UCLA Center for South Asian Studies Hosting “Buddhist Interventions in Myanmar: A Genealogy of ‘Political’ Monks” Colloquium on May 28th

UCLA’s Center for South Asian Studies will be hosting an upcoming colloquium with Dr. Juliane Schober of Arizona State University entitled “Buddhist Interventions in Myanmar: A Genealogy of ‘Political’ Monks”. Here’s what the announcement says:

This lecture explores the seeming contradictions between Burmese monks demonstrating for democracy and advocating loving kindness in 2007 and more recent reports of Buddhist agitation against Muslim minorities and communal violence perpetrated against Rohingya communities. In the course of tracing the political discourse of monks in Myanmar, Juliane Schober highlights a diversity of views members of the Buddhist sangha have expressed in modern contexts that range from traditional restrictions on monastic involvement in politics to anti-colonial activism, pro-democracy protests, socially engaged movements and contemporary forms of Buddhist nationalism.

Juliane Schober is Director of the Center for Asian Research at Arizona State University. She is an anthropologist of religion with extensive ethnographic work on Buddhism and society in Myanmar. Her publications include a recent book on Modern Buddhist Conjunctures in Myanmar: Cultural Narratives, Colonial Legacies and Civil Society. She is currently leading a collaborative project on Theravada Buddhist Civilizations in Southeast Asia, supported by the Henry Luce Foundation.

The event will take place on Wednesday, May 28th, from 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM at 243 Royce Hall on the UCLA campus. It is free and open to the public.