Buddhism behind bars transforming race, religion, and power Alexandra Kirby Sokolow

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Sokolow, Alexandra Kirby, author.

Contributor:

University of Pennsylvania. Religious Studies., degree granting institution.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Religion.

American studies.

Law.

0318.

0323.

0398.

Local Subjects:

Religion.

American studies.

Law.

0318.

0323.

0398.

Genre:

Academic theses

Physical Description:

1 online resource (287 pages)

Contained In:

Dissertations Abstracts International 87-12A

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, 2026

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"Buddhism Behind Bars" investigates how people have created, circulated, and challenged dominant narratives about the relationship between "criminality" and Buddhism as an "Asian religion" in the U.S. during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The project responds to the recent popularity of discourses that have represented Buddhism as a means through which incarcerated people can transform from angry "prisoners" into peaceful "buddhas." Not only Buddhist leaders, but also filmmakers, journalists, celebrities, and scholars in fields including criminology, public health, and psychology have repeated these reformist narratives and disseminated them around the world. The dominance of such narratives, however, obscures the diversity within Buddhism, the structural violence of the U.S. carceral system, and the ways people in prison make Buddhism creatively and in community. Drawing on archival research, media analysis, and oral history, "Buddhism Behind Bars" argues that, through the stories and imagery people share about Buddhism in U.S. prisons, they simultaneously construct "American," the "prison," and "Buddhism" as organizing categories of social life, as well as the relationship between "American Buddhism" and the "American prison." By emphasizing plurality, the dissertation illustrates how Buddhism-making in U.S. prisons exemplifies the history of Buddhism in America as an ongoing process of collaboration and contestation between people with different backgrounds, social positions, and agendas. "Buddhism Behind Bars" takes both top-down and bottom-up approaches while critically reflecting on prevailing interpretive tendencies in the study of American religions, Buddhist modernism and engaged Buddhism, and prison religion. On one hand, the project analyzes how the repetition and circulation of these reformist narratives, which often draw on twin legacies of classical Buddhist concepts and European Enlightenment ideals, normalize the disciplining and subject-making work of the state, while reinforcing racial hierarchies. On the other hand, it also explores the ways incarcerated Buddhists creatively negotiate power through embodied practices and reshape their relationships with one another, prison space, and their senses of "self" in the process

Notes:

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 87-12, Section: A.

Advisors: Thomas, Jolyon B. Committee members: Butler, Anthea; McDaniel, Justin; Schaefer, Donovan

Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania 2026

Vendor supplied data

Local Notes:

School code: 0175

ISBN:

9798247982739

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license