Issei Buddhism in the Americas Format: Paperback

Edited by Duncan Ryuken Williams and Tomoe Moriya

ISBN 10: 0252077199 / ISBN 13: 9780252077197

Published by University of Chicago press, 2010

About this Item

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Seller Inventory # 9780252077197

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Issei Buddhism in the Americas Format: Paperback
• Publisher: University of Chicago press
• Publication Date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0252077199
• ISBN 13: 9780252077197
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Rich in primary sources and featuring contributions from scholars on both sides of the Pacific, Issei Buddhism in the Americas upends boundaries and categories that have tied Buddhism to Asia and illuminates the social and spiritual role that the religion has played in the Americas.

 

While Buddhists in Japan had long described the migration of the religion as traveling from India, across Asia, and ending in Japan, this collection details the movement of Buddhism across the Pacific to the Americas. Leading the way were pioneering, first-generation Issei priests and their followers who established temples, shared Buddhist teachings, and converted non-Buddhists in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

 

The book explores these pioneering efforts in the context of Japanese diasporic communities and immigration history and the early history of Buddhism in the Americas. The result is a dramatic exploration of the history of Asian immigrant religion that encompasses such topics as Japanese language instruction in Hawaiian schools, the Japanese Canadian community in British Columbia, the roles of Buddhist song culture, Tenriyko ministers in America, and Zen Buddhism in Brazil.

 

Contributors are Noriko Asato, Michihiro Ama, Masako Iino, Tomoe Moriya, Lori Pierce, Cristina Rocha, Keiko Wells, Duncan Ryűken Williams, and Akihiro Yamakura.

About the Author

Duncan Ryűken Williams is an associate professor of Japanese Buddhism and the chair of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of California Berkeley. Tomoe Moriya is a professor of international communication at Hannan University, Japan.