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Richard S. Cohen

Associate Professor Emeritus

UCSD Hellman Fellow

South Asian Religious Literatures

Buddhism; Religiosity in South Asia; Theory in the Study of Religion

Richard S. Cohen was engaged in two research projects at the time of his retirement. The first explores articulations of authority and power in a fifth-century C.E. Buddhist scripture, entitled, "The Splendid Vision in which One Observes Living Beings and Reveals Buddha Fields through the Empowerment of All Tathagatas." The second project is a broad inquiry into "wisdom." The work begins with a general theory of wisdom, by analyzing the discursive construction of wisdom-claims and counterclaims. It then uses the Buddhist topos of "The Four Immeasurables" love, compassion, joy, serenity to imagine a politics of wisdom that is neither founded upon, nor foundational for, a (crypto)theological imaginary.

Publications

  • Beyond Enlightenment: Buddhism, Religion, Modernity. Oxford and New York: Routledge, 2006.
  • "Ajanta’s Inscriptions." In Walter M. Spink, Ajanta: History and Development, volume 2: Arguments About Ajanta. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2006. pages 273-339.
  • "Response: The Circle Without a Center: Rethinking Religious Authority in India"; Journal of the American Academy of Religion. 73/1 (March 2005): 133-50.
  • "Why Study Indian Buddhism?" In Derek R. Peterson and Darren R. Walhof, eds, The Invention of Religion: Rethinking Belief in Politics and History. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002. pages 19-36.
  • "Shakyamuni: Buddhism’s Founder in Ten Acts." In David Noel Freedman and Michael McClymond, eds, The Rivers of Paradise: Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus and Muhammad as Religious Founders. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 2000. pages 121-232, 663-71.
  • "Kinsmen of the Son: Sakyabhiksus and the Institutionalization of the Bodhisattva Ideal," History of Religions. 40/1 (August 2000): 1-31.
  • "Naga, Yaksini, Buddha: Local Deities and Local Buddhism at Ajanta," History of Religions. 37/4 (May 1998): 360-400.
  • "Discontented Categories: Hinayana and Mahayana in Indian Buddhist History" Journal of the American Academy of Religion. 63/1 (Spring 1995): 1-25.

  • Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies, University of Michigan, 1995

  • M.A. Religious Studies, Wesleyan University

  • B.A. in Religious Studies, Wesleyan University