Literature for Little Bodhisattvas : Making Buddhist Families in Modern Taiwan / Natasha Heller; ed. by Mark Michael Rowe.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Heller, Natasha, Author.

Contributor:

Rowe, Mark (Mark Michael), Editor.

Series:

Contemporary Buddhism

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (258 p.) : 22 illustrations, 20 in color

Place of Publication:

Honolulu : University of Hawaii Press, [2025]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

In Literature for Little Bodhisattvas, Natasha Heller makes two key interventions: first, she argues that picturebooks are a new genre of Buddhist writing, and second, she calls attention to an emergent family Buddhism in Taiwan that fashions children as religious subjects through shared attention with adult readers. Surveying Taiwanese Buddhism from the ground up, Heller explores the changing family dynamics that have made children into a crucial audience for Buddhist education and the home a key site for Buddhist cultivation. By taking picturebooks seriously as part of the Buddhist textual tradition, Heller demonstrates their engagement with canonical sources alongside innovations for modern audiences. Close readings analyzing both text and image trace narrative themes about Buddhist figures, and connect representations of buddhas and bodhisattvas to a visual culture where new values such as cuteness are articulated. Heller shows that picturebooks have become an integral part of a contemporary Buddhist education that equips children with strategies to interpret everyday life in Buddhist ways and provides religious models for action in the modern world. Literature for Little Bodhisattvas is a pathbreaking work revealing how contemporary picturebooks reframe Buddhism and offer fresh perspectives on its teachings and ideals of family for both children and adults.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Series Editor’s Preface

Acknowledgments

Romanization and Abbreviations

Introduction

PART I: BOOKS

CHAPTER ONE Inventing Buddhist Children’s Literature

CHAPTER TWO Once I Have Heard a Story

CHAPTER THREE Modernizing Xuanzang

PART II: KIDS

CHAPTER FOUR Naughty Little Monks

CHAPTER FIVE Befriending Bodhisattvas

PART III: WORLDS

CHAPTER SIX How to Be a Buddhist Family

CHAPTER SEVEN Making Science Buddhist

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Other Sources

Index

About the Author

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 20. Mar 2025)

ISBN:

979-88-8070-041-7

979-88-8070-040-0