djbuddha

Author: Scott

  • Nebraska

    Next week, I’ll be presenting some of my recent research on US Shin Buddhist music at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I’m very grateful to Courtney Bruntz (recently minted PhD from the GTU) and her colleagues for the invitation. More info can be found here, and if they record the event in any way, I’ll update…

  • American Gāthā

    Several years ago, I did some research on Shin Buddhist music in the United States, ultimately publishing an article on the subject [PDF]. A lot of the research I did then found its way into my doctoral dissertation, and I’ve always been interested in returning to the topic. Of course, post-PhD life can be busy! One…

  • The Tranquil Meditator

    This past weekend at the American Academy of Religion, I participated in a panel for the Dharma Academy of North America. Our panel was organized by the wonderful Karma Lekshe Tsomo, and it brought together a variety of perspectives on the transmission and development of Buddhism in the United States. More details on other papers…

  • Dharma Dialogue

    Jane Iwamura down at the University of the West has a class going on right now on Buddhism in the West, and her students are managing a blog called “Dharma Dialogue.” It’s an admirable project to give students the opportunity to share their experiences and what they’re learning, studying, and the issues with which they’re…

  • See you in Chicago

    For those who go to the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, it’s coming up this weekend in Chicago. The program book is online, searchable, and here’s what’s happening in Buddhist Studies. I’ll be presenting on Friday during a related meeting, the Dharma Academy of North America. My topic is, once again, media…

  • Space Buddha

    As you may remember, the story of a Tibetan Buddhist statue carved out of a meteorite and found in Germany with connections to the Nazis made the rounds of Buddhist and mainstream media a month or so ago. And really, that’s not surprising. Nazis, Tibet, statues made from space rocks. It has all the makings…

  • Buddhism and pop-culture across cultures

    Via Tricycle, via RocketNews, comes the following video demonstration of a Japanese video game released earlier this year titled “Sutra Master.” The game is simple enough. Your character must beat a wooden fish drum and singing bowl to the high-speed, J-pop techno music while swatting away the occasional ghost fire balls and human-animal hybrid gods.…

  • Map of the Buddhist Churches of America

    The Buddhist Churches of America is the United States’ oldest and longest-lived Buddhist community, with over sixty temples and fellowship divided into eight different districts in a dozen different states. It’s always hard for me to keep track of where all these communities are, and since I’m a big fan of maps, I decided to…

  • Pure Land Buddhist Studies at AAR

    On behalf of the North American District of the International Association of Shin Buddhist Studies, I am happy to announce that we have been accepted as a Related Scholarly Organization by the American Academy of Religion. The mission of the IASBS is to foster the development of international Shin and Pure Land Buddhist studies while…

  • Open Access

    Part of being an academic means being part of a closed system. Much of the work we do as scholars remains hidden in obscurity, behind some formidable pay-walls. Whether it is the high cost of academic books or peer reviewed journals only research libraries can afford subscriptions to, there is a problem of access in…