Pure Lands in Asian Texts and Contexts

Pure Lands in Asian Texts and Contexts
Author: Georgios T. Halkias
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 808
Release: 2019-03-31
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0824877144

This diverse anthology of original Buddhist texts in translation provides a historical and conceptual framework that will transform contemporary scholarship on Pure Land Buddhism and instigate its recognition as an essential field of Buddhist studies. Traditional and contemporary primary sources carefully selected from Buddhist cultures across historical, geopolitical, and literary boundaries are organized by genre rather than chronologically, geographically, or by religious lineage—a novel juxtaposition that reveals their wider importance in fresh contexts. Together these fundamental texts from different Asian traditions, expertly translated by eminent and up-and-coming scholars, illustrate that the Buddhism of pure lands is not just an East Asian cult or a marginal type of Buddhism, but a pan-Asian and deeply entrenched religious phenomenon. The volume is organized into six parts: Ritual Practices, Contemplative Visualizations, Doctrinal Expositions, Life Writing and Poetry, Ethical and Aesthetic Explications, and Worlds beyond Sukhāvatī. Each part is introduced and summarized, and each translated piece is prefaced by its translator to supply historical and sectarian context as well as insight into the significance of the work. Common and less-common issues of practice, doctrine, and intra-religious transfer are explored, and deeper understandings of the meaning of “pure lands” are gained through the study of the celestial, cosmological, internal, and earthly pure lands associated with various buddhas, bodhisattvas, and devotional figures. The introduction by the volume editors ties the diverse themes of the book together and provides a historical background to Pure Land Buddhist studies. Scholars of Buddhism and Asian religion, including graduate and post-graduate students, as well as Buddhist practitioners, will appreciate the range of translated materials and accompanied discussions made accessible in one essential collection, the first of its kind to center on the formerly-neglected topic of Buddhist pure lands.

Images in Asian Religions

Images in Asian Religions
Author: Phyllis Granoff
Publisher: UBC Press
Total Pages: 398
Release: 2010-10-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0774859806

This collection offers a challenge to any simple understanding of the role of images by looking at aspects of the reception of image worship that have only begun to be studied, including the many hesitations that Asian religious traditions expressed about image worship. Written by eminent scholars of anthropology, art history, and religion with interests in different regions (India, China, Japan, and Southeast Asia), this volume takes a fresh look at the many ways in which images were defined and received in Asian religions. Buddha Dharma Kyokai Foundation Book on Buddhism and Comparative Religion

Central Asia

Central Asia
Author: David W. Montgomery
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Total Pages: 879
Release: 2022-05-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 0822988275

Central Asia is a diverse and complex region of the world often characterized in the West as exotic, remote, and difficult to understand. Central Asia: Contexts for Understanding offers the most comprehensive introduction to the region available for students and general readers alike. Combining thematic chapters with detailed case studies, readers will learn to appreciate the richly interconnected aspects of life in Central Asia. These wide-ranging, easy-to-understand contributions from many of the leading scholars in the field provide the context needed to understand Central Asia and presents a launching point for further reading and research.

Language Policy, Culture, and Identity in Asian Contexts

Language Policy, Culture, and Identity in Asian Contexts
Author: Amy B.M. Tsui
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2017-09-25
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1351560891

Bringing together scholarship on issues relating to language, culture, and identity, with a special focus on Asian countries, this volume makes an important contribution in terms of analyzing and demonstrating how language is closely linked with crucial social, political, and economic forces, particularly the tensions between the demands of globalization and local identity. A particular feature is the inclusion of countries that have been under-represented in the research literature, such as Nepal, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Pakistan, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Korea. The book is organized in three sections: Globalization and its Impact on Language Policies, Culture, and Identity Language Policy and the Social (Re)construction of National Cultural Identity Language Policy and Language Politics: The Role of English. Unique in its attention to how the domination of English is being addressed in relation to cultural values and identity by non-English speaking countries in a range of sociopolitical contexts, this volume will help readers to understand the impact of globalization on non-English speaking countries, particularly developing countries, which differ significantly from contexts in the West in their cultural orientations and the way identities are being constructed. Language Policy, Culture, and Identity in Asian Contexts will interest scholars and research students in the areas of language policy, education, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, and critical linguistics. It can be adopted in graduate and advanced undergraduate courses on language policy, language in society, and language education.

Asian Philosophies

Asian Philosophies
Author: John M. Koller
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2017-10-03
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1351217097

With an inside view from an expert in the field, solid scholarship, and a clear and engaging writing style, Asian Philosophies invites students and professors to think along with the great thinkers of the Asian traditions. John M. Koller is a scholar and teacher who has devoted his life to understanding Asian thought and practice. He wrote this text to give students and professors access to the rich philosophical and religious ideas of both South and East Asia.

Controversial History Education in Asian Contexts

Controversial History Education in Asian Contexts
Author: Mark Baildon
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2013-08-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 1135014213

This book examines both history textbook controversies AND teaching historical controversy in Asian contexts. The different perspectives provided by the book’s authors offer numerous insights, examples, and approaches for understanding historical controversy to provide a practical gold mine for scholars and practitioners. The book provides case studies of history textbook controversies ranging from treatments of the Nanjing Massacre to a comparative treatment of Japanese occupation in Vietnamese and Singaporean textbooks to the differences in history textbooks published by secular and Hindu nationalist governments in India. It also offers a range of approaches for teaching historical controversy in classrooms. These include Structured Academic Controversy, the use of Japanese manga, teaching controversy through case studies, student facilitated discussion processes, and discipline-based approaches that can be used in history classrooms. The book’s chapters will help educational researchers and curricularists consider new approaches for curriculum design, curriculum study, and classroom research.

Asian American Literature

Asian American Literature
Author: Elaine Kim
Publisher: Temple University Press
Total Pages: 384
Release: 1984-02-27
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0877223521

An introduction to the literary works of Chinese-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Filipino-Americans, and Korean-Americans, this book focuses on the self-images and social contexts of the nineteenth-century immigrants, their descendants, and the Americanized writers of today.Although the book examines the novels, autobiographies, poems, and plays themselves, the social history of Asians in American is a significant backdrop-as Maxine Hong Kingston herself argues it should be. These racially distinctive Americans have confronted in their lives and writings American stereotypes of the "Oriental," racial discrimination, and the cultural gulf between East and West.After a chapter on Fu Manchu, Charlie Chan, and other Anglo-American caricatures of Asians, the author turns to a discussion of the first immigrant writers, many of whom were educated aristocrats playing the role of cultural ambassadors, and then to the less privileged, more socially critical generations of writers who followed.From works like Flower Drum Song, Eat a Bowl of Tea, The Woman Warrior, China Men, and a host of lesser-known writings, the author shows how portrayals of Chinatown, the Japanese-American family, and the roles of all the Asian-American women and men have changed. Drawing on her personal interviews with Asian-American writers, Kim also conveys their attitudes towards their own group, other Asian-Americans, other racial minorities, and white Americans-a complex mix of bitterness, acceptance, and militance. Author note: Elaine H. Kim is Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She directs the Korean Community Center of Oakland and Asian Women United (California).

Asian Texts — Asian Contexts

Asian Texts — Asian Contexts
Author: David Jones
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2010-03-02
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9781438426761

Provides an overview of some of the great texts of Asian philosophy and religion along with an exploration of the contexts in which they arose.

Asian Courts in Context

Asian Courts in Context
Author: Jiunn-rong Yeh
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 633
Release: 2015
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1107066085

Analyzes courts in fourteen selected Asian jurisdictions to provide the most up-to-date and comprehensive interdisciplinary book available.

World Englishes in Asian Contexts

World Englishes in Asian Contexts
Author: Yamuna Kachru
Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
Total Pages: 437
Release: 2006-04-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9622097553

This is the first English-language book to focus on the electric rice cooker and the impact it has had on the lives of Asian people. This account of the rice cooker's globalization aims to move away from Japan-centric perspectives on how "Made in Japan" products made it big in the global marketplace, instead choosing to emphasize the collaborative approach adopted by one Japanese manufacturing giant and a Hong Kong entrepreneur. The book also highlights the role Hong Kong, as a free port, played in the rice cooker's globalization and describes how the city facilitated the transnational flow of Japanese appliances to Southeast Asia, China, and North America. Based on over 40 interviews conducted with key figures at both National/Panasonic and Shun Hing Group, it provides a fascinating insight into the process by which the National rice cooker was first localized and then globalized. Interspersed throughout are personal accounts by individuals in Japan and Hong Kong for whom owning a rice cooker meant far more than just a convenient way of cooking rice. The book includes over 60 images, among them advertisements dating back to the 1950s that illustrate how Japanese appliances contributed to the advent of a modern lifestyle in Hong Kong. This account of the rice cooker's odyssey from Japan to Hong Kong and beyond is intended for a general audience as well as for readers with an interest in the empirical study of globalization, intercultural communication, Hong Kong social history, and Japanese business in Asia.