A guide to Buddhism's rich variety of traditions and cultural expressions for educators who would like to include Buddhism in their undergraduate courses.

Over its long history, Buddhism has never been a simple monolithic phenomenon, but rather a complex living tradition--or better, a family of traditions--continually shaped by and shaping a vast array of social, economic, political, literary, and aesthetic contexts across East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Written by undergraduate educators, Buddhisms in Asia offers a guide to Buddhism's rich variety of traditions and cultural expressions for educators who would like to include Buddhism in their undergraduate courses. It introduces fundamental yet often underrepresented Buddhist texts, concepts, and material in their historical contexts; presents the major "ecologies" of Buddhist belief, practice, and cultural expression; and provides methodological insights regarding how best to infuse Buddhist content into undergraduate courses in the humanities and social sciences. The text aims to represent "Buddhisms" by approaching the subject from a broad range of disciplinary perspectives, including art history, anthropology, history, literature, philosophy, religious studies, and pedagogy.

Buddhisms in Asia: Traditions, Transmissions, and Transformations, Nicholas S. Brasovan and Micheline M. Soong (Editors), SUNY Press, Paperback, 210 pages, $36.25

Nicholas S. Brasovan is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion at the University of Central Arkansas and the author of Neo-Confucian Ecological Humanism: An Interpretive Engagement with Wang Fuzhi (1619-1692), also published by SUNY Press.

Micheline M. Soong is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Hawai'i Pacific University.

CONTENTS: Buddhisms in Asia
Illustrations		vii
Foreword Peter D. Hershock		ix
Acknowledgments		xix
Introduction Nicholas s. Brasovan and Micheline M. Soong		xxi
1.	The Buddhist Canon and the Liberal Arts Classroom Andy Alexander Davis	1
2.	Awakening in the Hongzhou School of Chan Buddhism: Reading a Gongan/Koan Comparatively Ann Pirruccello	19
3.	Seeking the Pure Land (in the Classroom) Kendall Marchman	37
4.	The Representation and Transformation of Nagas, Dragons, and Dragon Kings in Chinese Painting Jacqueline Chao	57
5.	Trials of Devotion: Orphaned Children and the Boundaries of Horror in Japanese Buddhist Fiction R. Keller Kimbrough	71
6.	The Buddhist Gift: Merit-Making, Donations, and the Ambivalence of Reward Jessica Falcone	93
7.	The Puzzle of the Socially Engaged Buddhist Agent and a Tai Buddhist Philosophical Response Geoff Ashton	119
8.	Five Themes toward Teaching the History of Vietnamese Buddhism Wynn Gadkar-Wilcox	139
9.	Not Knowing Is Most Intimate: Introducing Buddhism into a Humanities Course Jane Collins	165
Contributors		173
Index		177