Low Price Guarantee
We Take School POs
Modern Buddhist Conjunctures in Myanmar: Cultural Narratives, Colonial Legacies, and Civil Society
Contributor(s): Schober, Juliane (Author)

View larger image

ISBN: 0824833821     ISBN-13: 9780824833824
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
OUR PRICE: $46.55  

Binding Type: Hardcover - See All Available Formats & Editions
Published: November 2010
Qty:
Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Religion | Buddhism - Theravada
- Philosophy | Buddhist
- History | Asia - Southeast Asia
Dewey: 294.309
LCCN: 2010030294
Physical Information: 0.9" H x 6.1" W x 9.1" L (1.15 lbs) 224 pages
Themes:
- Religious Orientation - Buddhist
- Cultural Region - Southeast Asian
- Cultural Region - Asian
Features: Bibliography, Glossary, Illustrated, Index
Review Citations: Reference and Research Bk News 02/01/2011 pg. 14
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:

For centuries, Burmese have looked to the authority of their religious tradition, Theravada Buddhism, to negotiate social and political hierarchies. Modern Buddhist Conjunctures in Myanmar examines those moments in the modern history of this Southeast Asian country when religion, culture, and politics converge to chart new directions. Arguing against Max Weber's characterization of Buddhism as other-worldly and divorced from politics, this study shows that Buddhist practice necessitates public validation within an economy of merit in which moral action earns future rewards. The intervention of colonial modernity in traditional Burmese Buddhist worldviews has created conjunctures at which public concerns critical to the nation's future are reinterpreted in light of a Buddhist paradigm of power.

Author Juliane Schober begins by focusing on the public role of Buddhist practice and the ways in which precolonial Buddhist hegemonies were negotiated. Her discussion then traces the emergence of modern Buddhist communities through the colonial experience: the disruption of traditional paradigms of hegemony and governance, the introduction of new and secular venues to power, modern concerns like nationalism, education, the public place of religion, the power of the state, and Buddhist resistance to the center. The continuing discourse and cultural negotiation of these themes draw Buddhist communities into political arenas, either to legitimate political power or to resist it on moral grounds. The book concludes with an examination of the way in which Buddhist resistance in 2007, known in the West as the Saffron Revolution, was subjugated by military secularism and the transnational pressures of a global economy.

A skillfully crafted work of scholarship, Modern Buddhist Conjunctures in Myanmar will be welcomed by students of Theravada Buddhism and Burma/Myanmar, readers of anthropology, history of religions, politics, and colonial studies of modern Southeast Asia, and scholars of religious and political practice in modern national contexts.


Contributor Bio(s): Schober, Juliane: - Juliane Schober is professor of religious studies at Arizona State University.
 
Customer ReviewsSubmit your own review
 
To tell a friend about this book, you must Sign In First!