Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: New Books in Buddhist Studies
Episode: Courtney Bruntz and Brooke Schedneck, "Buddhist Tourism in Asia" (U Hawaii Press, 2020)
Description: This edited volume is the first book-length study of Buddhist tourism in contemporary Asia in the English language. Featuring chapters from diverse contributors from religious studies, anthropology, and art history, Buddhist Tourism in Asia (University of Hawaii Press, 2020) explores themes of Buddhist imaginaries, place-making, secularization, and commodification in three parts. The first part, Buddhist Imaginaries and Place-Making features four interesting chapters on how Buddhism is marketed and promoted to domestic and international tourists, as well as how these imaginaries âsedimentsâ over time. The chapters in Part II, Secularizing the Sacred, reveal interestingly that Buddhist tourism tends to create alliances with sec...