Buddhism and Cultural Studies

This book explores the reciprocity between Buddhist, Derridean, and Foucauldian understandings about ethics, subjectivity, and ontological contingency, to investigate the ethical and political potential of insight meditation practice. The book is narrated from the perspective of a postcolonial Western Buddhist convert who, despite growing up in Singapore where Buddhism was a part of his disaporic Chinese ancestral heritage, only embraced Buddhism when he migrated to Australia and discovered Western translations of Buddhist teachings. Through an autoethnography of the authors Buddhist-inspired pursuit of an academic profession, the book develops and professes a non-doctrinal understanding of faith that may be pertinent to believers and non-believers alike, inviting the academic reader in particular to consider the (unacknowledged) role of faith in supporting scholarly practice. Striking a careful balance between critical analysis and self-reflexive inquiry, the book performs inall senses of the word, a profession of faith.