: 978-1-4696-4851-4
Published: March 2019
• EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-4696-4853-8
Published: February 2019
Debating Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools: Reforming Secular Education or Reestablishing Religion?
By Candy Gunther Brown
Yoga and mindfulness activities, with roots in Asian traditions such as Hinduism or Buddhism, have been brought into growing numbers of public schools since the 1970s. While they are commonly assumed to be secular educational tools, Candy Gunther Brown asks whether religion is truly left out of the equation in the context of public-school curricula. An expert witness in four legal challenges, Brown scrutinized unpublished trial records, informant interviews, and legal precedents, as well as insider documents, some revealing promoters of “Vedic victory” or “stealth Buddhism” for public-school children. The legal challenges are fruitful cases for Brown’s analysis of the concepts of religious and secular.
While notions of what makes something religious or secular are crucial to those who study religion, they have special significance in the realm of public and legal norms. They affect how people experience their lives, raise their children, and navigate educational systems. The question of religion in public education, Brown shows, is no longer a matter of jurisprudence focused largely on the establishment of a Protestant Bible or nonsectarian prayer. Instead, it now reflects an increasingly diverse American religious landscape. Reconceptualizing secularization as transparency and religious voluntarism, Brown argues for an opt-in model for public-school programs.
456 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 12 halftones, notes, bibl., index
• PAPERBACK ISBN: 978-1-4696-4848-4
Published: May 2019
• HARDCOVER ISBN: 978-1-4696-4847-7
Published: May 2019
• EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-4696-4849-1
Published: March 2019
H-Net Job
Guide Weekly Report For H-Buddhism: 29 April - 6 May
by Matthew McMullen
The following jobs were posted to the H-Net Job Guide from 29 April 2019 to
6 May 2019. These job postings are included here based on the
categories selected by the list editors for H-Buddhism. See the H-Net Job
Guide website at http://www.h-net.org/jobs/ for
more information. To contact the Job Guide, write to jobguide@mail.h-net.msu.edu, or
call +1-517-432-5134 between 9 am and 5 pm US Eastern time.ANTHROPOLOGY
University of Bonn - 10 PhD Positions
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=58523
ASIAN HISTORY / STUDIES
University of Bonn - 10 PhD Positions
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=58523
DIGITAL HUMANITIES
University of Bonn - 10 PhD Positions
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=58523
EAST ASIAN HISTORY / STUDIES
University of Bonn - 10 PhD Positions
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=58523
INTELLECTUAL HISTORY
University of Bonn - 10 PhD Positions
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=58523
JAPANESE HISTORY / STUDIES
University of Bonn - 10 PhD Positions
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=58523
University of California - Santa Barbara - Visiting Assistant
Professor EAST 2019-2020
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=58521
RELIGIOUS STUDIES AND THEOLOGY
University of Bonn - 10 PhD Positions
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=58523
