Audience, Authorship, and Agency
Religious Educational Materials for Modern Buddhist Women’s Groups in Japan
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8201548 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jessica Starling (0000-0002-4697-6135, Lewis & Clark College, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 90 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 473-492 |
| Publication date | 2022-10-21 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of the American Academy of Religion (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0002-7189 • E-ISSN: 1477-4585 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jaarel/lfac029 |
| OpenAlex | W4225645192 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 25 |
The canonical Buddhist sutras were always delivered on the occasion of a particular gathered audience. I apply this basic premise of Buddhist doctrinal production to a body of religious literature produced for women in Japan from the 1890s to the 1910s to help resolve the scholarly conundrum of how to trace female religious agency in the absence of named female authorship. I identify women’s agency as being exercised through reading rather than writing, and through gathering to listen to teachings rather than delivering sermons themselves. I conclude that providing an engaged presence for the teachings is an important form of religious agency in Buddhist and other contexts. Taking a demand-side (rather than supply-side) approach to understanding Buddhist propagation during this period also illuminates the shifting field of competition for the support and collaboration of religious women in modern Japan
Aesthetics · Agency (philosophy) · Art · Buddhism · Competition (biology) · Epistemology · Field (mathematics) · Linguistics · Literature · Political science · Premise · Reading (process) · Social science · Sociology · TRACE (psycholinguistics) · Asian Studies and History · Chinese history and philosophy · Gender Studies · History · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Philosophy
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The Lotus Sutra in Modern Japan
Buddhist Nuns and Gendered Practice
Consuming Religion
Hokkeji and the Reemergence of Female Monastic Orders in Premodern Japan
Mothers of the Buddhas
Feminism in Modern Japan
The History of Books and Print Culture in Japan
Reforming Japan
Politics of Piety
The Development of the Temple-Parishioner System
Jodo Shinshu
Who Can't Read and Write? Illiteracy in Meiji Japan
Why Scholars of Religion Must Investigate the Corporate Form
The Rise of Liberal Religion
Dianomy
Women and Buddhism in East Asian history
A Niche of their Own
Ladylike Religion
Women's Agency within Feminist Historiography
Why does a woman need to become a man in order to become a Buddha
Do Muslim Women Need Saving
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |