{"ModuleCode":"SE5880","ModuleTitle":"Topics in Southeast Asian Studies","Department":"Southeast Asian Studies","ModuleDescription":"This module is designed to cover specialized topics in Southeast Asian Studies. The topic(s) to be covered will depend on the interest and expertise of regular or visiting staff members.","ModuleCredit":"4","Workload":"0-3-0-3-4","Lecturers":["Seasp Visitor"],"IVLE":[{"Announcements":null,"Forums":[],"Workbins":[],"Webcasts":[],"Gradebooks":[],"Polls":[],"Multimedia":[],"LessonPlan":[],"ID":"a5d1af8f-9699-46dd-a7a3-6b462a3678b5","CourseLevel":"1","CourseCode":"SE5880","CourseName":"TOPICS IN SOUTHEAST ASIAN STUDIES","CourseDepartment":"","CourseSemester":"Semester 2","CourseAcadYear":"2014/2015","CourseOpenDate":"/Date(1420560000000+0800)/","CourseOpenDate_js":"2015-01-07T00:00:00","CourseCloseDate":"/Date(1431100800000+0800)/","CourseCloseDate_js":"2015-05-09T00:00:00","CourseMC":"0","isActive":"N","Permission":"S","Creator":{"UserID":null,"Name":"Seasp Visitor","Email":null,"Title":null,"UserGuid":"ca661bc1-4cc7-4cbb-ae46-cde76f62a8b4","AccountType":null},"hasGradebookItems":false,"hasTimetableItems":true,"hasGroupsItems":false,"hasClassGroupsForSignUp":false,"hasGuestRosterItems":true,"hasClassRosterItems":true,"hasWeblinkItems":false,"hasLecturerItems":true,"hasDescriptionItems":true,"hasReadingItems":false,"hasAnnouncementItems":false,"hasProjectGroupItems":false,"hasProjectGroupsForSignUp":false,"hasConsultationItems":false,"hasConsultationSlotsForSignUp":false,"hasLessonPlanItems":false,"Badge":0,"BadgeAnnouncement":0,"WebLinks":[],"Lecturers":[{"ID":"8a8953cb-70f3-4821-9a29-e4f4b7db5687","User":{"UserID":null,"Name":"Seasp Visitor","Email":null,"Title":null,"UserGuid":"ca661bc1-4cc7-4cbb-ae46-cde76f62a8b4","AccountType":null},"Role":"Lecturer ","Order":1,"ConsultHrs":null}],"Descriptions":[{"ID":"1e5f053b-8835-4692-be49-41f07234cfff","Title":"Learning Outcomes","Description":"This module is designed to cover specialized topics in Southeast Asian Studies. The topic(s) to be covered will depend on the interest and expertise of regular or visiting staff members.","Order":1},{"ID":"3e5f053b-8835-4692-be49-41f07234cfff","Title":"Teaching Modes","Description":"Seminar format.","Order":3},{"ID":"5e5f053b-8835-4692-be49-41f07234cfff","Title":"Synopsis","Description":"Contemporary Buddhism in Southeast Asia
\nThis course attends to the practices of contemporary Buddhism as a core human activity embedded within social and cultural contexts in Southeast Asia. It examines practices ranging from vipassana meditation and sign-language “singing” to environmental activism, bringing students via readings and audio-visual technologies into the meditation halls of Myanmar as well as forests of northern Thailand to observe Buddhist practices such as a tree ordination ceremony, as an example. It introduces contemporary Buddhist figures such as Venerable Cheng Yen the charismatic founder-leader of Tzu Chi Foundation based out of Taiwan, the prominent Buddhist writer-activist Sulak Sivaraksa of Thailand, the Vietnamese author and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh of “Plum Village” in France and so forth.
\n
\nThe module explores the transnational and syncretic characteristics of contemporary Buddhist practices demonstrating how they blur the binaries of religious and secular, local and global divides. We examine how these practices enfold unto individual and collective bodies which become sites of (moral) self-making as well as political contestations, and study the ways they constitute circuits of exchange trafficking intangibles like faith and compassion as well as tangible, material goods like humanitarian aid that respond to the social circumstances of Southeast Asia. In this module, we also study the cultural and historical linkages that provide an important context for understanding the meanings and significances of these Buddhist practices in the region. The module takes an empirically grounded approach towards Buddhism, focusing on ethnographically rich materials as well as local field-site visits, guest lectures and student-initiated field-based projects in order to bring “practice” to the fore in our understanding of contemporary Buddhism.","Order":5},{"ID":"6e5f053b-8835-4692-be49-41f07234cfff","Title":"Syllabus","Description":"1. Approaches to Buddhism and Buddhist Practices
\nReynolds, Frank E., and Jason A. Carbine, eds. 2000. The Life of Buddhism. Berkeley: University of California Press.
\nOrtner, Sherry B. 1989. High Religion: A Cultural and Political History of Sherpa Buddhism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
\nTambiah, Stanley J. 1970. Buddhism and the Spirit Cults in North-East Thailand. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
\nMcDaniel, Justin. 2011. The Lovelorn Ghost and the Magical Monk: Practicing Buddhism in Modern Thailand. New York: Columbia University Press.
\n
\n2. Ritual, Healing and Medicine
\nAdams, Vincanne. 2001. “The Sacred in the Scientific: Ambiguous Practices of Science in Tibetan Medicine.” Cultural Anthropology 16(4): 542–575.
\nDeBernardi, Jean. 2004. Rites of Belonging: memory, modernity and identity in a Malaysian Chinese community. California: Stanford University Press.
\nTurner, Victor. 1995. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Aldine Transaction (Reprint edition).
\n
\n3. Identity, Personhood and Gender
\nCook, Joanna. 2010. Meditation in Modern Buddhism: Renunciation and Change in Thai Monastic Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
\nPalmer, David. 2008. “Embodying Utopia: Charisma in the post-Mao Qigong Craze” in Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions. 12(2): 69-89.
\nJohnson, Irving. 2012. The Buddha on Mecca's Verandah: Encounters, Mobilities, and Histories Along the Malaysian-Thai border. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
\nMakley, Charlene E. 2003. “Gendered Boundaries in Motion: Space and Identity on the Sino-Tibetan Frontier.” American Ethnologist 30(4): 597–619.
\n
\n4. Globalization/Social Engagement
\nHuang, Julia. 2009. Charisma and Compassion: Cheng Yen and the Buddhist Tzu Chi
\nMovement. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
\nJordt, Ingrid. 2007. Burma’s Mass Lay Meditation Movement: Buddhism and the Cultural Construction of Power. Athens: Ohio University Press.
\nLee, Raymond. 1997. Sacred Tensions: Modernity and religious transformation in Malaysia. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.
\nScott, Rachelle M. 2009. Nirvana for Sale: Buddhism, Wealth, and the Dhammakāya Temple in Contemporary Thailand. Albany: State University of New York Press.
\nhttp://www.kyotojournal.org/the-journal/heart-work/the-engaged-buddhism-of-sulak-sivaraksa/
\n ","Order":6},{"ID":"226b663a-295a-4de6-b6dd-c6a2caadf7cc","Title":"Workload","Description":"0-3-0-3-4
Workload Components : A-B-C-D-E \r\n
A: no. of lecture hours per week \r\n
B: no. of tutorial hours per week \r\n
C: no. of lab hours per week \r\n
D: no. of hours for projects, assignments, fieldwork etc per week \r\n
E: no. of hours for preparatory work by a student per week","Order":9}],"ReadingFormatted":[],"ReadingUnformatted":[]}],"Timetable":[{"ClassNo":"1","LessonType":"Seminar-Style Module Class","WeekText":"Every Week","DayText":"Tuesday","StartTime":"1830","EndTime":"2130","Venue":"AS4-0109"}],"LecturePeriods":["Tuesday Evening"]}