New Books in Buddhist Studies

By Marshall Poe

Religion & Spirituality Buddhism

What's New Books in Buddhist Studies about?

Interviews with Scholars of Buddhism about their New Books

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New Books in Buddhist Studies episodes:

04.09.2024
Matthew Robertson, "Puruṣa: Personhood in Ancient India" (Oxford UP, 2024)
The concept of the puruṣa, or person, is implicated in a wide range of ancient texts throughout the Indian subcontinent. In Puruṣa: Personhood in Ancient India, published in 2024 by Oxford University Press, Matthew I. Robertson traces the development of this concept...
04.04.2024
William S. Waldron, "Making Sense of Mind Only: Why Yogacara Buddhism Matters" (Wisdom Publications, 2023)
Through engaging, contemporary examples, Making Sense of Mind Only: Why Yogacara Buddhism Matters (Wisdom Publications, 2023) reveals the Yogacara school of Indian Buddhism as a coherent system of ideas and practices for the path to liberation, contextualizing its key texts and rendering them accessible...
03.31.2024
Building the Future Buddha: A Discussion with Jundho Cohen
Jundo Cohen is a Zen Buddhist teacher and founder of Treeleaf Zendo, a digital Zen community with members in over 50 countries. He writes on the intersection of Buddhism, ethics, science, and the future of the planet. He resides in...
03.23.2024
Making Sense of Yogacara with William Waldron
Professor William Waldron teaches courses on the South Asian religious traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism, Tibetan religion and history, comparative psychologies and philosophies of mind, and theory and method in the study of religion at Middlebury College. His publications focus...
03.14.2024
Pankaj Jain and Jeffery D. Long, "Indian and Western Philosophical Concepts in Religion" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2023)
Philosophical concepts are influential in the theories and methods to study the world religions. Even though the disciplines of anthropology and religious studies now encompass communities and cultures across the world, the theories and methods used to study world religions...
02.26.2024
Charles B. Jones, "Chinese Pure Land Buddhism: Understanding a Tradition of Practice" (U Hawaii Press, 2019)
Today’s guest is Charles B. Jones, Associate Professor and Director of the Religion and Culture graduate program in the School of Theology and Religious Studies at the Catholic University of America. He will be speaking with us about his new...
02.09.2024
Buddhist Medicine in Contemporary Times (with Pierce Salguero)
Dr Pierce Salguero is interviewed by James Bae on the Buddhist Medicine & Yoga Podcast. In this extensive and in-depth conversation, we talk about differentiating religion from medicine, what Buddhist medicine can teach contemporary clinicians, current trends in the field...
02.08.2024
Jeffery D. Long, "Discovering Indian Philosophy: An Introduction to Hindu, Jain and Buddhist Thought" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
Jeffery D. Long's Indian Philosophy: An Introduction (Bloomsbury, 2023) helps readers discover how the many and varied schools of Indian thought can answer some of the great questions of life: Who are we? How can we live well? How do we tell truth...
02.05.2024
Daniel Capper, "Roaming Free Like a Deer: Buddhism and the Natural World" (Cornell UP, 2022)
Daniel Capper's book Roaming Free Like a Deer: Buddhism and the Natural World (Cornell UP, 2022) delves into ecological experiences in seven Buddhist worlds, spanning ancient India to the modern West, offering a comprehensive analysis of Buddhist environmental ethics. Capper critically examines...
01.26.2024
Stephen Harris, "Buddhist Ethics and the Bodhisattva Path: Santideva on Virtue and Well-Being" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
Santideva's 8th-century Mahayana Buddhist classic, "The Guide to the Practices of Awakening" (Bodhicaryavatara), has been a source of philosophical inspiration in the Indian and Tibetan traditions for over a thousand years. In Buddhist Ethics and the Bodhisattva Path: Santideva on Virtue and...
01.20.2024
Jan Westerhoff, "Candrakirti's Introduction to the Middle Way: A Guide" (Oxford UP, 2023)
A proponent of the Madhyamaka tradition of Mahāyāna Buddhism, Candrakīrti wrote several works, one of which, the Madhamakāvatāra, strongly influenced later Tibetan understandings of Madhyamaka. This work is the subject of Jan Westerhoff’s Candrakīrti’s Introduction to the Middle Way: A Guide (Oxford University Press, 2024),...
01.17.2024
Tara Brach, "Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha" (Random House, 2004)
It can be so easy to feel like we’re not enough or that we’re somehow insufficient. According to meditation teacher Tara Brach, this feeling of unworthiness is fundamentally a disease of separation, as it alienates us from ourselves and the...
01.15.2024
Douglas S. Duckworth, "Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy of Mind and Nature" (Oxford UP, 2019)
Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy of Mind and Nature (Oxford UP, 2019) offers an engaging philosophical overview of Tibetan Buddhist thought. Integrating competing and complementary perspectives on the nature of mind and reality, Douglas Duckworth reveals the way that Buddhist theory informs Buddhist...
01.08.2024
Christian Coseru on Perceiving Reality
What does it mean to perceive and just how capable are we of perceiving reality? This is a core question in the work of Christian Coseru, who is today’s guest. He is the Lightsey Humanities chair and Professor of Philosophy...
01.07.2024
Women and the Body in Buddhism
Dr Pierce Salguero sits down with Amy Langenberg, a scholar of South Asian Buddhism, gender, sexuality, and the body. We focus on Amy’s work on misogyny in Buddhist texts, her book on Buddhist embryology, and her current project on sexual...
01.05.2024
M. Sheehy and K-D Mathes, "The Other Emptiness: Rethinking the Zhentong Buddhist Discourse in Tibet" (SUNY Press, 2019)
Michael R. Sheehy and Klaus-Dieter Mathes's edited collection The Other Emptiness: Rethinking the Zhentong Buddhist Discourse in Tibet (SUNY Press, 2019) brings together perspectives of leading international Tibetan studies scholars on the subject of zhentong or “other-emptiness.” Defined as the emptiness...
12.30.2023
Vanessa R. Sasson, "The Gathering: A Story of the First Buddhist Women" (Equinox, 2023)
After the Buddha’s enlightenment, his aunt and adoptive mother, Mahapajapati Gotami, asks him to ordain women and welcome them into his new monastic community. The Buddha declines to fulfill her request. But Mahapajapati Gotami doesn’t give up—accompanied by a large...
12.29.2023
Ralph H. Craig, "Dancing in My Dreams: A Spiritual Biography of Tina Turner" (Eerdmans, 2023)
When Tina Turner reclaimed her throne as the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll in the 1980s, she attributed her comeback to one thing: the wisdom and power she found in Buddhism. Her spiritual transformation is often overshadowed by the rags-to-riches...
12.26.2023
Alice Collett, "Lives of Early Buddhist Nuns: Biographies as History" (Oxford UP, 2016)
Dr. Alice Collett’s monograph Lives of Early Buddhist Nuns: Biographies as History (Oxford University Press, 2016) delves into the lives of six of the best-known nuns from the period of early Buddhism: Dhammadinnā, Khemā, Kisāgotamī, Paṭācārā, Bhaddā Kuṇḍalakesā, and Uppalavaṇṇā,...
12.22.2023
Reading the Stars: When Divination Meets Politics in Thailand
What does astrology, palm-reading and fortune telling have to do with politics in Thailand, and how can we make sense of these divination practices and their use in Thai politics? Listen to Edoardo Siani and Petra Alderman in this episode...
12.20.2023
Tyler Dalton McNabb and Erik Baldwin, "Classical Theism and Buddhism: Connecting Metaphysical and Ethical Systems" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
In addition to denying the existence of a substantial, enduring self, Buddhists are usually understood to deny the existence of a God or gods. However, in Classical Theism and Buddhism: Connecting Metaphysical and Ethical Systems (Bloomsbury, 2022), Tyler Dalton McNabb and Erik...
12.10.2023
Oren Jay Sofer, "Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love" (Shambhala, 2023)
What is the role of contemplative practice in times of crisis? And how can meditation actually support us in meeting the greatest challenges of our time? Oren Jay Sofer takes up these questions in his new book, Your Heart Was Made for...
12.04.2023
David McMahan on Rethinking Meditation
If anything, the Imperfect Buddha Podcast has been a rallying cry for the disruption of the myths that abound in the world of Buddhism and meditation. David L. McMahan professor of religion at Franklin and Marshall College, has been something...
11.29.2023
Shuchen Xiang, "Chinese Cosmopolitanism: The History and Philosophy of an Idea" (Princeton UP, 2023)
A provocative defense of a forgotten Chinese approach to identity and difference. Historically, the Western encounter with difference has been catastrophic: the extermination and displacement of aboriginal populations, the transatlantic slave trade, and colonialism. China, however, took a different historical...
11.19.2023
Lama Rod Owens, "The New Saints: From Broken Hearts to Spiritual Warriors" (Sounds True, 2023)
Lama Rod Owens is an author, activist, and authorized lama in the Karma Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism. In his new book, The New Saints: From Broken Hearts to Spiritual Warriors (Sounds True, 2023), he draws from the bodhisattva tradition to rethink...
11.18.2023
Jenny Odell, "Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock" (Random House, 2023)
In her first book, How to Do Nothing, artist Jenny Odell examined the power of quiet contemplation in a world where our attention is bought and sold. Now, she takes up the question of how to find space for silence when...
11.17.2023
Ross Gay, "The Book of (More) Delights: Essays" (Algonquin Books, 2023)
In 2016, poet Ross Gay set out to document a delight each day for a year. After he published The Book of Delights, his friend asked him if he planned to continue his practice. Five years later, he began The Book of...
11.11.2023
A Chinese-American Buddhist Healer (Pierce Salguero and Kin Cheung)
Dr. Pierce Salguero sits down with Kin Cheung, a scholar of contemporary Buddhism at Moravian University. We talk about his research on a Chinese-American community healer who happens to be his father. We discuss how his father’s practice raises challenging...
11.10.2023
Ralph H. Craig III, "Dancing in My Dreams: A Spiritual Biography of Tina Turner" (Eerdmans, 2023)
If you don’t know Tina Turner’s spirituality, you don’t know Tina. When Tina Turner reclaimed her throne as the Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll in the 1980s, she attributed her comeback to one thing: the wisdom and power she found in...
11.10.2023
A.I. and Practice with Stuart Baldwin
The technological revolution we are facing today is artificial intelligence. At least this is what we are told. Those doing the telling include tech experts such as Elon Musk, linguist Noam Chomsky, as well as philosophers, politicians and intellectuals of...
11.08.2023
Vanessa R. Sasson, "The Gathering: A Story of the First Buddhist Women" (Equinox, 2023)
Vanessa R. Sasson's book The Gathering: A Story of the First Buddhist Women (Equinox, 2023) is a retelling of the story of the first Buddhist women's request for ordination. Inspired by the Therigatha and building on years of research and experience in the...
11.02.2023
Wake up! (Part 3) An Antidote to Stupidity in Three Parts
Wake up! Antidote to stupidity in three parts. This is part 3. What follows is a three-part series on waking up to non-buddhism as an antidote to stupidity. This is an ambitious project designed to look at a curriculum of items...
10.26.2023
Wake up! (Part 2) An Antidote to Stupidity in Three Parts
Wake up! Antidote to stupidity in three parts. This is part 2. What follows is a three-part series on waking up to non-buddhism as an antidote to stupidity. This is an ambitious project designed to look at a curriculum of items...
10.20.2023
Cleric, Cadre, Businessman: China’s Development Strategy in Sri Lanka
What does Buddhism have to do with harbors? Find out how China is leveraging religion in its foreign policy and why it is a vital part of China's soft power strategy, aligned closely with domestic policies. Learn how Sri Lanka's...
10.19.2023
Wake up! (Part 1) An Antidote to Stupidity in Three Parts
Wake up! Antidote to stupidity in three parts. This is part 1. What follows is a three-part series on waking up to non-buddhism as an antidote to stupidity. This is an ambitious project designed to look at a curriculum of items...
10.10.2023
Buddhist Healing in Contemporary Japan (with Rev. Nathan Jishin Michon)
Dr Pierce Salguero talks with Rev. Nathan Jishin Michon, a postdoctoral fellow at Ryukoku University and an ordained priest in the Shingon Buddhist tradition. Our conversation touches on diverse Buddhist healing rituals and the role of light in Shingon practice...
10.05.2023
Alexandra Kaloyanides, "Baptizing Burma: Religious Change in the Last Buddhist Kingdom" (Columbia UP, 2023)
Adoniram Judson was the 19th-century version of an American celebrity. Americans flocked to listen to his tales of being one of the first missionaries to enter the Kingdom of Burma. Americans wanted to hear of his mission in the Buddhist...
09.22.2023
Megan Bryson and Kevin Buckelew eds., "Buddhist Masculinities" (Columbia UP, 2023)
While early Buddhists hailed their religion's founder for opening a path to enlightenment, they also exalted him as the paragon of masculinity. According to Buddhist scriptures, the Buddha's body boasts thirty-two physical features, including lionlike jaws, thighs like a royal...
09.12.2023
A Better Way to Buy Books
Bookshop.org is an online book retailer that donates more than 80% of its profits to independent bookstores. Launched in 2020, Bookshop.org has already raised more than $27,000,000. In this interview, Andy Hunter, founder and CEO discusses his journey to creating one of the...
09.08.2023
Situating Religion and Medicine (with Michael Stanley-Baker)
Today I sit down for an in-depth conversation with my good friend, Michael Stanley-Baker, a scholar of Chinese religion and medicine. We talk about Mike’s international childhood and how his family history influenced his intellectual life, his training as a...
08.31.2023
Anne Klein, "Being Human and a Buddha Too: Longchenpa's Seven Trainings for a Sunlit Sky" (Wisdom Publications, 2023)
When Anne C. Klein (Rigzin Drolma) first read that everyone, including her, was already a buddha, she was so shocked that she put down the book she was reading. Now, as a professor of religious studies at Rice University and a teacher...
08.24.2023
Kelzang T. Tashi, "World of Worldly Gods: The Persistence and Transformation of Shamanic Bon in Buddhist Bhutan" (Oxford UP, 2023)
In World of Worldly Gods: The Persistence and Transformation of Shamanic Bon in Buddhist Bhutan (Oxford UP, 2023), Kelzang T. Tashi offers the first comprehensive examination of the tenacity of Shamanic Bon practices, as they are lived and contested in the presence...
08.22.2023
Meditating Three Minutes a Day: A Conversation with Richard Dixey
After a month or two of absence, the podcast returns for a new season, beginning with an unexpectedly wide ranging conversation with Dr. Richard Dixey. Richard holds a Ph.D. from London University, an M.A. with distinction in the history and...
08.16.2023
Edyta Roszko, "Fishers, Monks and Cadres: Navigating State, Religion and the South China Sea in Central Vietnam" (NIAS/University of Hawaii Press 2021
This remarkable and timely ethnography explores how fishing communities living on the fringe of the South China Sea in central Vietnam interact with state and religious authorities as well as their farmer neighbors – even while handling new geopolitical challenges....
08.14.2023
Naomi Appleton, "Many Buddhas, One Buddha: A Study and Translation of Avadānaśataka 1-40" (Equinox, 2020)
Naomi Appleton's new book Many Buddhas, One Buddha: A Study and Translation of Avadānaśataka 1-40 (Equinox Publishing, 2020) introduces a significant section of the important early Indian Buddhist text known as the Avadānaśataka, or “One Hundred Stories”, and explores some...
08.13.2023
Yiwen Li, "Networks of Faith and Profit: Monks, Merchants, and Exchanges Between China and Japan, 839-1403 CE" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
In her book, Networks of Faith and Profit: Monks, Merchants, and Exchanges Between China and Japan, 839-1403 CE (Cambridge UP, 2023), associate professor of history at City University of Hong Kong Yiwen Li studies the period when the tribute relationship between China...
08.08.2023
Traditional Medicine in Laos (with Elizabeth Elliott and Ounkham Souksavanh)
Dr. Pierce Salguero sits down with two guests, Ounkham Souksavanh and Elizabeth Elliott, to talk about community engagement and community health in Laos. They discuss how Elizabeth as a medical anthropologist, and Ounkham as a physician, work together to build...
08.01.2023
Marnie Feneley, "Reconstructing God: Style, Hydraulics, Political Power and Angkor's West Mebon Visnu" (National U of Singapore Press, 2022)
In December 1936, a villager was led by a dream to the ruins of the West Mebon shrine in Angkor where he uncovered remains of a bronze sculpture. This was the West Mebon Visnu, the largest bronze remaining from pre-modern...
07.30.2023
Zhihua Yao, "Nonexistent Objects in Buddhist Philosophy: On Knowing What There is Not" (Bloomsbury, 2020)
Can we know what there is not? Zhihua Yao's Nonexistent Objects in Buddhist Philosophy: On Knowing What There is Not (Bloomsbury, 2020) examines the historical development of the concept of the cognition of nonexistent objects in several major Buddhist philosophical schools. Beginning with...
07.21.2023
Scott A. Mitchell, "The Making of American Buddhism" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Scott A. Mitchell is the Dean of Students and Faculty Affairs and holds the Yoshitaka Tamai Professorial Chair at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley. He teaches and writes about Buddhism in the West, Pure Land Buddhism, and Buddhist...

What's New Books in Buddhist Studies about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

New Books in Buddhist Studies episodes:

Matthew Robertson, "Puruṣa: Personhood in Ancient India" (Oxford UP, 2024)

William S. Waldron, "Making Sense of Mind Only: Why Yogacara Buddhism Matters" (Wisdom Publications, 2023)

Building the Future Buddha: A Discussion with Jundho Cohen

Making Sense of Yogacara with William Waldron

Pankaj Jain and Jeffery D. Long, "Indian and Western Philosophical Concepts in Religion" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2023)

Charles B. Jones, "Chinese Pure Land Buddhism: Understanding a Tradition of Practice" (U Hawaii Press, 2019)

Buddhist Medicine in Contemporary Times (with Pierce Salguero)

Jeffery D. Long, "Discovering Indian Philosophy: An Introduction to Hindu, Jain and Buddhist Thought" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

Daniel Capper, "Roaming Free Like a Deer: Buddhism and the Natural World" (Cornell UP, 2022)

Stephen Harris, "Buddhist Ethics and the Bodhisattva Path: Santideva on Virtue and Well-Being" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

Jan Westerhoff, "Candrakirti's Introduction to the Middle Way: A Guide" (Oxford UP, 2023)

Tara Brach, "Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha" (Random House, 2004)

Douglas S. Duckworth, "Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy of Mind and Nature" (Oxford UP, 2019)

Christian Coseru on Perceiving Reality

Women and the Body in Buddhism

M. Sheehy and K-D Mathes, "The Other Emptiness: Rethinking the Zhentong Buddhist Discourse in Tibet" (SUNY Press, 2019)

Vanessa R. Sasson, "The Gathering: A Story of the First Buddhist Women" (Equinox, 2023)

Ralph H. Craig, "Dancing in My Dreams: A Spiritual Biography of Tina Turner" (Eerdmans, 2023)

Alice Collett, "Lives of Early Buddhist Nuns: Biographies as History" (Oxford UP, 2016)

Reading the Stars: When Divination Meets Politics in Thailand

Tyler Dalton McNabb and Erik Baldwin, "Classical Theism and Buddhism: Connecting Metaphysical and Ethical Systems" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

Oren Jay Sofer, "Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love" (Shambhala, 2023)

David McMahan on Rethinking Meditation

Shuchen Xiang, "Chinese Cosmopolitanism: The History and Philosophy of an Idea" (Princeton UP, 2023)

Lama Rod Owens, "The New Saints: From Broken Hearts to Spiritual Warriors" (Sounds True, 2023)

Jenny Odell, "Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock" (Random House, 2023)

Ross Gay, "The Book of (More) Delights: Essays" (Algonquin Books, 2023)

A Chinese-American Buddhist Healer (Pierce Salguero and Kin Cheung)

Ralph H. Craig III, "Dancing in My Dreams: A Spiritual Biography of Tina Turner" (Eerdmans, 2023)

A.I. and Practice with Stuart Baldwin

Vanessa R. Sasson, "The Gathering: A Story of the First Buddhist Women" (Equinox, 2023)

Wake up! (Part 3) An Antidote to Stupidity in Three Parts

Wake up! (Part 2) An Antidote to Stupidity in Three Parts

Cleric, Cadre, Businessman: China’s Development Strategy in Sri Lanka

Wake up! (Part 1) An Antidote to Stupidity in Three Parts

Buddhist Healing in Contemporary Japan (with Rev. Nathan Jishin Michon)

Alexandra Kaloyanides, "Baptizing Burma: Religious Change in the Last Buddhist Kingdom" (Columbia UP, 2023)

Megan Bryson and Kevin Buckelew eds., "Buddhist Masculinities" (Columbia UP, 2023)

A Better Way to Buy Books

Situating Religion and Medicine (with Michael Stanley-Baker)

Anne Klein, "Being Human and a Buddha Too: Longchenpa's Seven Trainings for a Sunlit Sky" (Wisdom Publications, 2023)

Kelzang T. Tashi, "World of Worldly Gods: The Persistence and Transformation of Shamanic Bon in Buddhist Bhutan" (Oxford UP, 2023)

Meditating Three Minutes a Day: A Conversation with Richard Dixey

Edyta Roszko, "Fishers, Monks and Cadres: Navigating State, Religion and the South China Sea in Central Vietnam" (NIAS/University of Hawaii Press 2021

Naomi Appleton, "Many Buddhas, One Buddha: A Study and Translation of Avadānaśataka 1-40" (Equinox, 2020)

Yiwen Li, "Networks of Faith and Profit: Monks, Merchants, and Exchanges Between China and Japan, 839-1403 CE" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

Traditional Medicine in Laos (with Elizabeth Elliott and Ounkham Souksavanh)

Marnie Feneley, "Reconstructing God: Style, Hydraulics, Political Power and Angkor's West Mebon Visnu" (National U of Singapore Press, 2022)

Zhihua Yao, "Nonexistent Objects in Buddhist Philosophy: On Knowing What There is Not" (Bloomsbury, 2020)

Scott A. Mitchell, "The Making of American Buddhism" (Oxford UP, 2023)

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