Lingering Questions (Asynchronous - Online Only)
Las Diosas y Las Fronteras: Liberating Lessons from the Syncretistic Mestiza Spiritualities of Gloria Anzaldúa’s "La Frontera" and Beyoncé’s "Black Is King" View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session David Von Schlichten
Gloria Anzaldúa’s 1987 classic, "La Frontera: The New Mestiza," introduced a revolutionary understanding of literal and metaphorical borders as realms that reject hierarchical, binary understandings of identity and culture, proposing instead a complex confluence of intersectionality that can end oppression of minoritized groups. She draws from her identity as a Chicana and lesbian to offer larger truths about intersectionality and oppression. With uncanny similarity, Beyoncé’s widely acclaimed 2020 visual album, "Black Is King," subverts traditional gender and racial roles to propose a radical spirituality for African Americans that ultimately breaks down oppressive barriers for all people. Just as Anzaldúa draws from the plight of Chicanas along the Mexico/USA border and incorporates both Christianity and indigenous, Mexican and Aztec religion to forge a poetic vision for liberation, so does Beyoncé draw from the plight of African Americans and incorporate both Christianity and Yoruba religion to craft a similar yet distinct visual/musical vision. The presentation will show how comparing the two highlights key themes of borderland/mestiza spirituality and how people of all faiths and spiritualities can use them in concrete, practical ways to end oppression, especially for women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community. This paper focuses on the pedagogical value of these two pieces for guiding undergraduate students toward activism for equity.
Deocene Islands in an Anthropocene Ocean: Shifting the Conversation from Geoscience to Culture View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session James R. Fleming
The “Deocene” is a new term encompassing the great diversity of world religions and ethical cultures that shaped human consciousness and affairs from time immemorial to the end of the 18th century. Although its dominance has diminished, the Deocene persists today as enclaves and island outposts in a dominantly secular “Anthropocene” ocean. Geoscientists have proposed dating the Holocene/ Anthropocene transition to three very different eras: (1) the Neolithic Revolution; (2) the Industrial Revolution; and (3) the so-called “Great Acceleration” of 1950. The field of “Big History,” a monolithic appropriation of contemporary Western science, also invokes these thresholds. These approaches valorize materialistic explanations of life and the universe and either ignore or elide the insights provided by the world history of cultures, religions, and spiritual practices. What if we turn our attention away from cosmology and geoscience to the French revolution and invoke the cultural discontinuity it represents? For example, with the beheading of the French king Louis XVI in 1793, an event that symbolized a shifting of the axis of human affairs from royalist, religious, traditional, mostly rural, agrarian and hierarchical societies with vast inequities to increasingly secular, urban, industrial, and capitalist societies with vast inequities. This event is a candidate marker for a “Deocene/ Anthropocene” transition in the West. There is a plethora of others. This paper uses the concept of the Deocene — its emergence, demise, and possible reemergence — to introduce new perspectives on the big stories and fundamental cultural ruptures currently under widespread discussion.
Doing the Dishes or Becoming an Activist: Zen Buddhist Responses to the World's Suffering View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Bishal Karna
Zen Buddhists take the bodhisattva vow to save all beings. At Clouds in Water Zen Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, this means engaging in specific activities geared towards eliminating social and systemic injustice while also work tirelessly to eliminate the causes and conditions of suffering within oneself. At Ryumonji Zen Monastery in Dorchester, Iowa, the bodhisattva vow to save all beings means to wholeheartedly engage in everyday activities, such as doing the dishes, without attachment or aversion; Ryumonji sees no need to engage specifically in socio-political activities. Clouds has a robust program of workshops and retreats on social engagement and participates locally in socio-political activism as part of its Buddhist practice. On the contrary, Ryumonji does not have a distinct program for social engagement but contextualizes every activity as already having a socio-political effect. Ryumonji Zen Monastery and Clouds in Water Zen Center are less than a hundred miles away in the American Midwest and both follow the same Sōtō Zen lineage of the Japanese priest Dainin Katagiri. Yet, they offer two different ways of responding to the world’s suffering. This study, based on nine months of immersive ethnographic fieldwork, analyzes how Ryumonji and Clouds interpret differently the central Buddhist teachings of interdependence, the bodhisattva vow, and the inseparability of individual and social liberation, leading to differing views and practices for social engagement. In addition, it draws insights and lessons from Clouds and Ryumonji for how we might, in our own lives, respond to suffering in the world.
Interfaith Dialogue in Limbo: How Can Tradition Work against Religious Purposes? View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Tudor Cosmin Ciocan
When speaking about the dialogue we always start looking for methods of presenting the best content of our speech. Approaching another one through dialogue does not seem to care much about the will or the desire of accepting the otherness for dialogue since this is the basis of the binary formula of the dialogue. Yet, in the case of religious dialogue, the things are not at all so clear, or proactive; instead, this usually makes the central issue with the interreligious dialogue. However, when, in the end, we manage to put together two or more religious representatives for dialogue the most intriguing aspect of the dialogue stresses less on its content and aspects to be put under the attention of the participants, and more on the issue of accepting, tolerating all others’ traditions through this dialogue. Nervousness, anxiety, discomfort, and squirm are the habitual and, even more shocking, the “expected” features in interfaith dialogue. Well, if this is the main problem in interfaith, being able to bring tolerance in this “toxic” environment, then this would be a step forward one would say. Still, ‘tolerance’ is not the perfect tool for interreligious dialogue on various motifs that we will discover while reading this paper. However, the content we all participants in interfaith dialogue bring along, our particular traditions, are to blame for this challenge? Can they help us build the bridge or, on the contrary, they put interfaith in a limbo state, waiting for a redeemer?
