Zen in Brazil : cannibalizing Orientalist flows

    Research output: Chapter in Book / Conference PaperChapter

    Abstract

    In considering the Japanese Diaspora in Brazil, I will examine how European ideas of Orientalism mediated the Brazilian cultural elite’s perceptions of Japan, Buddhism in general, and Zen. Rather than viewing Japanese immigrant communities in Brazil as a source of the “exotic East,” Brazilian artists and intellectuals – and eventually the general public, - were inspired either indirectly by ideas of Orientalism originating from cultural centers in the West such as France, England, and the United States, or directly through assumptions about the “authenticity” of Japan itself. As a result, Zen was never confined to the narrow boundaries of the temples established by Sôtô Zenshû (the only Japanese Zen school in Brazil), but has been disseminated in elite culture.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationOrientalism and Identity in Latin America: Fashioning Self and Other from the (Post) Colonial Margin
    EditorsErik Camayd-Freixas
    Place of PublicationU.S.A.
    PublisherUniversity of Arizona Press
    Pages200-216
    Number of pages17
    ISBN (Print)9780816529537
    Publication statusPublished - 2013

    Keywords

    • Zen Buddhism
    • Brazil
    • Japan
    • Orientalism
    • postcolonialism

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