Read more
Expanding on previous studies of Zen art history, material/visual culture, and religious practice, Zen and Material Culture focuses on the vast range of "stuff" in Japanese Zen, including beads, bowls, buildings, staffs, statues, rags, robes and even popular retail commodities distributed in America.
About the author
Pamela D. Winfield is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Elon University, NC. She specializes in Japanese Buddhist art and doctrine in the esoteric and Zen traditions. Her previous book Icons and Iconoclasm in Japanese Buddhism: Kūkai and Dōgen on the Art of Enlightenment (Oxford University Press, 2013) won the annual Book Prize from the Association of Asian Studies Southeast Conference in 2015.
Steven Heine is Professor of Religious Studies and History, and Director of the Asian Studies Program at Florida International University in Miami, FL. A 2007 recipient of the Order of the Rising Sun Award from the Japanese government, Heine is the author of more than two dozen books and one hundred articles and book chapters on East Asian religions, especially the role of Zen in China and Japan and the relation between religiosity and society.
Summary
Expanding on previous studies of Zen art history, material/visual culture, and religious practice, Zen and Material Culture focuses on the vast range of "stuff" in Japanese Zen, including beads, bowls, buildings, staffs, statues, rags, robes and even popular retail commodities distributed in America.
Additional text
I agree with Pamela Winfield and Steven Heine's charge that there is a popular misconception of Zen, and Buddhism at large, as meditative or minimalist, and not concerned with worldly material possessions. I am excited that one of this edited volume's goals is to disabuse others of this notion... While there is academic attention on Buddhist financial matters in India, China, Tibet and some work on Japan, I do not see as much on Zen. Therefore, Winfield and Heine's volume is quite timely.
