Ian Harris
Tung Lin Kok Yuen Canada Foundation Visiting Professor in Buddhism and Contemporary Society
(Jan – May 2008)
The Institute of Asian Research welcomes Professor Ian Harris as the TLKY Canada Foundation Visiting Scholar. Professor Harris was a Senior Scholar at the Becket Institute, St. Hugh’s College, Oxford (20014)
and is currently Professor of Buddhist Studies in the Division of Religion and Philosophy, University of Cumbria, Lancaster. He is the author of Cambodian Buddhism: History and Practice (2005) and Buddhism Under Pol Pot (2007) as well as of many articles on various aspects of Theravada Buddhist ethics and politics. Cofounder of the UK Association for Buddhist Studies and editor of Buddhism and Politics in Twentieth Century Asia (1999) and Buddhism, Power and Political Order (2007), he is currently engaged in a Leverhulme Trust funded research project on Buddhism and politics in pre-Pol Pot Cambodia.
Professor Harris will lead a Master of Asian Pacific Policy Studies (MAPPS) seminar on IAR 515B: Buddhism and Contemporary Society. This seminar will examine major trends in Asian Buddhism from the mid-19th century to the present, with a particular emphasis on the rise of Buddhist modernism and associated movements of social and political change. He will also teach ASIA 250: Introduction to Buddhism, an undergraduate course in the Department of Asian Studies. This course examines the origins, basic teachings, and development of Theravada, Mahayana, and Tantric traditions, their historical spread first through Asia and later the world, and Buddhism in contemporary societies.
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