NextGen Buddhism Panel Discussion

ISHB is excited to present NextGen Buddhism, a special event featuring authors, Chenxing Han and Drew Baker. Both Chenxing’s new book, Be the Refuge: Raising the Voice of Asian American Buddhists (2021), and Drew’s new book, Converting American Buddhism: Second-Generation Buddhist Americans, Orientalism, and the Politics of Family Religion (2020), put the spotlight on new threads and emerging narratives in American Buddhism.

The event will be moderated by Dr. Jane Iwamura, Chief Academic Officer at University of West. The conversation will center on the topics that both authors bring up in their respective works and will include an open Q & A. Registration is free and open to everyone.

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About Our Guests

Chenxing Han is a Bay Area–based writer whose publications have appeared in Lion’s Roar, Pacific World, Tricycle, and elsewhere. She holds a BA from Stanford University, an MA in Buddhist Studies from the Graduate Theological Union, and a certificate in Buddhist chaplaincy from the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, California.

Drew Baker is the Managing Director of the Digital Theological Library. He is a white second-generation Buddhist from Boise, Idaho. He holds a PhD in Religious Studies from Claremont School of Theology and an MLIS from San Jose State University.

About Our Moderator

Dr. Jane Naomi Iwamura is Chief Academic Officer and Professor of Religious Studies at University of the West. Her research focuses on Asian American religions, race and popular culture in the United States (with an emphasis on visual culture). Her publications include Virtual Orientalism: Religion and Popular Culture in the U.S. (Oxford 2011) and the co-edited volume, Revealing the Sacred in Asian and Pacific America (Routledge 2003). She has also written on Japanese American lived religions, as well as the intersection of religion and Asian American literary production, and is the co-founder and current steering committee member of the Asian Pacific American Religions Initiative (APARRI).

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