Kim Gutschow is a Lecturer in Anthropology and Religion at Williams College and Professor of Anthropology and Public Health at the University of Göttingen.
Solidly based on over a decade of fieldwork, Gutschow successfully
dispels a number of stereotypical misconceptions about Buddhist
monasticism in general and Buddhist nuns more specifically. She
places monasticism in its necessary political and economic spheres,
while not ignoring the pragmatic aspects of lived Buddhism. Being a
Buddhist Nun transports women and nuns from their marginal
peripheral position in Buddhist history to its ideological
center.
*Frank J. Korom, Boston University*
A brilliant analysis, beautifully written, of Buddhism as never
before portrayed. Privileging popular practices and local
informants over textual expertise, Gutschow takes us right into the
heart of the contradictions between Buddhist doctrine and practice,
showing the mechanisms that reinstate the very social hierarchies
and injustices that the Buddha disdained. The book is a tour de
force, a bold and courageous analysis that will change the field of
Buddhist studies forever. A truly enlightening and extraordinary
book.
*Unni Wikan, University of Oslo*
Being a Buddhist Nun is a persuasive and moving combination of
vivid writing and sophisticated scholarship. The lived experience
is wonderfully captured in both verbal and visual thick
descriptions of foods, tasks, conversations, all the evocative
phenomena of the everyday, while the book raises questions that are
significant far beyond the Himalayas, ranging from the usual
questions of gender--Why Cannot Nuns Be Monks?--for which Kim
Gutschow offers new answers, to the not-so-usual questions of
celibacy, in which she sees newly relevant values.
*Wendy Doniger, Mircea Eliade Professor of the History of
Religions, University of Chicago*
In many religions, such as Christianity, Judaism, and Hinduism,
women are considered spiritually inferior to men and often suffer
inequitable treatment in the wider society. Buddhism, with its
highly egalitarian doctrine, is often perceived as being different.
Gutschow shows that in this regard we have mistakenly focused on
ideals rather than on actual practices.
*Library Journal*
The inescapable struggle of being a woman in a patriarchal system
is the heart of Gutschow's work and permeates her further
discussions, including ideologies of purity and pollution and
Tantric approaches to the question of female
enlightenment...Gutschow's analysis is penetrating, and her
supporting anecdotes are often vivid and effective. Her work
reveals that the reality of Himalayan Buddhist monasticism, far
from being Shangri-La, is thoroughly rooted in the very foibles of
the world it professes to renounce.
*Publishers Weekly*
Based on [Gutschow's] observations and research in Zangskar, the
book describes a rigid hierarchy in which monks rule, enjoying
power and prestige and conducting important ceremonies and rituals,
such as blessing households and construction sites in their
villages. Nuns, who must defer to monks and sit behind them at
formal gatherings, are relegated to menial tasks, such as
collecting the dung and sticks that the entire community will burn
for fuel during the region's harsh winters.
*Harvard Magazine*
Being a Buddhist Nun is a valuable account of the life of nuns in
the Himalayan valley of Zanskar, a region of Ladakh in north-west
India. The work is driven by a deep sense of injustice and a
compelling focus on a remote society still medieval in
character...[Gutschow] present[s] an unrivalled account of monastic
economy and social anthropology in Ladakh. Her text is full of
'thick' description, delightful anecdotes, biographies of
courageous and not so courageous nuns, as well as accounts of the
personal joys and sufferings of individuals. Although she focuses
on the often lamentable ways in which nuns suffer discrimination,
she is not unduly disrespectful of the monastic system to which
they belong; rather she subjects it to a prolonged and penetrating
examination and interpretation.
*Times Literary Supplement*
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