Lammerts-Syllabus: Buddhist Literature and Film
Buddhist Literature and Film
Dr. Dietrich Christian Lammerts
Course Description
This course provides an introduction to the diverse histories and cultures of Buddhism through an exploration Buddhist literature and film. It engages primary written and filmic texts to consider the varied character of Buddhist practice, ritual, cosmology, society, and politics. Students encounter premodern biographies of the Buddha, netherworld narratives, miracle tales, and scriptural commentary alongside modern fiction, anime, and film. In critically analyzing these materials we investigate how Buddhism, as well as its media and genres of expression, has developed and been transformed in different geographical and socio-political contexts.
Catalog Description
This course offers an introduction to the diverse histories and cultures of Buddhism through an exploration Buddhist literature and film.
Learning Goals
This course seeks to foster a nuanced understanding and critical appreciation of the diversity of the Buddhist tradition in pre-modern and modern Asia and in other regions of the contemporary world. It aims to establish an introductory, though scholarly, awareness of the complexity of Buddhism through engagement with exciting, though historically and culturally significant, written and celluloid (or digital) primary source materials. Additionally, the course seeks to strengthen skills in critical cultural and historical analysis and engagement with and analysis of primary texts, through writing exercises and a final research paper.
The course meets the core curriculum requirements for Historical Analysis [HST(h&k)] and Arts and Humanities [AHo, AHp]. After taking this class, students will:
1) be able to identify and critically assess some of the diverse ways in which Buddhism has developed in different eras, geographical locations, and socio-political contexts [HST(h&k)];
2) be able to investigate major theoretical issues in Buddhist Studies via an assessment of Buddhist literature and film [AHo], and to analyze Buddhist forms of representation in relation to specific historical contexts and social and cultural values [AHp].
Core-related Assignments
1) Analysis Papers. Every other week students will be required to write a one- to two-page analysis paper in response to a primary literary or filmic text. These papers should identify and evaluate a central theoretical issue represented in the primary source [AHo], and critically discuss its relevance to the historical development of Buddhism [HST(h&k)]. They should clearly and concisely articulate an analysis of what the source allows us to understand about Buddhist culture and value in a particular geographic and social context, and how and why this understanding may differ from other representations of Buddhism encountered in the course [AHp].
2) Final Essay. Building on the work of their analysis papers, students will prepare a final research essay (6-8 pages) that examines one of the central thematic areas of inquiry raised in the class by drawing on and synthesizing the evidence of no less than three primary literary or filmic texts.
Core Assessment
Course assignments 1 & 2 will be evaluated in light of Core Curriculum Assessment Rubrics and assigned a score of Outstanding, Good, Satisfactory, or Unsatisfactory based on the degree to which they meet the Core learning goals outlined above. Final Core assessment will be based on an evaluation of each student’s complete portfolio of Core-related work at the end of the semester.
Grading
All work will receive a letter grade that contributes to a student’s final grade for the course, as follows:
Participation and Attendance (20% of final grade)
Quizzes (20%)
Analysis Papers (30%)
Final Essay (30%)
Grading System:
A=100-90, B+=89-87, B=86-80, C+=79-77, C=76-70, D=69-65, F=64 and below.
Course Policies
i) Academic Integrity
Familiarize yourself with Rutgers policies and materials concerning academic integrity and
plagiarism at the following sites:
http://academicintegrity.rutgers.edu
http://academicintegrity.rutgers.edu/resources
Cheating and plagiarism are serious offenses. Any student found to have committed or aided the offence of plagiarism will be subject to penalties in accordance with the policies of the University.
ii) Use of electronic equipment
Please turn off all mobile phones, computers, and other electronic devices before class. If you must use a computer, tablet, or e-reader, for reading electronic readings please sit in the first two rows of the classroom. Recording devices are not permitted.
SAMPLE TOPICS, READINGS, AND FILMS
Week 1. The Buddhist Cosmos and Society
Anne Appleby Hazlewood, trans. “A Translation of Pañcagatidīpanī.” Journal of the Pali Text Society XI (1987): 133-159.
Benedict Anderson, The Fate of Rural Hell: Asceticism and Desire in Buddhist Thailand. Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2012. Selections.
Week 2. A Life of the Buddha
Tezuka Osamu, Buddha. 8 vols. New York: Vertical, 2006. Selections.
Film: Buddha: The Great Departure (2011), directed by Morishita Kozo.
Week 3. Past Lives of the Buddha in Pali and Sanskrit Literature
Justin Meiland, trans. Garland of the Buddha’s Past Lives. 2 vols. New York: New York University Press, 2009. Vol 1, 9-25.
I.B. Horner and Padmanabh S. Jaini, trans. Apocryphal Birth Stories (Paññāsa-Jātaka). 2 vols. Oxford: Pali Text Society, 2003. Vol 2, 198-209, 210-217, 227-234.
Week 4. Rebirth and Redeath in Rural Thailand
Film: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010), directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
Week 5. Law, Punishment, and the Supernatural in South Asian Narrative
Andy Rotman, trans. Divine Stories: Divyāvadāna. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2008. 119-134.
Eugene Watson Burlingame, trans. Buddhist Legends. 3 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1921. Selections.
Week 6. Buddhist Ethics, Miracles, and Zombies in Medieval China and Japan
Robert Ford Campany, Signs from the Unseen Realm: Buddhist Miracle Tales from Early Medieval China. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2012. Selections.
Kyoko Motomochi Nakamura, Miraculous Stories from the Japanese Buddhist Tradition: The Nihon ryōiki of the Monk Kyōkai. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973. Selections.
Week 7. Buddhism and Slavery in Heian Japan
“Sanshō the Steward,” in The Historical Fiction of Mori Ōgai, edited by David Dilworth and J. Thomas Rimer. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1991. 126-148.
Film: Sansho the Bailiff (1954), directed by Mizoguchi Kenji.
Week 8. Buddhism and Gender I: Early Modern Tibet
Kurtis R. Schaeffer, Himalayan Hermitess: The Life of a Tibetan Buddhist Nun. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Selections.
Week 9. Buddhism and Gender II: Contemporary Thailand
Susan F. Kepner, trans. “Matsii.” In The Lioness in Bloom: Modern Thai Fiction about Women, 95-103. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
Film: What Harm is it to Be a Woman: Exploitation of Women and Buddhism (2007), Attie and Goldwater Productions.
Week 10. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Monk
Kim Seong-dong, Mandala, translated by Ahn Jung-hyo. Seoul: Dongsuh Munhaksa, 1990. Selections.
Film: Mandala (1981), directed by Im Kwon-taek.
Week 11. Buddhism and the Spirit Cults in Southeast Asia
Melford Spiro, Burmese Supernaturalism. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1967. Selections.
Film: Friends in High Places (2001), directed by Lindsey Merrison.
Week 12. Buddhism and Orientalism
Jane Iwamura, Virtual Orientalism: Asian Religions and American Popular Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Selections
TV Series: Kung Fu (1972-1975). Selections.
Film: Shaolin (2011), directed by Benny Chan.
Week 13. Buddhism and Politics in Contemporary Myanmar
Human Rights Watch, The Resistance of the Monks: Buddhism and Activism in Burma (2009). Selections.
Reportage on the “969” Movement and interviews with the anti-Muslim monk Wirathu.
Film: Burma VJ (2008), directed by Anders Østergaard.
Week 14. Buddhism, Dying, and Death in Modern Japan
Shinmon Aoki, Coffinman: The Journal of a Buddhist Mortician, trans. Wayne Yokoyama. Anaheim: Buddhist Education Center, 2002. Selections.
Film: Okuribito (2008), directed by Takita Yojiro.
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