Keynote Address: Charles Prebish

Professor Charles S. Prebish,  from Utah State University, will present a keynote address for the conference, “Buddhism in Canada: Global Causes, Local Conditions”:

“The Swans Came to Canada Too: Looking Backward and Looking Forward.”

Date: Friday, October 15, 2010
Time: 7:30pm – 9:00pm
Place:Asian Centre, 1871 West Mall, Auditorium

Following the change in immigration law by Canada and the United States in the mid-twentieth century, Buddhism exploded on the North American continent. Buddhism is now found everywhere: from the cover of TIME magazine to the Simpson’s TV show; from Leonard Cohen practicing as a Zen priest to the Dalai Lama visiting the White House. Some estimates place the number of Buddhists on the continent as high as six million. This paper traces the development of the study of North American Buddhism as it developed as a legitimate sub-discipline in the larger discipline of Buddhist Studies, and highlights both the similarities and differences between Canadian and American forms of Buddhism. It looks at the early pioneering works of the past half-century, examining the Buddhist communities in North America, the theories that have developed to understand their growth and development, the scholarly and popular studies that have appeared in the literature, the scholars and scholar-practitioners who have offered seminal studies, Buddhist teachers—Asian and Western—who have appeared on the scene, and the new emphases which have recently appeared which may shape Buddhism’s development in North America in our new century. Older, and now outmoded theories such as “two Buddhisms” or “three Buddhisms,” focusing on the disconnect between Asian immigrant and American convert Buddhists, will be considered only insofar as they are no longer applicable to the rapidly changing Buddhist scene. Newer theories like “hybridity” and “regionalism” will be explored in their role as valuable tools that will frame the emerging studies that are already beginning to define North American Buddhism in the twenty-first century. In broad perspective, this paper will provide a new insight into the current shape of the North American Buddhist landscape.

Professor Prebishholds the Charles Redd Endowed Chair in Religious Studies at Utah State University, where he also serves as Director of the Religious Studies program. He came to Utah State University following more than thirty-five years on the faculty of the Pennsylvania State University.  Dr. Prebish has published twenty-one books and more than nearly one hundred scholarly articles and chapters. His books Buddhist Monastic Discipline (1975) and Luminous Passage: The Practice and Study of Buddhism in America (1999) are considered classic volumes in Buddhist Studies. Dr. Prebish is the leading pioneer in the establishment of the study of Western Buddhism as a sub-discipline in Buddhist Studies. In 1993 he held the Visiting Numata Chair in Buddhist Studies at the University of Calgary, and in 1997 was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation National Humanities Fellowship for research at the University of Toronto.  Dr. Prebish has been an officer in the International Association of Buddhist Studies, and was co-founder of the Buddhism Section of the American Academy of Religion. In 1994, he co-founded the Journal of Buddhist Ethics, which was the first online peer-reviewed journal in the field of Buddhist Studies; and in 1996, co-founded the Routledge “Critical Studies in Buddhism” series. He has also served as editor of the Journal of Global Buddhism and Critical Review of Books in Religion.  In 2005, he was honored with a “festschrift” volume by his colleagues titled Buddhist Studies from India to America: Essays in Honor of Charles S. Prebish.

This event of the Buddhism and Contemporary Society Program is made possible by the generous support of The Tung Lin Kok Yuen Canada Foundation, in collaboration with the Institute of Asian Research and the Department of Asian Studies. Additional funding provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Numata Foundation.