What would you like to do in Buddhist Studies that you feel you cannot or should not do now?
At the 2021 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religions, we’ll be holding a “Manifestos for Buddhist Studies” session in which a roster of scholars will envision a future for the field.
But a future inclusive of many voices and visions demands contributions from a much broader group of scholars. We seek contributions to the Collective Buddhist Studies Manifesto that focus on any of these questions:
What directions in the field are most exciting to you, and why?
How does the status quo in Buddhist studies limit or enable your ability to think critically and creatively about the future?
How should we grapple with and begin to move away from the legacies of white supremacy and European universalism in the ways we produce knowledge about Buddhism?
How might an altered vision for the future in turn transform our engagement with the past and the present?
Since we hope to engage in collectively imagining alternative futures for the field, we have chosen the genre of the “manifesto” for these contributions, a distinct communication style historically rooted in challenging dominant power hierarchies. We therefore especially aim to amplify the voices of marginalized scholars, contingent faculty, and graduate students. While manifestos seek to challenge and provoke, we ask for constructive rather than destructive contributions.
All are welcome to submit a manifesto – see how to participate and format guidelines for more details.