Shows
The Circled SquareKate Hartmann: Online Teaching Beyond the PandemicDescription
Trained in religion at Harvard, Kate Hartmann started her teaching job in Wyoming during the pandemic and has heartily embraced the challenges and possibilities of online and virtual modes of teaching. She also speaks eloquently about what her students in Wyoming need and want from her in person teaching about Buddhism. Founder of the new Buddhist Studies Online course platform, Kate shares academically and historically grounded studies of Buddhism with the wider public. She emphasizes the importance of applying Buddhist texts to contemporary issues such as structural racism and climate justice. In this episode you will hear Kate sha...2022-11-0250 minThe Circled SquareJosé Cabezón: Teaching Tibetan Buddhism as Professor and PractitionerDescription
José Cabezón is the Dalai Lama Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara. Among his many contributions to the field of Buddhist Studies, José served as the president of the American Academy of Religion in 2020 and his Presidential Address (published in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion in September 2021) surveyed the study of Buddhism in North America as an academic discipline within religious studies. In this episode, he reflects on how he balances his research with teaching various undergraduate and graduate courses. His teaching is organised around a spectrum of topics tha...2022-06-2147 minThe Circled SquareJan Willis: Stories from a Black, Baptist, and Buddhist TeacherDr. Jan Willis discusses her lifetime of teaching Buddhism and Buddhist studies courses. She reflects on helping students broaden their horizons and find their true selves, just as she discovered the wider world of higher education after surviving childhood in the segregated south. In her teaching, she uses stories to connect students with the pivotal moments in history that shape our understanding of social justice and engaged Buddhism. Jan is a Professor Emerita of Religion at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and Visiting Professor of Religion at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia. In addition to her research on Tibetan...2022-03-3048 minThe Circled SquareTodd Lewis: Social Context and the Power of ImaginationIn this episode Professor Todd Lewis discusses the importance of reaching students where they are, of unsettling their assumptions, and of teaching broad religious literacy in a world where much religious illiteracy prevails. He centers ritual and art in much of his teaching, wanting to balance the focus on elite and textual arts with popular practices and an awareness of the diversity of practitioners. He also communicates the complexity of different types of Buddhism through the use of diagrams like ones he has made that show different methods between Theravada and Mahayana understandings of the Buddhist path. Lewis is...2022-03-101h 10The Circled SquareSusie Andrews: Building Others UpDescription
This conversation with Susie Andrews (Mount Allison University) highlights how she uses creative and hands-on approaches to teaching Asian religions. Susie talks about the importance of building a culture of support and shared success in her teaching—and in academia more broadly. An inspired teacher who has her students build models of ancient Chinese burials using cardboard boxes and who regularly brings homemade playdough to her University classes, she will expand your thinking about the possibilities of embodied and creative practice in all stages of learning. This interview was recorded in the summer of 2021 and released in...2021-11-261h 01The Circled SquareJanet Gyatso, Posthumanism and Animal Ethics in Buddhist StudiesDescription
In this episode, Dr. Janet Gyatso discusses how she teaches her students about posthumanism and animal ethics in her courses on Buddhist Studies. She is the Hershey Professor of Buddhist Studies and Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs at Harvard Divinity School.
Quotes
“Part of what I'm trying to do is set aside all the mythology and ideology that we have and try to see animals for what they are.” Janet Gyatso
“Posthumanism is an attempt to ratchet down the centrality of humans, in our thought, in our discourse, in our v...2021-05-1354 minThe Circled SquareMarcus Evans, Teaching Hip Hop and Buddhist StudiesDescription
Marcus Evans teaches courses on Asian religions at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, exploring new perspectives and incorporating different voices that help students access and interpret old texts. His teaching integrates and combines classical Buddhist works and contrasts and compares these with the works of modern hip hop artists, helping students to see ways that art, literature, and religion evolve and respond in interrelated ways. In this episode, Sarah Richardson asks him about his research and how he brings fresh voices and perspectives into conversation, taking these as strategies for greater student inclusion and antiracist teaching...2021-04-231h 17The Circled SquareRima Vesely-Flad, Learning about Black Buddhist Dharma Teachers and Healing JusticeDescription
Rima Vesely-Flad teaches at Warren Wilson College exploring the intersections of Buddhism, race, and gender. Her teaching is deeply entwined with her current research on Buddhist teachers of African descent in the United states, particularly in the Vipassana tradition.
Buddhism as it was adopted in North America has reflected the racism and discriminatory ideologies of this society. Rima researches how Black Buddhist teachers are doing things differently—and how Buddhist institutions in North America and contemporary Buddhist teachings are changing as a result. As more Black teachers are coming into positions of power in th...2020-12-141h 05The Circled SquareEmbodied Learning on InterdependenceDescription
How do students learn and what do they value six months after a course? What do students get from embodied and experiential learning? In this episode, Sarah interviews five students who all took the same course about interdependence at the University of Toronto in the Fall of 2019. In these interviews, conducted well after the course and when the world has been plunged into a global pandemic, students reflect on how the course changed them and their ways of understanding themselves and their worlds. Hear from students about just how transformational these embodied practices were, and how...2020-11-1640 minThe Circled SquareDaigengna Duoer, Teaching a Zen Buddhism Course Online with Student Preferences in MindDescription
Gathering data about student expectations and experiences with new technology is essential to developing effective courses to be delivered online during the pandemic. In this interview we spoke with Daigengna Duoer, who taught an online course on Zen Buddhism at UC Santa Barbara this past summer. Daigengna repeatedly surveyed her students to evaluate their preferences and comfort with the format and content of the course. In this episode, we hear about some creative and specific ways she created an engaging asynchronous learning experience in a course that was taught entirely remotely. Some key take-aways? One-on-one zoom m...2020-10-261h 06The Circled SquareKerry Brown, Teaching Asian Art as StorytellingDescription
Dr. Kerry Lucinda Brown is a professor of art history at Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah Georgia and has a research focus on the religious arts of the Newar community of Nepal. In this episode we speak with Kerry about how she teaches Asian and Buddhist art topics in her context: that is, to students in a design college for whom the materials may be new and distant. Teaching Asian and Buddhist arts and their long and complex histories can be complicated, but Kerry finds tangible ways to make the experience of her c...2020-10-2658 minThe Circled SquareLuther Obrock, Constructing Buddhist Theories of the Body from Ancient TextsDescription
Dr. Luther Obrock from the University of Toronto shares about teaching an undergraduate course on bodies and embodiment in early Indian Buddhist texts. He wants to use his course, a seminar, to help students understand how theories are not just modern constructions, but instead can also emerge from ancient religious texts. He leads his students through ways to mine data and information about how the writers of ancient Indian texts, themselves embodied, understood and spoke about their (gendered) bodies. From analyzing the representation of the "hyper-masculine" Buddha’s body, or the status of the female body as...2020-10-2645 minThe Circled SquareRongdao Lai, Living Religion in the Classroom: Teaching Chinese BuddhismDescription
In this episode, Dr. Rongdao Lai discusses her approach to teaching Buddhism as a living religion, and not only as a philosophy. As an ordained Buddhist nun in the Chinese tradition, she is intimately familiar with the contrasts between the academic study of religion and her own training in Buddhist practices at temples. She aspires to teach all of her students how to develop a critical approach to evaluating the study of Buddhism and its canonical objects: why are certain texts and topics treated as core to the study of Buddhism? The possibility of attending to l...2020-10-2647 minThe Circled SquareFrances Garrett, Teaching Empathy and CollaborationDescription
Dr. Frances Garrett from the University of Toronto discusses how she designs courses in creative ways that focus on developing student skills as well as sharing Buddhist studies content. She develops creative courses for her students, leading them through experiences like an immersive year-long embodied role playing game, or a seminar where the students collaborate on writing and publishing an academic journal. As a self professed introvert for whom teaching has always been a struggle of a sort, Frances shares ways that she centers the mental health and needs of her undergraduate and graduate students, and c...2020-10-261h 03The Circled SquareEllen Katz, Embodied Experience: Living from the HeartDescription
In this interview, Sarah Richardson sits down with Dr. Ellen Katz, who has a unique lens as both a practising Social worker and a practising Buddhist, and a professor who marries these two experiences in and for her students. She discusses how she teaches her students about experiential and embodied learning, and meditation practices, in an undergraduate course on mindfulness and mental health interventions, and in graduate courses on mindfulness for social work students who may apply this one day in the field. For Ellen though, it is important that mindfulness is not a tool, but...2020-10-2648 min
The Circled SquareNorman Farb on Buddhism and Contemplative ScienceIn this episode, Sarah Richardson speaks with Norman Farb, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto Mississauga, about teaching contemplative science.
Sarah and Norm talk about the benefits and drawbacks of secularizing Buddhist practices such as mindfulness, and about his use of exercises such as mindfulness and body scanning in his courses.
Resources Mentioned
Jon Kabat-Zinn’s guided mindfulness practices, at https://www.mindfulnesscds.com/
An APS article on the concept of interoception
Ronald Purser’s book, McMindfulness
Zindel Segal and the Mindful Awareness Lab
See...2020-10-2657 minThe Circled SquareWen-shing Chou on Teaching Buddhist Art Using Museum and Gallery CollectionsIn this episode, Sarah Richardson talks with Wen-shing Chou, Associate Professor of Art History at Hunter College in New York, where she specializes in the art of China and the Himalaya.
Sarah and Wen-shing discuss digital photography projects such as the Dunhuang Cave Foundation’s work with preserving and digitally archiving the contents of each cave, and they talk about taking students to see Buddhist art in galleries and museums in New York City during Asia Week.
Resources mentioned
Wen-shing Chou, Mount Wutai: Visions of a Sacred Buddhist Mountain, Princeton University Press, 2018 https://pr...2020-02-1954 minThe Circled SquareAbishek Amar on Negotiating the Layers: Material History in our TeachingIn this episode, Sarah Richardson speaks with Abishek Amar, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Hamilton College. Abhishek specializes in the archaeological history of South Asian religions, and he is leading a digital research project, Sacred Centers in India, which examines material, culture and texts that reveal histories of the Hindu and Buddhist cities of Gaya and Bodhgaya.
Sarah and Abishek talk about what it means to teach about Indian Buddhism in a small liberal arts college in the U.S. They discuss some of the many ways that Buddhism can be studied, and how a nuanced...2020-02-191h 00The Circled SquareNatalie Avalos on Anti-Colonial Teaching and BuddhismIn this episode, Sarah Richardson speaks with Natalie Avalos, now a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, but joining the department as an Assistant Professor in the 2020-21 academic year.
Sarah and Natalie discuss Natalie’s unusual research specialization in both Tibetan Buddhism and Native American and Indigenous religions traditions. They explore how she prioritizes the undoing of colonization through her teaching, covering somatic and affective dimensions of colonial legacies, historical trauma, and how to make the mechanisms of power visible to students.
Resources Mentioned
Reli...2020-02-1957 minThe Circled SquareMatthew King on Decolonizing the ClassroomIn this episode, Sarah Richardson speaks with Matt King, Associate Professor in Transnational Buddhism in the Department of Religious Studies and Director of Asian Studies at the University of California, Riverside.
Sarah and Matt talk about why there is even such a thing as Buddhist studies, and why it matters to work toward decolonizing the classroom. They also discuss how his research informs his teaching, and what kinds of approaches he takes to promote inspired learning.
Resources Mentioned
Johan Elverskog’s 2013 book, Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road
Ocean of Milk, Ocean of...2020-02-191h 12The Circled SquareVanessa Sasson, Inhabiting the Stories: Buddhism from the InsideIn this episode, Sarah Richardson speaks with Vanessa Sasson, who teaches Religious Studies at Marianopolis College in Quebec, where she also co-teaches a popular course in which students travel to Nepal.
Sarah and Vanessa talk about how Vanessa got interested in the study of Buddhism, about her new novel about Yasodhara, the Buddha’s wife, and about how writing a work of fiction has changed her approach to teaching.
Resources Mentioned
Vanessa’s 2018 book, Yasodhara: A Novel about the Buddha’s Wife, published by Speaking Tiger Books
See show notes at http://teachingbuddhism.net/va...2020-02-191h 01