Extension Faculty

Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia, edited by Christopher S. Queen and Sallie B. King (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1996).

Dr. Christopher Queen, Dean of Students in the Harvard Extension School and Lecturer in the Study of Religion, teaches popular courses on Buddhism and world religions in the Harvard Extension School, Harvard College, and Harvard Divinity School.

The fruits of his scholarly interests are now available to an even wider audience in the valuable volume Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia, which he co-edited with Sallie B. King, a professor at James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia. It includes nine essays about "engaged Buddhism," the nonviolent social and political movements that have emerged across contemporary Asia to seek relief for ordinary people from the concrete conditions of injustice and oppression that are all too common in our century. This book is particularly welcome because it gathers together reliable accounts of some of the best known social activist figures in the contemporary Buddhist world, including the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh, and allows us to understand each in the light of the others. Individual chapters are written by some of the most prominent scholars in the field of Buddhist studies, and each is a good example of informed, yet accessible, scholarship, managing to be both critically informed and humanely inspiring at the same time.

In addition to serving as co-editor, Queen contributed a general introduction that provides an original overview of these movements in comparative perspective and emphasizes the importance of close attention to such activists and movements. He also contributed an insightful chapter based on his own special field of research, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, who was the leader of one of the major communities of Untouchables in India.

King closes the volume by saying that "Buddhist liberation movements, collectively, constitute a major turning point in the development of Buddhism and will continue to play a role of substantial importance in the evolution of Buddhism into the foreseeable future" (435). We can be grateful to Christopher Queen and Sallie B. King for putting this collection together since Buddhist Liberation Movements, as a collection, makes it easier to take the measure of their importance.

- Charles S. Hallisey

Charles S. Hallisey, PhD, John Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities, Harvard University, has offered courses in Comparative Religious Ethics and Introduction to Hinduism at the Harvard Extension School for several years.

Briefly Noted

Did you ever wonder about your favorite teacher's life--before he became your favorite teacher? Professor Brendan A. Maher, Edward C. Henderson Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and veteran Extension School instructor, has fashioned an answer for legions of students at the Extension School who have taken his courses in psychology.

A Passage to Sword Beach, a first-hand account of Maher's service as a junior officer in the Royal Navy during World War II (Naval Institute Press, 1996), draws on diaries and journals he kept during his WWII years. Readers watch as the 18-year-old volunteer matures while he serves aboard a World War II minesweeper and prepares for and takes part in D-Day. Although Maher didn't spare the details of his hospitalization for reconstructive surgery, he filled the book with wit and humor.

A Passage to Sword Beach reminds us that such things as duty, responsibility, service, and honor are not abstractions to be debated, but attributes to be lived. The book is a memoir, not only for those readers interested in military subjects but also for those who sometime ponder: "And what did he do before he began standing up in front of a class and teaching?"

Jane Brox, Extension School Writing Center tutor, received the L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award for the best book in 1995 on a New England topic or by a New England author. Winning on both criteria, Here and Nowhere Else: Late Seasons of a Farm and Its Family (Beacon Press) received warm acclaim as a "haunting, evocative, lovingly crafted" memoir. The highly coveted award was presented to Brox at a private ceremony at the JFK Library, with Nobel laureate Saul Bellow as the main speaker.

Initial reviews of Grace Dane Mazur's first novel, Silk, available in bookstores this month, have been enthusiastic. Mazur is offering a section of CREA E-25 Introduction to Fiction Writing this fall.

- J.F.A.