Daisaku Ikeda, Transnationalism, and American Literature by Patterson, Anita;

Short description:

Daisaku Ikeda, Transnationalism, and American Literature examines the writings of Nichiren Buddhist philosopher, poet, and peacebuilder Daisaku Ikeda (1928-2023), focusing on how American literature and transnationalism are integral to the development of his Buddhist philosophy and practices in peacebuilding, religion, and education.

Long description:

Daisaku Ikeda, Transnationalism, and American Literature: Dialogues of the Heart examines the writings of Nichiren Buddhist philosopher, poet, and peacebuilder Daisaku Ikeda (1928–2023), focusing on how American literature and transnationalism are integral to the development of his Buddhist philosophy and practices in peacebuilding, religion, and education.

Each chapter explores his engagement with a diverse array of literary texts, from Emerson, Whitman, and other authors of the American Renaissance to the philosophical pragmatism of John Dewey and Martin Luther King Jr., African American literature by Ralph Ellison and Langston Hughes, and a global culture of letters by Muriel Rukeyser, Ben Okri, and others. Throughout, contributors demonstrate the transformative power of literature and philosophy, including their capacities to inspire dialogue and shape Ikeda’s global peacebuilding and human rights agenda. Topics addressed include how poetry enables a pragmatist call to action and how Buddhism inspired avant-gardism in American literature and Black literature in the United States, as well as in Africa.

This edited volume utilizes a range of methodologies to study Ikeda, including a historicist analysis of Ikeda’s evolving engagement with American literature, the application of literary theory and philosophy to Ikeda’s work, and comparative analyses of Ikeda’s views with other thinkers, as well as analyses of Ikeda’s poetry alongside that of other poets.

Table of Contents:

Daisaku Ikeda's Dialogues of the Heart: An Introduction. 1 “In the Palace of My Heart”: The Presence of the American Renaissance in Daisaku Ikeda’s Lyric, Pragmatic Poetry of Peace. 2 A New Errand Bearer: Daisaku Ikeda’s Poetic Response to Walt Whitman and His Quest for Peace. 3 The Poem as Dependent Origination: Daisaku Ikeda, Walt Whitman, and Reader Response. 4 “The World Globes Itself in a Drop of Dew”: Emerson’s and Ikeda’s Short Poems. 5 Understanding Daisaku Ikeda’s New Renaissance: An Apprenticeship in Transnational Reading. 6 The Dance of the Buddha and a Poetics of Peace in Daisaku Ikeda and Muriel Rukeyser. 7 Daisaku Ikeda’s Literary Selfhood in the Justice of Becoming: Toward the Second American Renaissance and the Dawn of a New Global Age. 8 The New Human Revolution: Daisaku Ikeda’s Engagement with African and African American Poetry. 9 The Dialectics of Nonviolence: Buddhist Empathy and African American Liberation Thought.