Ng Buddhism and Cultural Studies

A Profession of Faith
1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-1-137-54990-7
Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan UK
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 280 Seiten

Reihe: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies

This book explores the reciprocity between Buddhist, Derridean, and Foucauldian understandings about ethics, subjectivity, and ontological contingency, to investigate the ethical and political potential of insight meditation practice. The book is narrated from the perspective of a postcolonial 'Western Buddhist' convert who, despite growing up in Singapore where Buddhism was a part of his disaporic 'Chinese' ancestral heritage, only embraced Buddhism when he migrated to Australia and discovered Western translations of Buddhist teachings. Through an autoethnography of the author's Buddhist-inspired pursuit of an academic profession, the book develops and professes a non-doctrinal understanding of faith that may be pertinent to 'believers' and 'non-believers' alike, inviting the academic reader in particular to consider the (unacknowledged) role of faith in supporting scholarly practice. Striking a careful balance between critical analysis and self-reflexive inquiry, the book performs in all senses of the word, a profession of faith.

Edwin Ng is a cultural theorist who explores the translation of Buddhism in popular culture, the ethics and politics of contemporary mindfulness, and contemplative approaches to learning, inquiry, and activism. He has taught media and communication studies at Deakin University, Australia.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ng, Edwin

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1;Contents;6
2;Acknowledgments;10
2.1;References;12
3;Chapter 1: Introduction;13
3.1;Refusing the Presumptive Secularism of Cultural Studies;15
3.2;The Ethics of Cultural Studies and, Perhaps, Faith?;20
3.3;An Enunciative Practice of a Spiritual-Scholarly Profession;22
3.4;A Profession of Faith on the Contested Ground of ‘Spirituality’;23
3.5;Notes;27
3.6;References;28
4;Chapter 2: Towards a Spiritually Engaged Cultural Studies;31
4.1;Who or What Is Embarrassed by Matters of Faith?;32
4.2;Governmentality, the Neoliberal Subject, and a Politics of Spirituality;37
4.3;The Spirituality of White Collar Zen;43
4.4;The Spirituality of Engaged Buddhism;46
4.5;The Question of Meditative Experience;50
4.6;Conclusion;51
4.7;Notes;52
4.8;References;53
5;Chapter 3: Methods, Traditions, Liminal Identities;57
5.1; A ‘Cultural Thing’;57
5.2;Buddhist Theology and Buddhist Critical-­Constructive Reflection;60
5.3;Autoethnographical Reflections of a Postcolonial ‘Western Buddhist’ Convert;64
5.4;Portraits and Legacies of Buddhist Modernism;70
5.5;The Insight (vipassan?) Meditation Movement;77
5.6;The Reciprocal Development of Buddhist Critical-­Constructive Reflection and Spiritually Engaged Cultural Studies;81
5.7;Conclusion;85
5.8;Notes;86
5.9;References;87
6;Chapter 4: Of Intellectual Hospitality, Buddhism and Deconstruction;91
6.1;Constructivist Critique and the Soteriological Claim of Unmediated Awareness;93
6.2;Dependent Co-arising and Différance;96
6.3;Reconsidering the Buddhist Critique of Deconstruction;101
6.4;Unconditional Unconditionality Unconditionally;107
6.5;Conclusion;112
6.6;References;114
7;Chapter 5: The ‘Religious Question’ in Foucault’s Genealogies of Experience;117
7.1;Part I: The Role of Experience in Foucault’s Oeuvre;119
7.1.1;‘Experience’ as Constitutive Historical Conditions;119
7.1.2;‘Experience’ as a Transformative Force;120
7.1.3;‘Limit-Experience’, ‘Transgression’ and ‘Spiritual Corporality’;124
7.2;Part II: The Turn to the Subject and Ethics;127
7.2.1;The ‘Nietzschean Legacy’ and the Quest for a Different Morality;127
7.2.2;Foucault’s ‘Iranian Experiment’;131
7.2.3;Is ‘Political Spirituality’ Religious or Secular?;134
7.2.4;Affirming the Messianicity of a Futural Politics;140
7.3;Conclusion;143
7.4;Note;144
7.5;References;145
8;Chapter 6: The Care of Self and Spiritually Engaged Cultural Studies;149
8.1;Problematisation and the Arts of Existence;150
8.2;Foucault’s Fourfold Analysis of Ethics and the Care of Self;152
8.3;The Double Articulation of the Self in Spiritually Engaged Cultural Studies;156
8.4;Conclusion;160
8.5;References;161
9;Chapter 7: A Foucauldian Analysis of Vipassana and a Buddhist Art of Living;163
9.1;Mindfulness of Bodily Sensation (Ethical Substance/the Material Fold);165
9.2;The Decision to ‘Let Go’ (Mode of Subjection/the Fold of Relations Between Forces);169
9.3;Dissolving the Habits of the Self (Ethical Work/the Fold of Truth);172
9.4;Limit-Experience and the Body as Event (Telos/the Fold of the Outside);178
9.5;Conclusion;184
9.6;Notes;187
9.7;References;189
10;Chapter 8: Buddhist Critical Thought and an Affective Micropolitics of (Un)Becoming;191
10.1;An Emergent Buddhist Critical/Social Theory;192
10.2;Affect and Biopower;198
10.3;The Intersensory Dynamics of Perception;205
10.4;The Anticipatory Triggers of Perception;207
10.5;The Influence of Discipline on Perceptual Processes;209
10.6;The Ethico-Political Fecundity of Dwelling in Moments of Duration;213
10.7;Conclusion;215
10.8;Notes;216
10.9;References;217
11;Chapter 9: A Profession of Faith;220
11.1;Is Buddhist Faith Blind?;221
11.2;The Undecidability of Faith and Faith in Undecidability;232
11.3;Debating the Im-possible: Radical Atheism Against God;234
11.4;Between an Immanent and Transcendent Horizon of Faith;240
11.5;Awaiting the ‘Perhaps’ with Derrida and Foucault;247
11.6;The Faith of Cultural Studies, Perhaps?;249
11.7;Conclusion;252
11.8;Notes;254
11.9;References;255
12;Chapter 10: Conclusion;258
12.1;The Micropolitics of the Neoliberal University;259
12.2;A Profession of Faith for the University Without Condition;264
12.3;Scholarly Affect and the Work of Friendship;268
12.4;Note;271
12.5;References;271
13;Bibliography;274
14;Index;275