Based on extensive research in Sri Lanka and interviews with Theravada
and Tibetan nuns from around the world, Salgado's groundbreaking study
urges a rethinking of female renunciation. How are scholarly accounts
complicit in reinscribing imperialist stories about the subjectivity of
Buddhist women? How do key Buddhist "concepts" such as dukkha, samsara, and sila
ground female renunciant practice?
Salgado's provocative analysis
questions the secular notion of the higher ordination of nuns as a
political movement for freedom against patriarchal norms. Arguing that
the lives of nuns defy translation into a politics of global sisterhood
equal before law, she calls for more-nuanced readings of nuns' everyday
renunciant practices.
Buddhist Nuns and Gendered Practice: In Search of the Female Renunciant, Nirmala S. Salgado, Oxford University Press, Paperback, 319 pages, $35.00
Nirmala S. Salgado
(MA, SOAS, University of London; PhD, Northwestern University) has
published widely on Buddhist nuns. She teaches religion to
undergraduates at Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois.
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Introduction Part I Narration 1 Decolonizing Female Renunciation 2 Institutional Discourse and Everyday Practice 3 Buddhism, Power, and Practice Part II Identity 4 Invisible Nuns 5 Subjects of Renunciation 6 Becoming Bhikkhunis, Becoming Theravada Part III Empowerment 7 Renunciation and ''Empowerment'' 8 Global Empowerment and the Renunciant Everyday Notes Works Cited Index
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