Charming Cadavers

1996-12

In this highly original study of sexuality, desire, the body, and women, Liz Wilson investigates first-millennium Buddhist notions of spirituality.

Author: Liz Wilson

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

ISBN: 0226900541

Category: Religion

Page: 258

View: 783

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In this highly original study of sexuality, desire, the body, and women, Liz Wilson investigates first-millennium Buddhist notions of spirituality. She argues that despite the marginal role women played in monastic life, they occupied a very conspicuous place in Buddhist hagiographic literature. In narratives used for the edification of Buddhist monks, women's bodies in decay (diseased, dying, and after death) served as a central object for meditation, inspiring spiritual growth through sexual abstention and repulsion in the immediate world. Taking up a set of universal concerns connected with the representation of women, Wilson displays the pervasiveness of androcentrism in Buddhist literature and practice. She also makes persuasive use of recent historical work on the religious lives of women in medieval Christianity, finding common ground in the role of miraculous afflictions. This lively and readable study brings provocative new tools and insights to the study of women in religious life.

Buddhist Feminisms and Femininities

2019-01-01

... 1920221; reprint, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975, 1:179284. Cited in Liz
Wilson, Charming Cadavers: Horrific Figurations of the Feminine in Indian
Buddhist Hagiographic Literature (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
1996, 16.

Author: Karma Lekshe Tsomo

Publisher: SUNY Press

ISBN: 9781438472577

Category:

Page: 354

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Adds new voices to the feminist conversation and brings a rich variety of diverse approaches to Buddhist women’s identities, “the feminine,” and Buddhist feminism. This groundbreaking book explores Buddhist thought and culture, from multiple Buddhist perspectives, as sources for feminist reflection and social action. Too often, when writers apply terms such as “woman,” “femininity,” and “feminism” to Buddhist texts and contexts, they begin with models of feminist thinking that foreground questions and concerns arising from Western experience. This oversight has led to many facile assumptions, denials, and oversimplifications that ignore women’s diverse social and historical contexts. But now, with the tools of feminist analysis that have developed in recent decades, constructs of the feminine in Buddhist texts, imagery, and philosophy can be examined—with the acknowledgment that there are limitations to applying these theoretical paradigms to other cultures. Contributors to this volume offer a feminist analysis, which integrates gender theory and Buddhist perspectives, to Buddhist texts and women’s narratives from Asia. How do Buddhist concepts of self and no-self intersect with concepts of gender identity, especially for women? How are the female body, sexuality, and femininity constructed (and contested) in diverse Buddhist contexts? How might power and gender identity be perceived differently through a Buddhist lens? By exploring feminist approaches and representations of “the feminine,” including persistent questions about women’s identities as householders and renunciants, this book helps us to understand how Buddhist influences on attitudes toward women, and how feminist thinking from other parts of the world, can inform and enlarge contemporary discussions of feminism.
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A Companion to Asian Art and Architecture

2015-06-22

Liz Wilson recognizes that skillful means as “salvific stratagems” is a typically
Mahayana concept, she also points out how the idea of expedient crosses over
the school divisions: Wilson, Charming Cadavers, 116–22. “Simile and Parable,”
The ...

Author: Rebecca M. Brown

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

ISBN: 9781119019534

Category: Art

Page: 688

View: 516

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"This companion presents new critical views on crucial aspects of the large and varied field of Asian art and architectural history. The essays collected here provide scholars and the pubic with an opportunity to engage with the field in all its diversity - from coinage to monastic spaces to imperial commissions and beyond. Regions and topics covered include Korea, Japan, China, several regions of Southeast Asia, South Asia, global and colonial interactions, as well as art and architecture in the UK and UK diasporas"--
Posted in: Art

Silver Screen Buddha

2015-01-29

8 The prince looks about him and sees his beautiful women positioned like
corpses with mouths agape, drooling, and their ... These bodies, as Wilson's
study suggests, become charming cadavers whose previous beauty withers
away into ...

Author: Sharon A. Suh

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

ISBN: 9781474217842

Category: Performing Arts

Page: 232

View: 376

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How do contemporary films depict Buddhists and Buddhism? What aspects of the Buddhist tradition are these films keeping from our view? By repeatedly romanticizing the meditating monk, what kinds of Buddhisms and Buddhists are missing in these films and why? Silver Screen Buddha is the first book to explore the intersecting representations of Buddhism, race, and gender in contemporary films. Sharon A. Suh examines the cinematic encounter with Buddhism that has flourished in Asia and in the West in the past century – from images of Shangri-La in Frank Capra's 1937 Lost Horizon to Kim Ki-Duk's 2003 international box office success Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring. The book helps readers see that representations of Buddhism in Asia and in the West are fraught with political, gendered, and racist undertones. Silver Screen Buddha draws significant attention to ordinary lay Buddhism, a form of the tradition given little play in popular film. By uncovering the differences between a fictionalized, commodified, and exoticized Buddhism, Silver Screen Buddha brings to light expressions of the tradition that highlight laity and women, on the one hand, and Asian and Asian Americans, on the other. Suh engages in a re-visioning of Buddhism that expands the popular understanding of the tradition, moving from the dominance of meditating monks to the everyday world of raced, gendered, and embodied lay Buddhists.

Bodily Citations

2006-07-11

Sarah Coak- ley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 185–204.
For an incisive gender analysis of such meditations, see Wilson, Charming
Cadavers, especially chapter 2. On sam.vega see Wilson, Charming Cadavers,
pp.

Author: Ellen T. Armour

Publisher: Columbia University Press

ISBN: 9780231508643

Category: Social Science

Page: 336

View: 882

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In such works as Gender Trouble and Bodies That Matter Judith Butler broke new ground in understanding the construction and performance of identities. While Butler's writings have been crucial and often controversial in the development of feminist and queer theory, Bodily Citations is the first anthology centered on applying her theories to religion. In this collection scholars in anthropology, biblical studies, theology, ethics, and ritual studies use Butler's work to investigate a variety of topics in biblical, Islamic, Buddhist, and Christian traditions. The authors shed new light on Butler's ideas and highlight their ethical and political import. They also broaden the scope of religious studies as they bring it into conversation with feminist and queer theory. Subjects discussed include the woman's mosque movement in Cairo, the ordination of women in the Catholic Church, the possibility of queer ethics, religious ritual, and biblical constructions of sexuality. Contributors include: Karen Trimble Alliaume, Lewis University; Teresa Hornsby, Drury University; Amy Hollywood, Harvard Divinity School; Christina Hutchins, Pacific School of Religion; Saba Mahmood, University of California, Berkeley; Susanne Mrozik, Mount Holyoke College; Claudia Schippert, University of Central Florida; Rebecca Schneider, Brown University; Ken Stone, Chicago Theological Seminary

Indian Asceticism

2015-03-03

Jane Marie Law (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 93; Wilson
makes similar claims in her Charming Cadavers: Horrific Figurations of the
Feminine in Indian Buddhist Hagiographic Literature (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, ...

Author: Carl Olson

Publisher: Oxford University Press

ISBN: 9780190266400

Category: Religion

Page: 304

View: 493

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Throughout the history of Indian religions, the ascetic figure is most closely identified with power. A by-product of the ascetic path, power is displayed in the ability to fly, walk on water or through dense objects, read minds, discern the former lives of others, see into the future, harm others, or simply levitate one's body. These tales give rise to questions about how power and violence are related to the phenomenon of play. Indian Asceticism focuses on the powers exhibited by ascetics of India from ancient to modern time. Carl Olson discusses the erotic, the demonic, the comic, and the miraculous forms of play and their connections to power and violence. He focuses on Hinduism, but evidence is also presented from Buddhism and Jainism, suggesting that the subject matter of this book pervades India's major indigenous religious traditions. The book includes a look at the extent to which findings in cognitive science can add to our understanding of these various powers; Olson argues that violence is built into the practice of the ascetic. Indian Asceticism culminates with an attempt to rethink the nature of power in a way that does justice to the literary evidence from Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain sources.

Preachers Poets Women and the Way

2008

For example , the bloated corpse suits those who are particular about the shapes
of bodies ; discolored corpses are ... 32 While Murasaki Shikibu tended to be
identified with 29Liz Wilson , Charming Cadavers : Horrific Figurations of the ...

Author: R. Keller Kimbrough

Publisher: U of M Center for Japanese Studies

ISBN: UOM:39015081832662

Category: Buddhist literature, Japanese

Page: 374

View: 838

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Discourse

2009

36 Wilson , Charming Cadavers , 2–3 . 37 Ibid . , 86 . 38 Steven Collins's analysis
of how the monastic practitioner's psychological deconstruction of the body is
integrated with the social construction of this same body omits feminist ...

Author:

Publisher:

ISBN: WISC:89108840141

Category: Communication

Page:

View: 377

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Envoi

1998

Liz WILSON, Charming Cadavers: Horrific Figurations of the Feminine in Indian
Buddhist Hagiographic Literature. With a Foreword by Catharine R. Stimpson. (
Women in Culture and Society Series). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ...

Author:

Publisher:

ISBN: UCSC:32106020234081

Category: Literature, Medieval

Page:

View: 827

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A Traffic of Dead Bodies

2002

3 “ Anatomy Is the Charm " DISSECTION AND MEDICAL IDENTITY IN
NINETEENTH - CENTURY AMERICA The day when the medical student enters
the dissecting room is the time of dedication to his profession ; for then he puts
his hand to ...

Author: Michael Sappol

Publisher: Princeton University Press

ISBN: 069105925X

Category: History

Page: 430

View: 537

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A Traffic of Dead Bodies enters the sphere of bodysnatching medical students, dissection-room pranks, and anatomical fantasy. It shows how nineteenth-century American physicians used anatomy to develop a vital professional identity, while claiming authority over the living and the dead. It also introduces the middle-class women and men, working people, unorthodox healers, cultural radicals, entrepreneurs, and health reformers who resisted and exploited anatomy to articulate their own social identities and visions. The nineteenth century saw the rise of the American medical profession: a proliferation of practitioners, journals, organizations, sects, and schools. Anatomy lay at the heart of the medical curriculum, allowing American medicine to invest itself with the authority of European science. Anatomists crossed the boundary between life and death, cut into the body, reduced it to its parts, framed it with moral commentary, and represented it theatrically, visually, and textually. Only initiates of the dissecting room could claim the privileged healing status that came with direct knowledge of the body. But anatomy depended on confiscation of the dead--mainly the plundered bodies of African Americans, immigrants, Native Americans, and the poor. As black markets in cadavers flourished, so did a cultural obsession with anatomy, an obsession that gave rise to clashes over the legal, social, and moral status of the dead. Ministers praised or denounced anatomy from the pulpit; rioters sacked medical schools; and legislatures passed or repealed laws permitting medical schools to take the bodies of the destitute. Dissection narratives and representations of the anatomical body circulated in new places: schools, dime museums, popular lectures, minstrel shows, and sensationalist novels. Michael Sappol resurrects this world of graverobbers and anatomical healers, discerning new ligatures among race and gender relations, funerary practices, the formation of the middle-class, and medical professionalization. In the process, he offers an engrossing and surprisingly rich cultural history of nineteenth-century America.

NWSA Journal

1997

... are unable to help women who kill in nonconfrontational situations . ” —
Publishers Weekly Charming Cadavers Horrific Figurations of the Feminine in
Indian Buddhist Hagiographic Literature Liz Wilson " Charming Cadavers is a
witty ...

Author:

Publisher:

ISBN: STANFORD:36105021180992

Category: Electronic journals

Page:

View: 628

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Book Review Index

1999

Author:

Publisher:

ISBN: UOM:39015046790856

Category: Books

Page:

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Every 3rd issue is a quarterly cumulation.

The Pacific World

2006

The standard list of nine occurs in the Sanskrit Mahāvyutpatti as follows : ( 1 ) a
discolored corpse ( vinilaka ) ; ( 2 ) a festering ... See her Charming Cadavers :
Horrific Figurations of the Feminine in Indian Buddhist Hagiographic Literature ...

Author:

Publisher:

ISBN: UOM:39015079763002

Category: Buddhism

Page:

View: 311

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Religion Terrorism and Globalization

2006

Liz Wilson , for example , in her book Charming Cadavers : Horrific Figurations of
the Feminine in Indian Buddhist Hagiographic Literature , " has collected a
number of passages in which decaying female corpses are used by the Buddha
to ...

Author: K. K. Kuriakose

Publisher: Nova Science Pub Incorporated

ISBN: IND:30000087201335

Category: Religion

Page: 300

View: 614

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The culture of violence has gained a religious colouring in modern days. With a destructive technological impetus, the question arises: Is there abuse of religious teachings? Is their any religious basis for violence and war? Then follow questions about the purpose of religion and the significance of concepts of peace and non-violence. As some find justification for war and violence in their religion, an inquiry must be made about the influence of religious scriptures on peace. Globalisation has had a varied impact on political, social, cultural, and religious behavioural systems. This landmark volume attempts to comprehend the concepts of non-violence and peace within different religious and cultural traditions.

Heterosexism in Contemporary World Religion

2007

Lize Wilson , Charming Cadavers : Horrific Figurations of the Feminine Indian
Buddhist Hagiographic Literature ( Chicago : University of Chicago Press , 1996 )
. 5. Sue Hamilton , “ From the Buddha to Boddhaghosa : Changing Attitudes ...

Author: Marvin Mahan Ellison

Publisher: Pilgrim Press

ISBN: UOM:39015073899927

Category: Religion

Page: 232

View: 314

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Homosexuality is not a problem: heterosexism is, and heterosexism is often supported by religious statements and practices against sexual minorities. Heterosexism in Contemporary World Religion seeks to draw out strands in each major religion that are antidotal to such practices and attitudes. Book jacket.

Sovereign Feminine

2013-05-09

Occasionally even her corpse was subject to aestheticizing glances—historians
have noted a fascination in the late eighteenth century with beautiful female
cadavers—but the perfection afforded by permanent stillness was more often ...

Author: Matthew Head

Publisher: Univ of California Press

ISBN: 9780520954762

Category: Music

Page: 350

View: 923

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In the German states in the late eighteenth century, women flourished as musical performers and composers, their achievements measuring the progress of culture and society from barbarism to civilization. Female excellence, and related feminocentric values, were celebrated by forward-looking critics who argued for music as a fine art, a component of modern, polite, and commercial culture, rather than a symbol of institutional power. In the eyes of such critics, femininity—a newly emerging and primarily bourgeois ideal—linked women and music under the valorized signs of refinement, sensibility, virtue, patriotism, luxury, and, above all, beauty. This moment in musical history was eclipsed in the first decades of the nineteenth century, and ultimately erased from the music-historical record, by now familiar developments: the formation of musical canons, a musical history based on technical progress, the idea of masterworks, authorial autonomy, the musical sublime, and aggressively essentializing ideas about the relationship between sex, gender and art. In Sovereign Feminine, Matthew Head restores this earlier musical history and explores the role that women played in the development of classical music.

The Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies

2000

1996 : Charming Cadavers : Horrific Figurations of the Feminine in Indian
Buddhist Hagiographic Literature . Chicago : University of Chicago Press .
Winternitz , Maurice 1933 : A History of Indian Literature , Vol . 2 : Buddhist
Literature and ...

Author: International Association of Buddhist Studies

Publisher:

ISBN: UVA:X006173942

Category: Buddhism

Page:

View: 992

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Buddhist Studies Review

2006

New York : Columbia University Press . Wille , Klaus , 1990. Die Handschrifte
Überlieferung des Vinayavastu der Mūlasarvāstivādin , pp . 70-107 . Stuttgart :
Franz Steiner Verlag . Wilson , Liz , 1996. Charming Cadavers : Horrific
Figurations of ...

Author:

Publisher:

ISBN: STANFORD:36105132661526

Category: Buddhism

Page:

View: 701

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Signs from the Unseen Realm

2012

... smelly corpse , it often balks at reentering its former body and has to be
nudged in by accompanying envoys from the ... The Buddhist Conquest of China
, 33 , 170 ; and Wilson , Charming Cadavers ( focusing on the gendered aspects
of ...

Author: Robert Ford Campany

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

ISBN: UCBK:C110235741

Category: History

Page: 300

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This book contains an annotated translation of the largest existing collection of Buddhist miracle texts from China's early medieval period, Wang Yan's Records of Signs from the Unseen Realm, which were compiled around 490 CE.