April 8, 2005
MHC Professor Helps Bring
Major Conference on Women and Buddhism to Pioneer Valley
A Mount Holyoke professor
is playing a lead role in bringing a major conference on Women and Buddhism to
the Pioneer Valley this April.
Susanne Mrozik, assistant professor of religion, is collaborating with
a number of colleagues from the Five Colleges and the area to coordinate Women
Practicing Buddhism: American Experiences, to take place on the Smith campus
April 7–10. In addition to the Five Colleges, Sakyadhita (the International
Association of Buddhist Women) is sponsoring the conference.
“One of the most exciting features of American Buddhism is its diversity.
Buddhism is taking root here in many ways,” Mrozik said, “and we
see women playing prominent—even leadership—roles in a variety
of contexts: in temples and meditation centers, in social justice movements,
in the arts, and in medical and psychotherapy clinics that incorporate
aspects of Buddhist practice into their treatment programs. This conference
will enable
participants, including MHC students, to meet some of these influential
and innovative women.”
In her second year at Mount Holyoke, Mrozik focuses her research on South
Asian Buddhist ethics, especially Buddhist perspectives on bodies, gender,
and human differences. Currently, she is writing a book on a medieval Indian
compendium of Buddhist practice.
The conference will have a broad and inclusive outreach, drawing together
women and men from the various Buddhist communities in the area: Asian and
Asian American Buddhists, converts to Buddhism, and people who have woven elements
of Buddhist practice into their private and/or professional lives without necessarily
identifying fully as Buddhists, according to conference materials. Among prominent
speakers will be Sakyadhita president Karma Lekshe Tsomo, poet Jane Hirshfield,
artist Rosalyn Driscoll, performance artist Meredith Monk, and cultural critic
bell hooks.
The theme of the conference will be centered on issues of practice, bringing
to bear women’s particular experiences of Buddhism as it spreads to North
America and takes root in new contexts. Topics considered at the conference
will explore the many practice contexts of contemporary Buddhism, organized
under categories such as “Engaged Buddhism,” “Buddhism and
Creativity,” “Buddhism and Sexuality,” “Buddhism and
Healing,” “Race, Ethnicity, and Class,” “Women Changing
Buddhism: Feminist Perspectives,” and “American Women Buddhist
Teachers.”
According to Mrozik, the PioneerValley, an epicenter of American Buddhism,
is ideally suited to host such a conference. Harvard University’s Pluralism
Project lists 63 Buddhist centers in Massachusetts. At the same time, Peter
Gregory, the lead conference organizer and Jill Ker Conway Professor of Religion
and East Asian Studies at Smith, estimates there are more than 40 Buddhist
centers within a 20-mile radius of his Northampton campus. Further, according
to Richard Seager’s 1997 study Buddhism in America, there were, at that
time, up to four million Buddhists in America, with 800,000 of them being native-born
converts to the faith.
Students in Mrozik’s current classes—Buddhism in the Pioneer Valley
and Women and Buddhism—will
benefit from participation in the conference. On another front, Mrozik
joined with a number of Five College professors to develop a proposal for a
Five College
Certificate in Buddhist Studies that was reviewed and approved by the
Mount Holyoke faculty this February. Affiliate MHC faculty to the program include
Indira Peterson, Ajay Sinha, and Tadanori Yamashita.
“The Five Colleges provide an excellent environment in which to study
Buddhism, with one of the largest concentrations of scholars of Buddhist
studies in the U.S.,” Mrozik noted. “Collectively we enable students to
study most of the major Buddhist traditions.”
More information on the conference Women Practicing Buddhism: American
Experiences is available at www.smith.edu/buddhism. |
