Thomas A. Borchert is associate professor of religion at the University of Vermont. Mark Michael Rowe is associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies, McMaster University.
Educating Monks is an important book. Solidly grounded in empirical
research, it presents us with a unique ethnography of the lives of
ethnic minority monks and novices living in a less well-known
corner of China and practicing a minority form of Buddhism. At the
same time, it provides a convincing analysis of one way of being a
Buddhist in the modern world by showing how such an existence is
both anchored in the local as well as it is linked up in multiple
different ways with translocal networks. . . . This book is highly
recommended to students, researchers, and general readers with an
interest in local minority cultures in China and Southeast Asia, in
modern Theravāda Buddhism, as well as in Buddhism in general.--
"Pacific Affairs"
For some time now, Thomas Borchert's sophisticated perspective on
Buddhism has been working its way into the province of Buddhist
studies through his papers. His long-awaited book--Educating Monks:
Minority Buddhism on China's South- west Border--brings to light
the ethnographic background on which he has built this perspective.
. . . With his agility in crossing through the various strata of
Theravada social life, Borchert reminds us that Theravadin
formations everywhere involve a much more complex set up than the
local/universal binary.-- "Journal of Burma Studies"
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