Buddhism A Social Intellectual History

Is Buddhism a philosophy? Is it a religion? Is it a set of rituals? This course will give you the tools to evaluate these and other questions you have about Buddhism. This course will cover Buddhist social and intellectual history, beginning with the emergence of the cult of the Buddha and the earliest monasteries in South Asia, then discuss medieval transitions in East and South East Asia, and end with a set of discussions on how to think about modern, post-modern and global 'Buddhisms'. The course will engage the Buddhist experience from a wide range of thematic and cultural perspectives. Themes will include Buddhism and the family, the experience of meditation, death ritual, Buddhism and war, the body as an object of desire and repulsion, Buddhist medicine, and the structure of monastic life. Cultural contexts will include India, China, Japan, Cambodia, and Thailand, among others.