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Virtual Orientalism: Asian Religions and American Popular Culture
Jane Iwamura
ABSTRACT
Saffron-robed monks and long-haired gurus have become familiar characters on the American popular culture scene. This book examines the contemporary fascination with Eastern spirituality and provides a cultural history of the representation of Asian religions in American mass media. Initial engagements with Asian spiritual heritages were mediated by monks, gurus, bhikkhus, sages, sifus, healers, and masters from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds and religious traditions. Virtual Orientalism shows the evolution of these interactions, from direct engagements with specific individuals, to mediated relations with a conventionalized icon. Visually and psychically compelling, the Oriental Monk becomes for Americans a “figure of translation” - a convenient symbol for alternative spiritualities and modes of being. Through the figure of the solitary Monk, who generously and purposefully shares his wisdom with the West, Asian religiosity is made manageable — psychologically, socially, and politically — for popular culture consumption. On an historical level, the books argues that American mass awareness of Asian religions coincides with the advent of visually-oriented media (magazines, television, and film) and examines how technological transformations ushered in a new form of Orientalism — virtual Orientalism — prevalent since the late 1950s. Although popular engagement with Asian religions in the U.S. has increased, the fact that much of this has taken virtual form makes stereotypical constructions of “the spiritual East” obdurate and especially difficult to challenge. Representational moments in Virtual Orientalism’s development that are examined include: D.T. Suzuki and the 1950s Zen Boom; the Maharishi Mahesh and his celebrity followers in the 1960s and; Kwai Chang Caine in the popular 1970 television series, Kung Fu.
Keywords: virtual orientalism, Asian religions, U.S. popular culture, mass media, icon, stereotypes, visual culture, monk, guru, spirituality
BIBLIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION
Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199738601
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2011
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Contents
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Front Matter
1 Introduction
2 Zen’s Personality
3 Hyperreal Samadhi
4 The Monk Goes Hollywood
5 Conclusion
Contents
Go to page:
Front Matter
1 Introduction
2 Zen’s Personality
3 Hyperreal Samadhi
4 The Monk Goes Hollywood
5 Conclusion
Review
Easily accessible, this work will interest students of American popular culture, media studies, and Asian American religiosity. Highly recommended.
--Choice
About the Author
Jane Naomi Iwamura is Visiting Scholar at the UCLA Asian American Studies Center. Her research focuses on Asian American religions, race and popular culture in the United States (with an emphasis on visual culture), and her publications include the co-edited volume, Revealing the Sacred in Asian and Pacific America (2003).
Sneezy777
별 5개 중 3.0 Very good.미국에서 2016년 9월 25일에 검토됨
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Those of us born, circa 1954, have lived every page of this book. Our feeble understanding of cultures of the East has not been improved by our exposure to Western media interpretation. Our generation is well rebuked for the intellectual laziness and dishonesty that allows history to be replaced by hokum. This book is a rare effort to enlighten us. Well done!
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Mark
별 5개 중 5.0 Virtually Hopeful미국에서 2014년 11월 16일에 검토됨
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Dr. Iwamura brings sensitivity and a critical eye to one aspect of a deeply troubling form of subtle media propaganda that happens all over the globe, in different ways and different forms. I love the way it looks at the uniquely American form of replacing an objected racial identity, and reconstituting it in favor of the marketing, political and social trends of the times; It is a helpful, and hopeful look at how we can begin to look critically, at how media is portraying race.
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Jimmy Otterby
별 5개 중 5.0 good book i purchased for school.미국에서 2015년 5월 28일에 검토됨
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good book i purchased for school.
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Angie Lee
별 5개 중 5.0 My Dear Professor's Work미국에서 2015년 2월 15일에 검토됨
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My dearest professor's work. Although as a foreign student I did not get it all, but now I am still able to sense how "uncanny" it is.
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Collin Sibley
별 5개 중 5.0 An excellent discussion of the construction of Orientalist images in Western ...미국에서 2015년 4월 24일에 검토됨
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An excellent discussion of the construction of Orientalist images in Western popular media. Well argued and contextualized, and Iwamura's selection of cases is on point.
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Steven R. Urquhart
별 5개 중 5.0 Excellent account of how the East met West미국에서 2014년 9월 9일에 검토됨
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Excellent account of how the East met West, especially interesting to fans of "Kung Fu".
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Sophia R Arjana
별 5개 중 5.0 This is such a good book! I just read it as part of ...미국에서 2018년 4월 19일에 검토됨
This is such a good book! I just read it as part of some research I am doing and could hardly put it down. Iwamura is one of those rare scholars who can write well, in an accessible way, but while presenting a great academic study. I would suggest this book for students of Buddhism, American Studies, history, Orientalism, and gender. It's really one of the best books I have read for a while. Looking forward to reading the next book by Dr. Iwamura!
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