Buddhism, Poststructuralist Thought, Cultural Studies: A Profession of Faith

Edwin Ng

doi:10.5130/csr.v18i2.2759

PDF

Published: Sep 17, 2012

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5130/csr.v18i2.2759

Keywords:

Buddhism, ethics, faith, religion, academia

Edwin Ng

Deakin University

Abstract

This essay is a result of the author's research into Buddhism and poststructuralist theories on knowledge, self and ethics and attempts to articulate the ethico-political implications of his own practice of Vipassana (a form of Buddhist meditation) and interrogate what is called the politics of spirituality. He explores the role of faith within cultural studies by first contextualising the relevant discursive fields, then analysing Vipassana with a ‘religious’ Foucauldian approach oriented around the critico-political aims of Foucault's late work. This elucidates how Buddhist and poststructuralist thought share certain concerns, and identifies trajectories for further inquiry.

Issue

Vol 18 No 2 (2012): Secular Discomforts and On Mad Men

Section

Secular Discomforts: Religion and Cultural Studies (Peer Reviewed)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Copyright Notice

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

a) Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed undera Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share and adapt the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

b) Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

c) Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Open Access Citation Advantage Service). Where authors include such a work in an institutional repository or on their website (ie. a copy of a work which has been published in a UTS ePRESS journal, or a pre-print or post-print version of that work), we request that they include a statement that acknowledges the UTS ePRESS publication including the name of the journal, the volume number and a web-link to the journal item.

d) Authors should be aware that the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License permits readers to share (copy and redistribute the work in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the work) for any purpose, even commercially, provided they also give appropriate credit to the work, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. They may do these things in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests you or your publisher endorses their use.

Author Biography

Edwin Ng, Deakin University

Edwin Ng works in the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University. His current research performs autoethnographical investigations of his coterminous practice of Buddhism and cultural research so as to explore hospitable encounters between sacred and scholarly traditions, and to interrogate ethico-political debates about religion, spirituality, and the role of faith in cultural studies and micropolitics more generally.

Article Sidebar

Main Article Content

Abstract

Article Details

Edwin Ng, Deakin University