Buddhism and Cultural Studies A Profession of Faith

This book explores the reciprocity between Buddhist, Derridean, and Foucauldian understandings about ethics, subjectivity, and ontological contingency, to investigate the ethical and political potential of insight meditation practice. The book is narrated from the perspective of a postcolonial ‘Western Buddhist’ convert who, despite growing up in Singapore where Buddhism was a part of his disaporic ‘Chinese’ ancestral heritage, only embraced Buddhism when he migrated to Australia and discovered Western translations of Buddhist teachings. Through an autoethnography of the author’s Buddhist-inspired pursuit of an academic profession, the book develops and professes a non-doctrinal understanding of faith that may be pertinent to ‘believers’ and ‘non-believers’ alike, inviting the academic reader in particular to consider the (unacknowledged) role of faith in supporting scholarly practice. Striking a careful balance between critical analysis and self-reflexive inquiry, the book performs inall senses of the word, a profession of faith.

1.Introduction.- 2.Towards a Spiritually-Engaged Cultural Studies.- 3.Methods, Traditions, Liminal Identities.- 4.Of Intellectual Hospitality, Buddhism and Deconstruction.- 5.The ‘Religious Question in Foucault’s Genealogies of Experience.- 6.The Care of Self and Spiritually-Engaged Cultural Studies.- 7.A Foucauldian analysis of Vipassana and a Buddhist art of living.- 8.Buddhist Critical Thought and an Affective Micropolitics of (Un)Becoming.- 9.A Profession of Faith.- 10.Conclusion: Yours faithfully 

Edwin Ng is a cultural theorist who explores the translation of Buddhism in popular culture, the ethics and politics of contemporary mindfulness, and contemplative approaches to learning, inquiry, and activism. He has taught media and communication studies at Deakin University, Australia.