Courses

Recent Undergraduate Courses

      • Introduction to Buddhism (Asian 230/Religion 230/Philosophy 230)
        Over the course of its long history, Buddhism has been the most influential and widely practiced religion in Asia. Beginning in India 2500 years ago, it eventually spread to China, Korea, Japan, Tibet, and Mongolia, and to Sri Lanka and throughout Southeast Asia. More recently it has spread to Europe and the Americas. This course is an introduction to the major themes in Buddhist thought and practice. Beginning with the early teachings associated with the historical Buddha, the course will go on to consider the development of the tradition across Asia. The readings for the course will consist entirely of Buddhist texts in translation.
      • Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism (Asian 231/Religion 231)
        Over the course of the past century, Tibetan Buddhism has gone from being the most maligned form of Buddhism to the most exalted. This course will survey the development of Buddhism in Tibet from its origins to the present day, focusing on its doctrines and practices; readings will include meditation manuals, pilgrimage guides, and prayers. The course will conclude with an assessment of the current state of Tibetan Buddhism and the Dalai Lama’s efforts to preserve it. Readings consist entirely of primary texts in translation.
      • Zen Masters, Dharma Bums, and Drag Queens: Buddhism in America (AMCult 234)
        The history of Buddhism in Asia covers a period of roughly twenty-five hundred years. The history of Buddhism in the United States, by contrast, spans about a single century. Although Buddhist symbols and concepts have become ubiquitous in America culture, those images and ideas are often only loosely related to their original meanings in places like India, Tibet, Japan, and Thailand. In this course we will consider the various ways Buddhism was and is transmitted to this country and how Buddhist traditions have taken shape within the contexts of colonialism, globalization, and distinctly American philosophical and cultural values. We will be looking at a wide range of sources, including novels, Buddhist teachings, popular culture, contemporary scholarship, and films.
      • Buddhism and Death (Asian 234/Religion 234)
         Buddhism is comprised of a complex of traditions, spanning multiple cultures over the course of more than two millennia. Despite its dizzying diversity, there are a number of unifying themes — loosely woven networks of beliefs and practices found throughout Buddhist traditions across time and space. Such themes include the problem of suffering, the goal of liberation, the authority of the Buddha, and the centrality of texts, to name just a few. The topic of this course — the role of death in Buddhism — stands alongside and in relation to other central aspects of the Buddhist tradition. Why death? From a certain perspective, conceptions and practices of dying, death, and the afterlife are the fundamental concerns of all Buddhists. How does the immanence of death influence the actions of the living? How should one die? What happens at the moment of death? What should be done with the bodies of the dead? Is there an afterlife? What is it that is reborn? We will explore these and other issues as they manifest in distinct cultural contexts (India, Thailand, China, and Japan) and as cross-cultural phenomena.
      • Zen: History, Culture, Critique (Asian 325/Religion 323)
        The term “Zen” has entered the American lexicon as a sort of synonym for words like “relaxing,” “peaceful,” “healthy,” and “focused.” But what is Zen? How has it been defined over its long history in China and Japan? Is it a lifestyle or a religion? In this course we will examine the many manifestations of Zen Buddhism in East Asia. Where did it come from? What does it teach? What does it mean to be a Zen Buddhist? We will begin by familiarizing ourselves with some of the most common features of the tradition: dharma transmission, the lives of famous Zen monks, Zen meditation, and Zen “art,” especially as these things are represented from within the tradition itself. From this foundation we will take a more critical look at the development of Zen in East Asia, asking questions such as, Why did Zen monks sometimes mummify their masters? Or, why did they occasionally advocate war and violence? This course will also introduce students to some of the innovative forms Zen has taken in the modern world.
      • Introduction to Japanese Buddhism (Asian 326)
        Buddhism forms the backbone of pre-modern Japanese civilization. Even today, it remains a vital cultural reference point; just as knowledge of the Judeo-Christian tradition is still essential for understanding Europe, so is knowledge of the Buddhism still indispensable for understanding Japan. This course surveys key thinkers, texts, doctrines, practices, and objects from Japan’s fifteen-hundred-plus year engagement with Buddhism. It draws on a variety of sources in English translation, including myths, sermons, personal letters, polemical tracts, spiritual autobiography, and religious testimonials. In addition, it also makes use of anthropological accounts, historical studies, audio recordings, still images, and films, both documentary and fictional.
      • Violence and Nonviolence in the Buddhist Traditions of Asia (Asian 329)
        Outsiders in the West tend to see Buddhism as a single path of nonviolence and peace. Historically, though, actual Buddhists have also traveled other routes, at times teaching and practicing through images of violence, or endorsing the violent actions of others, or even resorting to violence themselves. The countervailing tendency toward nonviolence within Buddhism is also unexpectedly complicated and protean, itself stimulating a surprising range of novel activist movements from twentieth century onward. This course probes the complex connections among violence, nonviolence, and the Buddhist traditions of Asia, with stops in India, Sri Lanka, China, Japan, Vietnam, Burma/Myanmar, and Thailand. It introduces Buddhist historical teachings, records, biographies, and material remains (especially art), with a special focus on the recent histories of some of these areas.This course melds two varieties of humanistic inquiry, the ethico-philosophical with the socio-historical. Students first survey some classical Buddhist approaches to violence and nonviolence, and only then start to evaluate the results of such approaches in a wide range of real Asian social and historical circumstances.
      • Introduction to Indian Philosophy (Asian 331/Philosophy 331)
        Through a critical reading of translations of original philosophical texts and secondary studies of those texts, this course will cover the major transitions in philosophical thinking in ancient and classical India. The first phase will consider shifts from the early Vedic mythological/ritualistic thinking to mysticism of the Upanishads. The second phase will cover the protestant philosophical views found in Buddhism, Jainism and the so-called Heretics. The third phase will discuss the emergence of theism in the Bhagavad-Gita. Lastly, the course will cover the emergence of logical/rational thinking in the different systems of Hindu philosophy.
      • Gods, Ghosts, and Gangsters: Popular Religion in China (Asian 350/Religion 351)
         When most people think of Chinese religions, they think of Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism. Beyond these mainstream traditions and institutions, however, lie vast networks of loosely organized, regionally distinct, and often officially unsanctioned religious communities. In this course we will be looking at some of the fundamental elements of Chinese religious belief and practice, what is sometimes called “popular religion.” We will consider practices such as exorcisms and divinations; places such as temples, mountains, heavens, and hells; and the humans, demons, gods, and ghosts that reside there.
      • Alchemy, Immortality, and Enlightenment: Chinese Religiosities, Past and Present (Asian 380)
        From the Analects of Confucius to the Zen of Buddhism, some of the world’s most intriguing and enduring religious traditions first developed and prospered in China. This course will take a broad look at the ancient and modern manifestations of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism in the Chinese cultural context. What does it mean to become immortal? How do people strive for enlightenment? What is happening to religious traditions under the strain of modernity, communism, and capitalism?
      • Principles of Self-Cultivation in Chinese Cultures (Asian 380)
        What is the self? What is the relationship of the individual to the broader world? How should we conduct ourselves? What techniques are available for refining or perfecting the self? These are questions which have occupied philosophers and religious professionals for millennia. In this course we will examine these issues through the work of some of China’s greatest scholars and adepts, representing a diverse range of traditions—Confucian, Daoist, Buddhist. In addition to becoming conversant with different theories of the self, we will also focus on specific psycho-physical techniques (meditation, alchemy, ritual) designed to integrate the individual self within broader social, spiritual, and cosmic networks.
      • The Lives of the Buddha, from India to Manga (Asian 380)
        Among the stories treasured in Japan, few have such deep roots as the life of the Buddha, the ancient Indian prince revered for awakening to the true nature of reality. Known affectionately as O-Shaka-sama, the Buddha appears throughout Japanese literature, from the twelfth-century collection Tales of Times Now Past to the epic manga series by Tezuka Osamu. As the Buddha’s story has been told and retold, it has evolved along with the changing times and interests of the storyteller. This course will survey a wide range of stories of the Buddha to investigate the development of Buddhism in Japan, and more importantly, Japanese culture as a whole.

Recent Graduate Courses

        • Buddhas and Bodies: Icons of the Ideal in Japanese Religious Art
          This course examines the history of Japanese religions through the visual arts. Sculpture, painting, and architecture serve as the primary sources for our exploration of Buddhism, kami worship, and Christianity. We will also draw extensively on primary and secondary textual sources.
        • Buddhist Hagiographies
          This seminar will consider some of the major modes of hagiography (religious biography) with origins in the Buddhist traditions of South and East Asia. After an initial consideration of some theoretical issues surrounding religious biography, we will spend the bulk of the term focusing on specific biographies of both the Buddha and of eminent monastics, and on the secondary scholarship concerning them. In historiographic terms, we will also consider the quest for the “historical Buddha” as it developed in multiple linguistic spheres from the nineteenth century to the present day.Required texts will be in English, but students will also be asked to read primary sources and/or secondary scholarship in Asian languages(s) of their subfield within Buddhist studies. Readings will include Sacred Biography in the Buddhist Traditions of South and Southeast Asia; The Eminent Monk: Buddhist Ideals in Medieval Chinese Hagiography; and translations of such Indian classics as the Buddhacarita and the Lalitavistara.
        • Buddhist Tantra
          This course surveys the development of this least understood current of the Buddhist tradition, identifying the precursors to tantrism in the earlier Buddhist tradition and then proceeding to examine those elements that appear to be common to the various tantric traditions, including initiation, the recitation of mantra, and the visualization of mandalas. The course then continues with a survey of development of tantrism in Tibet, China, and Japan.
        • Chan Buddhism: Texts and Contexts
          This graduate seminar will survey recent scholarship on the Chan (Jp. Zen) tradition in China. In addition to modern scholarly monographs, we will also be reading some key Chan texts in translation.
        • History of Buddhist Studies
          The academic discipline sometimes referred to as “Buddhist Studies” has its roots in nineteenth-century European philology and the colonial encounter with Asia. This seminar explores the history of Buddhist Studies during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through the reading and analysis of some of its representative works of scholarship. It will trace both the development of Buddhist Studies in Europe and America as well as its influence on the Buddhist cultures of Asia.
        • The Life of the Buddha
          The focus of this graduate seminar will be the biography of the historical Buddha. The course will begin with the evolution of the biography in India before going on to explore various versions of the biography and the purposes that it served in a number of Buddhist cultures. The seminar will conclude by examining some of the more influential biographies of the Buddha produced in the West during the colonial and post-colonial periods.
        • Readings in Buddhist Literature: The Abhidharmakośa
          The Abhidharmakośa and bhāṣya by Vasubandhu (fl. fifth century) is the most famous representative of the genre called abhidharma, one of the three constituents of the traditional Buddhist canon. In eight chapters and an appendix, organized topically, it presents the doctrines of the Sarvāstivāda school and a critique of those doctrines by the Sautrāntika school. As such, it is an invaluable source for understanding the doctrines of the mainstream schools during a vibrant period of Buddhism in India. The text would go on to have great influence in East Asia and Tibet.
        • Readings in Late Qing and Republican Period Buddhism
          In this course, we will examine the writings of some of the most prominent Buddhist figures of the late Qing and Republican eras. All readings will be in Chinese.
        • Religion in China
           This course is intended as an introduction to reading a variety of Buddhist texts in classical Chinese. We will begin with basic grammar, sentence structure, and vocabulary, and will then gradually move on to translating passages from Chinese to English.
        • Sacred Image/Sacred Place in Japanese Art
          This class surveys the religious arts of Japan from pre-history to the present day, with a special focus on different notions of the sacred images and places. It considers how sculpture, painting, architecture, and topography work in concert to produce and condition particular experiences of the sacred. Not only will we examine traditions such as kami worship (Shintô), Buddhism, mountain cults, and Christianity in Japan, we will also consider more general theories of sacred experience from other disciplines such as anthropology and religious studies. Each class will focus on a particular monument of Japanese art, ranging in date from the sixth century to the present day. Throughout the course, we will engage questions concerning the status of the icon, the role of ritual, viewer reception, pilgrimage, and views of the natural world. The class provides both an overview of the religious currents of Japan as seen through art as well as an introduction to visual analyses of sacred practice.