Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyaltsen (left) and Chogyal Phagpa (right) with teaching gestures, surrounded by the lineage teachers of the Guhyasamaja Tantra (Collection of Shelley & Donald Rubin; HAR 162)
My teaching is grounded in a multi-disciplinary method that leads students inside the many worlds of Buddhism and manifestations of Buddhist art. Employing the close study of primary sources together with visual culture and ritual practice, I bring students into conversation with the creators of Buddhism’s shared imaginary. I further guide their investigation of the ways scripture, art, doctrine, and politics intersect to shape religion off the page and in the world as a diversity of cultural and spiritual expressions. My goal in presenting a more holistic view of Buddhism—beyond the elite, the philosophical, and the textual—is to help students develop a nuanced understanding of the human forces that constitute a religion and contribute to the development of religious art. I offer them critical tools for assessing established sources of knowledge and for navigating the contemporary deluge of visual information. When teaching about other religious and artistic traditions within and beyond Asia, my approach and aspirations are the same. To fulfill these goals, I prioritize inclusivity in course content and engagement through accessible presentations of religious traditions and material culture that bring them down to earth and into the contemporary world. Through my immersive, inclusive, and interdisciplinary teaching, students not only achieve a deeper comprehension of Buddhist concepts, history, and art, but are also empowered to be more judicious creators and consumers of knowledge.
SAMPLE COURSES
Vajrayogini, Rubin Museum of Art, F1997.19.2 (HAR 290)
Gurus, Goddesses, Corpses & Consorts: Women Across Buddhist Traditions
Within Buddhism’s long history, women, both human and divine, have fulfilled a diversity of vital roles encompassing the practice and promotion of the tradition throughout Asia. In this course, we will examine conceptions of gender and sexuality originating in early Indian Buddhism, and explore how these ideas have affected the portrayal, positions, and practices of monastic and lay women, as well as goddesses and female buddhas, across the Buddhist traditions of Asia and the West.
Worship at the Stupa (Bharhut railing), Freer Gallery of Art, F1932.26
The World According to Hyecho: A Buddhist Pilgrimage through Asia
In the year 721, a young Korean Buddhist monk named Hyecho set out on what would become one of the most extraordinary journeys in the history of Buddhism. Sailing first to China, Hyecho traveled by sea and over land to visit the many Buddhist holy sites of South Asia. He wandered as far west as Arabia before turning east on the Silk Road and finding his way back to northern China. Traveling farther than any known Buddhist pilgrim, Hyecho recorded his observations and experiences in a journal, fragments of which were discovered at Dunhuang in 1908. This course employs Hyecho as our guide and his travelogue as our guidebook, through the Buddhist world in one of its most vibrant periods during which all three vehicles coexisted and the tradition had reached its full geographic expanse in Asia. We will examine the shared Buddhist worldview Hyecho knew—stories, doctrines, and practices—and the many different worlds he encountered—religious, cultural, and artistic.
History of Yatadera Temple, Freer Gallery of Art, F1903.113a-c
Demons, Devils & the Dead: Monsters & the Macabre across Asia
Within mainstream religious traditions and local folklore alike, the ghastly and ghoulish permeate the spiritual lives, cultural practices, and visual media of communities across Asia—from Japan to Tibet to Thailand. Frightful figures are essential to Buddhist meditative traditions, in which rotting corpses can be contemplated or your own body can be visualized as chopped up and fed to wrathful beings. Fearsome entities are integral to both oracular traditions and exorcism rituals. They can be indigenous deities who have resisted Buddhism’s ascendancy or those violently brought into the Buddhist fold. In this course we will examine the many ways monsters and the macabre manifest in the religious texts, ritual practices, and local folklore of different Asian communities. In addition to engaging primary texts, scholarly works, and “monster theory,” we will explore the rich trove of monstrous material culture from across media, from hell realm scrolls to terrifying ritual masks to modern horror films.
Interior of CSMVS, Mumbai, India
The Making of Museums in Modern Asia
Museums are places for educational enrichment and aesthetic appreciation, but they are also inherently political. They can be sites where cultural heritage is preserved, national identity is defined, and religious ideology is propagated. In this course, we will explore the origins and contemporary manifestations of the modern public museum across Asia, from Japan to India. We will first study how the collecting and exhibiting of Asian art and ethnographic objects by and for Europeans and Americans contributed to the colonial project. Shifting our focus away from the West, we will then examine how museums within Asian countries began as institutions of colonialism and became instruments of post-colonial and nationalist movements. We will also look at contemporary examples where museums and “experiences” intersect with religious fundamentalism, heritage preservation, and leisure.