RELST 6616

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  • Course Catalog - September 10, 2024 9:19AM EDT
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RELST 6616
Zen Buddhism: Ecology, Sustainability and Daily Life

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2023-2024.

This course explores the Zen's central religious, historical and aesthetic developments. We read primary sources in translation and secondary sources. We examine the rise of the Ch'an tradition in China and the development of Northern and Southern Schools. In Japan, we examine the establishment of Zen in the Kamakura period, through the development of both Rinzai and Soto Zen, and early transmissions of Chinese texts and practices to Japan through Japanese emissaries. We study the lives and writings of Eisai and Dôgen, and explore how their works influenced later developments in Zen. Next we read works by Hakuin. Last, we study how Zen is implicated in Japanese fascism and later, postwar identity discourses. Finally, we look at Zen in an American context. This course is being taught both as an integrated arts in the curriculum course in collaboration with the Johnson Art Museum and is also part of a "Internationalizing the Cornell Curriculum."

When Offered Spring.

Course Attribute (CU-SBY)

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Syllabi: none

  •  6285 RELST 6616   LEC 001

  • Prerequisite: One course in Asian religions or Religious Studies. Permission of instructor required.

    Instructor Consent Required (Add)