In this episode, we speak with Dr. Ralph H. Craig III about his beginnings as a scholar of Buddhism, background in yoga practice, his work on Mahāyāna Buddhism, reading the Lotus Sūtra, Buddhist preachers (dharmabānaka), and more. We also preview his upcoming online course, BS 113 | Mahāyāna Buddhism, which will explore these issues in more depth.

Speaker Bio

Ralph H. Craig III is an interdisciplinary scholar of religion, whose research focuses on South Asian Buddhism and American Buddhism. He received his B.A. in Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University and his Ph.D. in Religious Studies at Stanford University. His research interests include memoir, popular culture, yoga/meditation theory, religious experience and authority. He works with textual materials in Sanskrit, Pāli, Buddhist Chinese and Classical Tibetan. His work has appeared in the journals American Religion, Buddhist-Christian Studies, and the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies; in Lion’s Roar and Tricycle magazines; on the American Academy of Religion’s Reading Religion website; and the 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha. His first book was Dancing in My Dreams: A Spiritual Biography of Tina Turner (Eerdmans Publishing, 2023) which explores the place of religion in the life and career of Tina Turner and examines her development as a Black Buddhist teacher. Among other forthcoming projects, his next book project is a monograph on preachers in Mahāyāna Buddhist sūtras.

Episode Links

• BS 113 | Mahāyāna Buddhism
• https://rhcraig.com
• Dancing in My Dreams: A Spiritual Biography of Tina Turner (2023)

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Pierce Salguero about his beginnings as a scholar of Buddhism and medicine, his time studying traditional Thai medicine, what counts as Buddhist medicine, and why Buddhism and medicine have always been intertwined. He shares recent work with students documenting the thriving and diverse Buddhist medicine cultures that can be found around Philadelphia.

We also discuss his online course, BS 111 | Buddhism and Medicine, which will explore these issues in more depth!

Speaker Bio

Dr. Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and cross-cultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (2010), and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University’s Abington College, located near Philadelphia.

The major theme in his scholarship is discovering the role of Buddhism in the global transmission and local reception of knowledge about health, disease, and the body. He approaches this topic using methodologies from history, religious studies, translation studies, and literary studies. More recently, he has gotten into ethnography and documentary filmmaking as well.

Links discussed in episode

• BS 111| Buddhism and Medicine
• The Jivaka Project
• Buddhish: A Guide to the 20 Most Important Buddhist Ideas for the Curious and Skeptical by Pierce Salguero
• Buddhism and Medicine: An Anthology of Premodern Sources, edited by Pierce Salguero
• Buddhism and Medicine: An Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Sources, edited by Pierce Salguero
• A Global History of Buddhism and Medicine by Pierce Salguero

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Rebecca Bloom about her beginnings as a scholar and curator of Himalayan Buddhist art history, the meaning of "art" in a Buddhist context, and why she thinks studying art history is valuable for people interested in Buddhism. She also gives a behind-the-scenes look at how museum curators organize exhibitions, and talks about why she loves this kind of work.

We also preview her upcoming online course, BS 109 | Introduction to Buddhist Art, which will explore these issues in more depth!

Speaker Bio

Dr. Rebecca Bloom is Diane P. Stewart Assistant Director, Curatorial Affairs at the Southern Utah Museum of Art. She is a scholar and curator who specializes in Tibetan Buddhism, Buddhist material culture, and issues surrounding the intersection of religion and museums. She holds a BA in Art History and Religion from Middlebury College, an MA in Asian Religions from Yale Divinity School, and she recently received her PhD from the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan, where she also earned a Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies.

Dr. Bloom began her career at the Rubin Museum of Art, where she curated and co-curated more than a dozen exhibitions of Tibetan and Himalayan art, as well as contemporary and historical photography. At the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, she co-curated a multi-year exhibition of Buddhist art entitled Encountering the Buddha: Art and Practice across Asia, for which she designed the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room and created the related app, Sacred Spaces. Assembly of the Exalted: The Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room, coauthored with Donald S. Lopez, Jr., focuses on the shrine’s history and its objects. Dr. Bloom also contributed to a multi-disciplinary project dedicated to the pilgrimage of the eighth-century, Korean monk, Hyecho. The project produced two apps, a website, and a book that each explore the world of Buddhism Hyecho encountered on his journey, with special attention paid to Buddhist material culture.

Links discussed in episode

• BS 109 | Introduction to Buddhist Art
• The Rubin Museum
• Himalayan Art
• Assembly of the Exalted: The Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room
• Encountering the Buddha: Art and Practice across Asia
• Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room