Hsiao-Lan Hu: "A Feminist Exegesis of Non-Self: On Classical Buddhist Understanding of Personhood and Identity"

This is a very interesting lecture on the nature of no-self as seen from a feminist perspective. The video comes from The Metanexus Institute's Subject, Self, and Soul: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Personhood collection of videos.

Hsiao-Lan Hu: "A Feminist Exegesis of Non-Self: On Classical Buddhist Understanding of Personhood and Identity"

One of the most widely known and perplexing teachings of Buddhism is Non-Self, which seems to categorically negate the existence of individuals. Coincidentally, one of the contemporary feminist theories that draws the most critical attention is the social constructedness of gender and subjectivity. With this and other similarities, Buddhism and feminism can very well provide an exegetical framework, as well as serve as an interpretive tool and as a corrective to the gender-blindness in the understanding of the Buddhist Dhamma. Non-Self may be easier to comprehend with the feminist analysis of the constructedness of gender identity, which has been ironically overlooked in the discourses of Buddhism, a tradition dedicated to reflecting on habitual patterns of conventional ego.

2008 July 15

Hsiao-Lan Hu: "A Feminist Exegesis of Non-Self: On Classical Buddhist Understanding of Personhood and Identity" from Metanexus Institute on Vimeo.

Tags: Subject, Self, Soul, Transdisciplinary Approaches to Personhood, Hsiao-Lan Hu, A Feminist Exegesis of Non-Self, On Classical Buddhist Understanding of Personhood and Identity, Metanexus Institute, Buddhism, Psychology, gender, no-self, constructedness of gender identity