The Buddhist Imagination: Visions and Narratives
A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 September 2016) | Viewed by 827
Special Issue Editor
Interests: East Asian Buddhism; Buddhism and literature; Buddhism and film; Buddhism and science; theories and methods in the study of religion
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
This special issue invites critical reflections on Buddhist theories of the imagination, particularly in the context of visualization and narrative practices in the history of Buddhism. Visualization practices include recollection of the body of the Buddha; the visualization of celestial Buddhas and Buddha-fields (Pure Lands and mandalas), and devotion to images. Narrative practices include biographies, autobiographies, karmic narratives, and fiction. Other genres, such as poetry and film, can be considered as well. Critical reflection on Buddhist theories of the imagination means explicitly articulating the principles that sanction visualization or narrative practice as religiously efficacious. The aim of this special issue is to amass discussions of a range of aesthetic expressions in order to theorize Buddhist views of the nature and power of the imagination. This overview will be provided by the guest editor, who will write a final summation after all contributions have been published online.
Prof. Dr. Francisca Cho
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
References:
Useful reference works include David McMahan’s Empty Vision: Metaphor and Visionary Imagery in Mahayana Buddhism, which examines metaphors of vision and visionary practices; The Karma of Words: Buddhism and the Literary Arts in Medieval Japan, which looks at how literature became serious Buddhist practice; and Francisca Cho’s Embracing Illusion: Truth and Fiction in the Dream of the Nine Clouds, which examines East Asian dream literature as an expression of Buddhist views about illusion and reality. David Shulman’s More than Real: A History of the Imagination in South India articulates theories of the imagination in the cultural milieu that influenced Buddhism.
Keywords
- Imagination
- visions
- images
- biography
- autobiography
- fiction
- aesthetics
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