Globalizing Feminism: Taking Refuge in the Liberated Mind

Extract

One of the most pressing and urgent academic tasks of the day is to dismantle the persistent Eurocentrism of philosophy. In the quest to remedy the white, middle-class, heteronormative, and European biases of philosophy's initial expressions, feminist theorizing has cultivated culturally and ethnically specific forms, intersectional analyses, and global articulations. Buddhism beyond Gender and Women and Buddhist Philosophy breathe new vitality into these pursuits. Both books underscore the immense potential of the core doctrines of Buddhist philosophy, such as the nonsubstantialist view of self, the nondualistic outlook, and the ontological premise of the interdependence of all beings (pratītyasamutpāda), for overcoming Western hierarchies, reified conceptions of identity, and pernicious dichotomies. The two women represented in these books—Rita Gross herself (1943–2015) and Kim Iryŏp, a Buddhist nun (1896–1971)—ground philosophy in a narrative, existential journey and in their personal practices as Buddhists. In contrast with Gross's second-wave methodology and revisionist aims, Park's contribution to comparative feminist scholarship underscores the originality of Iryŏp's attempt to rethink Buddhist ideas in a contemporary feminist context. Particularly compelling is that Park unequivocally defends existential narrative as a genre of philosophy largely through an analysis of the Buddhist nun's love letters.