Few regions on earth have witnessed such rapid social change as the Arabian Gulf States (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Kuwait and Oman). Wealth from oil and gas has radically transformed the landscapes, lifestyles and human relationships across these nations. Transformation however is seldom painless, and numerous psychosocial challenges have followed the triumphal progress. The psychological implications of the region's meteoric modernization have not received sustained examination until now. Tensions between traditional ways of life, rooted in cultural and Islamic values, and the influx of foreign lifestyles are implicated in the rise of common psychological problems such as depression, addiction and eating disorders. Psychological Well-Being in the Gulf States examines these issues, providing an in-depth exploration of the psychological consequences of transition. This important work also looks at how the region's traditional cultural values may foster resilience against psychological problems, and how these values have a vital role to play in developing effective therapies and culturally grounded prevention strategies.

Few regions of the planet have undergone such rapid social transition as the Arabian Gulf States. Psychological Well-Being in the Gulf States explores the implications of these rapid changes in terms of mental health and psychological well-being.

Few regions of the planet have undergone such rapid social transition as the Arabian Gulf States. Psychological Well-Being in the Gulf States explores the implications of these rapid changes in terms of mental health and psychological well-being.

This book introduces contemporary Buddhists from across Asia and from various walks of life. Eschewing traditional hagiographies, the editors have collected sixty-six profiles of individuals who would be excluded from most Buddhist histories and ethnographies. In addition to monks and nuns, readers will encounter artists, psychologists, social workers, part-time priests, healers, and librarians as well as charlatans, hucksters, profiteers, and rabble-rousers—all whose lives reflect changes in modern Buddhism even as they themselves shape the course of these changes. The editors and contributors are fundamentally concerned with how individual Buddhists make meaning and display this understanding to others. Some practitioners profiled look to the past, lamenting the transformations Buddhism has undergone in recent times, while others embrace these. Some have adopted a “new asceticism,” while others are eager to explore different religious traditions as they think about their own ways of being Buddhist. Arranging the profiles according to these themes—looking backward, forward, inward, and outward—reveals the value of studying individual Buddhists and their idiosyncratic religious backgrounds and attitudes, thus highlighting the diversity of approaches to the practice and study of Buddhism in Asia today. Students and teachers will welcome sections on further readings and additional tables of contents that organize the profiles thematically, as well as by tradition (Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana), region, and country.

A collection of essays engaging with Buddhism in Thailand and the virtues of distraction and variety within the materialist turn in studies of religion. In Thailand, Buddhism is deeply integrated into national institutions and ideologies, making it tempting to think of Buddhism in Thailand as a textual, institutional, cultural, and conceptual whole. At the same time, religious expression in the country reflects anything but a single order. Often gaudy, cacophonous, variegated, and jumbled, diversity and apparent contradiction abound. A more open engagement with Buddhism in Thailand requires a willingness to be distracted, to step away from received hierarchies and follow the intriguing detail in the ornate design, the odd textual reference, and to prefer "thin description" over a search for meaning. Justin McDaniel's well-known book-length writings in Buddhist and Theravada studies cannot be fully understood without taking into account his shorter writings, what he calls his wayward distractions. Collected together for the first time, these essays cover subjects ranging from ornamental art to marriage and emotion, the role of Hinduism, neglected gender and ethnic diversity, Buddhist inflections in contemporary art practice, and the boundaries between the living, dead, and undead. These writings will be of importance to students of Theravada and Thailand, of religion in Southeast Asia and more generally, of the materialist turn in studies of religion.

The diffusion of religious thought in Buddhist Asia has been marked by new modes of expression. Sometimes this has meant textual translation, as highlighted in chapters about Chinese and Japanese Buddhist texts or the analysis of manuscripts in northern Thailand. In other cases it has been cultural translation, such as local adaptations of jataka tales, legal concepts developed out of Theravada Buddhist teachings, or localization of art, inscriptions, and other material culture. Additional chapters study other types of engagement: the encounter of East and West in British geographical and anthropological exploration of Burma, and the place of Brahmanism in early Buddhist thought as expressed through the jatakas. Together these contributions recognize that beyond being isolated by sectarian divisions, disparate Buddhist traditions have flourished through their simultaneity.

Harlem jazz trumpeter Pete Peters was murdered in 1933, hours before the birth of his son. Twenty-four years later, his son, Horatio Peters believes he's only chasing his father s genius rather than following in his father s footsteps. A remarkable trumpet player in his own right, Horatio struggles with playing original pieces left behind by his father. The works play perfectly in his head, but terribly through his horn. Seeking his father s music teachers, Horatio's journey will take him to Clarksdale, Mississippi. There he will meet the grand music instructors Jackson and Gaston Fable and all their wondrous tricks, rich history, and thumping music. Horatio's journey will collide with the stories of three generations of women from Water Bug Hollow, Louisiana, a seductive and wicked woman of fair beauty, and the proper keys to unlock the endearing story of another lifetime hidden in the mysterious notations of his father's music.

Keith Joseph is a confidence man, a young 24-year old Black schemer with confidence. He's always had a method to his madness, a point to his sharp intellect. Now, he's about to add rhyme to his reason. Keith Joseph plans to steal the entire genre of Hip Hop. And to do this, he's going to assemble a crew of fellow confidence men, pranksters, a retired beat maker, and a poet to break into the toughest, most well concealed, heavily guarded place on the planet ... ... The Music Industry. From the author of 12 Stories High and The Ronin Poetz comes Code-47: Memoirs of a Hip Hop Heist.

North Africa, 1640. Welcome to al-Mari Ifriq, a small city dreaming of its borders to reach the coast. Its dusty, unpaved roads and small districts set the unofficial borders, providing reminders of the minor squabbles initiated by surrounding maritime companies that vie for control of each other, the city, and the entire region of Odongo-Mauharim. Thus sets the grand African tale of Moorish Company Bosses, corsairs, and kingdoms involved in all manner of legitimate and illicit politics. Join the adventure of three African states. The first, a city ruled by corsair politics. The second, a Kingdom on the brink of war. The last, a nomadic nation marked by Europeans for enslavement. Corsairs. Revolutionary warriors. Merchants, slavers, and gangsters. Join the Company.

Buddhism, often described as an austere religion that condemns desire, promotes denial, and idealizes the contemplative life, actually has a thriving leisure culture in Asia. Creative religious improvisations designed by Buddhists have been produced both within and outside of monasteries across the region-in Nepal, Japan, Korea, Macau, Hong Kong, Singapore, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. Justin McDaniel looks at the growth of Asia's culture of Buddhist leisure-what he calls "socially disengaged Buddhism"-through a study of architects responsible for monuments, museums, amusement parks, and other sites. In conversation with noted theorists of material and visual culture and anthropologists of art, McDaniel argues that such sites highlight the importance of public, leisure, and spectacle culture from a Buddhist perspective and illustrate how "secular" and "religious," "public" and "private," are in many ways false binaries. Moreover, places like Lek Wiriyaphan's Sanctuary of Truth in Thailand, Su?i Tien Amusement Park in Saigon, and Shi Fa Zhao's multilevel museum/ritual space/tea house in Singapore reflect a growing Buddhist ecumenism built through repetitive affective encounters instead of didactic sermons and sectarian developments. They present different Buddhist traditions, images, and aesthetic expressions as united but not uniform, collected but not concise: Together they form a gathering, not a movement. Despite the ingenuity of lay and ordained visionaries like Wiriyaphan and Zhao and their colleagues Kenzo Tange, Chan-soo Park, Tadao Ando, and others discussed in this book, creators of Buddhist leisure sites often face problems along the way. Parks and museums are complex adaptive systems that are changed and influenced by budgets, available materials, local and global economic conditions, and visitors. Architects must often compromise and settle at local optima, and no matter what they intend, their buildings will develop lives of their own. Provocative and theoretically innovative, Architects of Buddhist Leisure asks readers to question the very category of "religious" architecture. It challenges current methodological approaches in religious studies and speaks to a broad audience interested in modern art, architecture, religion, anthropology, and material culture.

Winner of the Henry J. Benda Prize sponsored by the Association for Asian Studies Gathering Leaves and Lifting Words examines modern and premodern Buddhist monastic education traditions in Laos and Thailand. Through five centuries of adaptation and reinterpretation of sacred texts and commentaries, Justin McDaniel traces curricular variations in Buddhist oral and written education that reflect a wide array of community goals and values. He depicts Buddhism as a series of overlapping processes, bringing fresh attention to the continuities of Theravada monastic communities that have endured despite regional and linguistic variations. Incorporating both primary and secondary sources from Thailand and Laos, he examines premodern inscriptional, codicological, anthropological, art historical, ecclesiastical, royal, and French colonial records. By looking at modern sermons, and even television programs and websites, he traces how pedagogical techniques found in premodern palm-leaf manuscripts are pervasive in modern education. As the first comprehensive study of monastic education in Thailand and Laos, Gathering Leaves and Lifting Words will appeal to a wide audience of scholars and students interested in religious studies, anthropology, social and intellectual history, and pedagogy.

Winner of the Henry J. Benda Prize sponsored by the Association for Asian Studies Gathering Leaves and Lifting Words examines modern and premodern Buddhist monastic education traditions in Laos and Thailand. Through five centuries of adaptation and reinterpretation of sacred texts and commentaries, Justin McDaniel traces curricular variations in Buddhist oral and written education that reflect a wide array of community goals and values. He depicts Buddhism as a series of overlapping processes, bringing fresh attention to the continuities of Theravada monastic communities that have endured despite regional and linguistic variations. Incorporating both primary and secondary sources from Thailand and Laos, he examines premodern inscriptional, codicological, anthropological, art historical, ecclesiastical, royal, and French colonial records. By looking at modern sermons, and even television programs and websites, he traces how pedagogical techniques found in premodern palm-leaf manuscripts are pervasive in modern education. As the first comprehensive study of monastic education in Thailand and Laos, Gathering Leaves and Lifting Words will appeal to a wide audience of scholars and students interested in religious studies, anthropology, social and intellectual history, and pedagogy.