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UID:437@harvard-yenching.org
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260407T113000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260407T130000
DTSTAMP:20260320T163246Z
URL:https://www.harvard-yenching.org/events/the-making-of-modern-monastic-
 autonomy-in-thailand/
SUMMARY:The Making of Modern Monastic Autonomy in Thailand
DESCRIPTION:Co-sponsored with the Asia Center\nSince the 1990s\, monastic p
 olitical activism has become a conspicuous aspect of Thai politics. The po
 litical salience of the contemporary Thai sangha\, however\, is usually ex
 plained through institutional or legal frameworks from the Sangha Act to s
 tate patronage and ecclesiastical hierarchy. I argue for a different entry
  point: the ideological formations embedded in the writings of monastic in
 tellectuals during the 1980s and their role in the making of modern monast
 ic autonomy. Drawing on texts by the likes of Phra Tham Metaporn (Rabaep T
 hitayano) and P.A. Payutto\, I explore how a generation of Buddhist thinke
 rs\, shaped by Cold War counterinsurgency and the sangha's expanding insti
 tutional role\, articulated a new vision of monastic authority\, one which
  championed the superiority of Buddhism as a source of Thai cultural ident
 ity and positioned the sangha as its primary custodian. I argue that this 
 repositioning was not simply doctrinal but a formative moment in the reass
 ertion of monastic authority against state control\, creating the foundati
 on for monastic institutions and political subjectivity in the decades tha
 t followed. These writings traveled from texts to institutions and politic
 al action through monastic education\, the expansion of the sangha's educa
 tional apparatus\, and the networks of students and publications that carr
 ied these ideas into subsequent generations. This process is central to wh
 at I call "monastic ungovernability"\, or the sangha's claim to internal a
 uthority rooted in the Vinaya and monastic lifeworlds as a condition for r
 esistance. From the protests against Pope John Paul II's 1984 visit\, to t
 he founding of the Buddhism Protection Center in 2001\, to the constitutio
 nal campaigns demanding Buddhism's recognition as de facto state religion\
 , to the 2016 Phuttamonthon protest over the Supreme Patriarch nomination\
 , these events were authorized by a cultural framework that positioned the
  sangha as the rightful defender of Buddhism. The history of the Thai sang
 ha\, understood through this lens\, is a history of monastic resistance in
  search of autonomy whose conceptual roots run deeper than its most visibl
 e political moments.\n
CATEGORIES:Visiting Scholar Talks
LOCATION:Common Room (#136)\, 2 Divinity Avenue\, Cambridge\, MA\, United S
 tates
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 ge\, MA\, United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=100;X-TITLE=Common Room (#136):geo:
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