Publications

The research and publications of Centre for Contemporary Buddhist Studies explore how contemporary Buddhist ideas and practices influence, and are influenced by, the social, economic, material and more-than-human relations in which they are embedded.

Recent publications

2024

Abrahms-Kavunenko, Saskia 2024. ‘Shown by the Marron’s Claw: Ecological Receptivity as Mindful Praxis. Journal of Global Buddhism, 25, 1: 44-59.

Abrahms-Kavunenko, Saskia and Jovan Maud. 2024. Buddhism in the Anthropocene: Opening the Global to the Planetary. Journal of Global Buddhism. 25, 1: 1-9.

Abrahms-Kavunenko, Saskia and Jovan. Maud. 2024. Buddhism in the Anthropocene. Special issue in Journal of Global Buddhism. 25.

Abrahms-Kavunenko, Saskia 2024. ‘On Ecological Degradation and the Practice of Purification in Urban Mongolia.’ The Oxford Handbook of Lived Buddhism. Edited by Courtney Bruntz and Brooke Schedneck. University of Oxford Press.

Borup, Jørn 2024 Decolonising the study of religion Who owns Buddhism? 
London: Routledge (Routledge Studies in Asian Religion and Philosophy).

Borup, Jørn 2024 “East Asian Contemporary Religions in Denmark”.  Ugo Dessi; Lionel Obadia; Laurence Cox; Lukas Pokorny (eds.) Exploring East Asian Religions in Europe. Leiden: Brill.

Borup, Jørn and Marianne Qvortrup Fibiger 2024 “Yoga and mindfulness as a fluctuating field”. Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion 11.

Borup, Jørn 2024 “Divide and rule: strategic encounters between a hippie Buddhist lama and a Christian countercult leader in the early phase of practised Buddhism in Denmark.” Kurt Gakuro Krammer, John O’Grady and Martin Rötting (eds.) Euro-Buddhism and the Role of Christianity. Sankt Ottilien: EOS.

Borup, Jørn 2024 “Hjertesutraen i hermeneutisk-performativt lys”. Laura Feldt; Catharina Raudvere and Jørn Borup (eds.). Religionshistorisk metodebog. Højbjerg: Forlaget Univers.

Brox, Trine 2024 "Tibetan Buddhism in the Age of Waste". Journal Of The American Academy Of Religion X(x): 0-16. E-publication ahead of print: https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfae041

Chophel, Dendup 2024. “‘Ranked’ Sacrificial Offerings: Reconstructing the Hierarchy of Bhutan’s Historical Public Service Through New Textual and Ethnographic Sources”, in Seiji Kumagai, Miguel Álvarez Ortega, Françoise Pommaret and Anna Balikci Denjongpa (eds), Traditional Neighbours, Different Modernities: Bhutan, Sikkim and the Mon Region, 425-459, Tokyo, Boston and London: Trans Pacific Press and Kyoto University Press.

Christopher, Stephen 2024 “The Modern Mystery School.” Dictionary of Contemporary Esotericism. Edited by Egil Asprem. Brill’s Esotericism Reference Library series (preprint published May 6, 2024).

Christopher, Stephen 2024 “Alien Astronauts, Underwater Civilizations and Radioactive Volcanos: A Global Esoteric Business Imagines Japan.” Special Issue: Esotericism, occultism, and spiritual therapies during the long twentieth century: Theoretical implications. Co-edited by Erica Baffelli and Ioannis Gaitanidis. Religious Studies in Japan 7: 63–84.

Christopher, Stephen and Hoang Ngoc An 2024 “Corporate Religion and Spiritual Tourism at a Luxury Tibetan Buddhist Resort.” Contemporary Buddhism (1–24). https://doi.org/10.1080/14639947.2024.2341445.

Kolata, Paulina 2024 "Cloned Buddhas: mapping out the DNA of Buddhist heritage preservation." Cultural Studies, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2024.2363187

Kolata, Paulina 2024 “Gendering Religious Labor and Buddhist Temple Economies in Contemporary Japan.” In Dawn Llewellyn, Sonya Sharma, and Melvill Hawthorne (eds.) The Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion, Gender, and Sexuality, Bloomsbury, pp. 195-212. 

2023

Abrahms-Kavunenko, Saskia 2023 “Toward an Anthropology of Plastics.” Journal of Material Culture. 28, 1: 3-23.

Borup, Jørn 2023. ”Buddhisme og buddhister i Aarhus”. Center for Samtidsreligion. Religion i Aarhus 2022: En kortlægning af religion og spiritualitet. 12-54.

Borup, Jørn, Anne Lundahl Mauritsen; Marie Vejrup Nielsen and Ben Purzycki 2023 “Cultural religion - patterns of contemporary majority religion in Denmark”,
Journal of Contemporary Religion. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13537903.2023.2221521

Brox, Trine, Kirsten Skov Vang, Heng Peng 2023 "What Becomes of a Shell: Observations of Prayer Wheel Wear Pads in Lhasa and Kathmandu". Blog post of 5300 words with 21 illustrations published 8/8 on the research community blog Object Lessons from Tibet & the Himalayas: https://objectlessonsfromtibetblog.wordpress.com/2023/08/08/what-can-become-of-a-shell/ .

Brox, Trine 2023 "Dalai Lama XIV: Manden, magten, fremtiden" [Dalai Lama XIV: The man, the power, the future]. Tibet, vol. 39(102): 3-8. https://static-curis.ku.dk/portal/files/361441607/Brox_2023_Dalai_Lama_XIV.pdf .

Christopher, Stephen 2023 “Review of Buddhism under Capitalism”. Journal of Buddhist Ethics 30:59–67.

Christopher, Stephen. 2023. “Priestly Purity: Status Competition in the Tribal Margins.” HIMALAYA  42(2): 51–69.

Christopher, Stephen and Gabrielle Laumonier 2023 “The Eroticization of Tibetan Monks in Shōnen-ai and Yaoi Manga”. Special Issue: Religion in Popular Global Culture. East Asian Journal of Popular Culture 9(1): 83–102.

Christopher, Stephen and Peter Phillimore. 2023. “Exploring Gaddi Pluralities: An Introduction and Overview.” HIMALAYA 42(2): 3–20.

Christopher, Stephen, Matthew Shutzer, Raile Rocky Ziipao. 2023. “An Introduction to Tribal Ecologies in Modern India.” Journal of the Tribal Intellectual Collective India 7(1): 1–18.

Christopher, Stephen, Matthew Shutzer, Raile Rocky Ziipao et al. 2023. “Antinomies of Ecology and Scales of Tribal Development in India.” Journal of the Tribal Intellectual Collective India 7(3): 50–71.

Monroe, M. Willis Rachel Spicer, Stephen Christopher, Edward Slingerland, et al. 2023. “On the Notion of ‘Religion’: A Taxonomic Analysis of a Large-Scale Database.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 1–26.

Kolata, Paulina 2023 “Navigating inclusion: ‘home-making’ in the UK Shin Buddhist community”. Religion, State and Society 51(3): 283-299.

2022

Abrahms-Kavunenko, Saskia 2022 “Buddhism in the Life of Ulaanbaatar: Nucleus, Trace and Bustling Urbanite.” Religion and Urbanity Online.

Abrahms-Kavunenko, Saskia “Mongolian Buddhism, Science and Healing: A Modernist Legacy”. Central Asian Survey. 41, 1: 41-57.

Abrahms-Kavunenko, Saskia 2022 “Zombie Waste, Mummy Materiality: The Undead and the Fate of Mongolian Buddhist Waste.” In Buddhism and Waste: The Excess, Discard, and Afterlife of Buddhist Consumption. Edited by Brox, Trine and Elizabeth Williams-Oerberg. Series: Bloomsbury Studies in Material Religion. London: Bloomsbury Academic, pp.: 145-166.

Abrahms-Kavunenko, Saskia and Trine Brox 2022 “Plastic Asia: Material Ambiguities and Cultural Imaginaries.” Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies. 4, 1.

Borup, Jørn 2022 ”Buddhas japanske krigere.” Religion. Tidsskriftet for Religionslærerforeningen for Gymnasiet og HF 3: 8-17.

Borup, Jørn 2022 ”Japan post-corona.” Religion. Tidsskriftet for Religionslærerforeningen for Gymnasiet og HF 9: 38-45.

Brox, Trine 2022 "Plastic Skinscapes in Tibetan Buddhism". The Copenhagen Journal of Asia Studies 40(2): 91-114. https://rauli.cbs.dk/index.php/cjas/article/view/6557/7119

Brox, Trine 2022 "What is the Value of a Tibetan Prayer Wheel?". Social Compass 69(2): 205-222. https://doi.org/10.1177/00377686221083116

Brox, Trine 2022 "A Framework for Studying Buddhism and Waste". Buddhism and Waste: The Excess, Discard, and Afterlife of Buddhist Consumption. Edited by Trine Brox and Elizabeth Williams-Oerberg. Series: Bloomsbury Studies in Material Religion. London: Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 1-30. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350195561.0006

Brox, Trine and Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko (eds.) 2022 "Plastic Asia", special issue of Copenhagen Journal of Asia Studies, consisting of five articles. https://rauli.cbs.dk/index.php/cjas/issue/view/840 

Brox, Trine and Elizabeth Williams-Oerberg (eds.) 2022 Buddhism and Waste: The Excess, Discard, and Afterlife of Buddhist Consumption. Series: Bloomsbury Studies in Material Religion. Bloomsbury Academic. https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/buddhism-and-waste-9781350195554/

Christopher, Stephen. 2022. “Critique of the Spirit: Vernacular Christianity in the Dalit-Tribal Margins.” Postscripts: The Journal of Sacred Texts, Cultural Histories, and Contemporary Contexts. 13(1):63–90.

Christopher, Stephen. 2022. “Exceptional Aryans: State Misrecognition of Himachali Dalits.” In Caste, COVID-19, and Inequalities of Care: Lessons from South Asia. Edited by Stephen Christopher and Sanghmitra S. Acharya. Delhi: Springer, pp. 13–38.

Christopher, Stephen. 2022. “Black Magic and Hali Spirituality in Himachal Pradesh.” In Inclusion and Access in the Land of Unequal Opportunities: Mapping Identity-induced Marginalisation in India. Edited by R.K. Kale and S.S. Acharya. Delhi: Springer, pp. 38–61.

Kolata, Paulina 2023 Navigating inclusion: ‘home-making’ in the UK Shin Buddhist community, Religion, State and Society, 51:3, 283-299, DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2023.2212578

Reichhardt, B. and Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko. 2022. ‘Plastic Purity and Sacred Dairy: Microbes, Vitality and Standarisation in Mongolian Dairying. The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies 40 (1).

2021

Abrahms-Kavunenko, Saskia 2021 “Mongolian Buddhism, science and healing: a modernist legacy.” Central Asian Survey.

Abrahms-Kavunenko, Saskia 2021 “Toward an Anthropology of Plastics.” Journal of Material Culture.

Abrahms-Kavunenko, S., Brumann, C. and B. Świtek 2021 “Introduction”. In Monks, Money, and Morality. Edited by C. Brumann, S. Abrahms-Kavunenko and B. Świtek. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. 

Abrahms-Kavunenko, Saskia 2021. “Regeneration and the Age of Decline: Purification and Rebirth in Mongolian Buddhist Economies.” In Monks, Money, and Morality. Edited by C. Brumann, S. Abrahms-Kavunenko and B. Świtek. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing: 179-194.

Abrahms-Kavunenko, Saskia and Matthew Milligan 2021 “The Wheel Turning King and the Lucky Lottery: Perspectives New and Old on Wealth and Merriment within Buddhism” Journal of Contemporary Buddhism. 36(2): 265-286.

Abrahms-Kavunenko, Saskia, Beata Świtek and Christoph Brumann (eds) 2021 Monks, Money and Morality: The Balancing Act of Contemporary Buddhism. London: Bloomsbury.

Borup, Jørn 2021. Buddha. Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag.

Borup, Jørn 2021 “The economy and Buddhism.” E. Baffelli; A. Castiglioni; F. Rambelli (eds.) The Bloomsbury Handbook of Japanese Religions. London: Bloomsbury Academic, p. 43-50.

Borup, Jørn 2021 “Identity turn: Managing decolonialization and identity politics in the study of religion”. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 11.

Borup, Jørn 2021 “Buddhism and globalization”. Oxford Research Encyclopaedias. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Borup, Jørn 2021 “Secularization of Buddhism”. Oxford Bibliographies. Oxford University Press.

Borup, Jørn 2021 “Introduction: Japanese Buddhism in Europe”. Journal of Religion in Japan 10(2-3): 113-133.

Brox, Trine 2021 “The Aesthetics of In/Authenticity: Buddhism, Commercialization and Ethnoreligious Belonging in a Sino-Tibetan Contact Zone”. NVMEN: International Review for the History of Religions, special issue edited by Baffelli, Erica, Jane Caple, Levi McLaughlin, Frederik Schröer: The Aesthetics and Emotions of Religious Belonging 68 (issue 5-6): 540-566. doi:10.1163/15685276-12341639.

Caple, Jane 2021 “Feeling Apart: Relations of Belonging in Tibetan Buddhist Lay-Monastic Communities”. NVMEN: International Review for the History of Religions, special issue edited by Baffelli, Erica, Jane Caple, Levi McLaughlin, Frederik Schröer: The Aesthetics and Emotions of Religious Belonging 68 (issue 5-6): Pages: 463-487.

Świtek, Beata 2021 “Economic Agency and the Spirit of Donation: The Commercialization of Buddhist Services in Japan”. In: Abrahms-Kavunenko, Saskia, Christoph Brumann, Beata Świtek, eds. Temples, Money and Morality: The Balancing Act of Contemporary Buddhism. Bloomsbury.

Williams-Oerberg, Elizabeth 2021 “Buddhist Ritual as “Connectionwork”: Aesthetics and Technologies of Mediating Religious Belonging.” NVMEN: International Review for the History of Religions, special issue edited by Baffelli, Erica, Jane Caple, Levi McLaughlin, Frederik Schröer: The Aesthetics and Emotions of Religious Belonging 68 (issue 5-6): 488-512.

2020

Abrahms-Kavunenko, Saskia 2020 “Tenuous Blessings: The Materiality of Doubt in a Mongolian Buddhist Wealth Calling Ceremony”. Journal of Material Culture, 25(2): 153-166.

Borup, Jørn 2020 “Buddhist NRMs – Soka Gakkai International and Diamond Way Buddhism”. Wuhan Journal of Cultic Studies, 12.2020, p. 1-15.

Borup, Jørn 2020 “Eriito zen kara taishūteki zen he (エリート禅から大衆的禅へ)。: Nihon to seiyō ni okeru tekisuto to jissen no dokkai (日本と西洋におけるテキストと実践の読解). Gendai shisō 48(15): 308-318.

Borup, Jørn 2020 “Who Owns Religion? Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Cultural Appropriation in Postglobal Buddhism”. Numen 67(2-3): 226-255.

Brox, Trine 2020 “Min mesters dobbeltgænger fylder mig med fred: Populære statuer i Kham”. Tibet, 36(97) Copenhagen: DSTK, 3-8.

Brox, Trine & Elizabeth Williams-Oerberg (eds.) 2020 Buddhism and Business: Merit, Material Wealth and Morality in the Global Market Economy, University of Hawai’i Press, Contemporary Buddhism Series (Ed. Mark Rowe).

Christopher, Stephen. 2020. “Divergent Refugee and Tribal Cosmopolitanism in Dharamshala.” Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies 38(1): 31-54.

Williams-Oerberg, Elizabeth and Brox, Trine 2020 “Buddhist Encounters with Global Market Economy and Consumer Society”, in Trine Brox and Elizabeth Williams-Oerberg (eds.) Buddhism and Business: Merit, Material Wealth and Morality in the Global Market Economy. University of Hawai’i Press, pp. 1-21.

2019

Abrahms-Kavunenko, Saskia 2019 “Mustering Fortune: Attraction and Multiplication in the Echoes of the Boom”, Ethnos 84(5): 891-909.

Abrahms-Kavunenko, Saskia 2019 “Mongolian Buddhism in the Democratic Period”. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion, 2019.

Brox, Trine 2019 “L’aura degli oggetti materiali buddhisti nell’era della produzione in serie.” Myo Magazine, http://www.myoedizioni.it/magazine/laura-degli-oggetti-materiali-buddhisti-nellera-della-produzione-serie/. Translation of “The Aura of Buddhist Material Objects in the Age of Mass-production” (2019) to Italian by Laura Silvestri.

Brox, Trine 2019 “Landscapes of Little Lhasa: Materialities of the Vernacular, Political and Commercial in Urban China”. Geoforum 107(December 2019): 24-33.

Abrahms-Kavunenko, Saskia 2019 Enlightenment and the Gasping City: Mongolian Buddhism at a Time of Environmental Disarray. Cornell University Press.

Borup, Jørn 2019 “Spiritual Capital and Religious Evolution: Buddhist Values and Transactions in Historical and Contemporary Perspective”. Journal of Global Buddhism, 20: 49-68.

Brox, Trine 2019 “The Aura of Buddhist Material Objects in the Age of Mass-production”. Journal of Global Buddhism 20: 105-125.

Caple, Jane 2019 Morality and Monastic Revival in Post-Mao Tibet. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Caple, Jane & Baffelli, Erica 2019. “Religious Authority in East Asia: Materiality, Media, and Aesthetics”. Asian Ethnology. Vol. 78.

Williams-Oerberg, Elizabeth 2019 “Introduction: Buddhism and Economics”. Journal of Global Buddhism 20: 19-29.

Williams-Oerberg, Elizabeth and Trine Brox (eds.) 2019 “Theoretical and Conceptual Approaches to the Burgeoning Field of Buddhism and Economics”, special issue of Journal of Global Buddhism 20.

2018

Borup, Jørn 2018 “Prosperous Buddhism, Prosperity Buddhism, and Religious Capital,”  NVMEN: International Review for the History of Religions 65(2-3): 256-288.

Brox, Trine 2018 “Tekst, teknologi og trope: Det tibetanske bedehjul.” Fund og Forskning 57: 189-220.

2017

Brox, Trine and Elizabeth Williams-Oerberg 2017 “Buddhism, Business and Economics”, in Jerryson, Michael (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Buddhism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 504-17.

Brox, Trine 2017 “Tibetan Minzu Market: The Intersection of Ethnicity and Commodity”. Asian Ethnicity 18(1): 1-21.

Caple, Jane 2017 “Drops of virtue: The ethics of collective sponsorship in Tibet”. Religion and Society 8: 145-157.

2016

Brox, Trine 2016 “中国城市中藏族地方的制造 [Zhongguo chengshi zhong zangzu difang de zhizao, Tibetan Place-making in Urban China]”. 华西边疆评论  [Huaxi Bianjiang Pinglun, Western China Borderland Studies Review] 2016(1): 121-137.

Brox, Trine 2016 “Tibetanerkvarteret i Chengdu”, Tibet 32(89): 12-16.

Borup, Jørn 2016 “Buddhisme på markedsvilkår”. Weekendavisen. 20 (Ideer), 20. maj 2016: 4.

Borup, Jørn 2016 “Propagation, Accommodation and Negotiating Social Capital : Jodo Shinshu Responses to Contemporary Crises”. Japanese Religions 40 (1-2): 85-107.

Borup, Jørn 2016 “Branding Buddha: Mediatized and Commodified Buddhism as Cultural Narrative“. Journal of Global Buddhism 17: 41-55.

2015

Borup, Jørn 2015 “Mindfulness as a booming, diverse and (non) religious phenomenon: Mapping and analysing mindfulness in the city of Aarhus“. Religion i Danmark 7(2): 1-16.

Caple, Jane 2015 “Faith, generosity, knowledge and the Buddhist gift: Moral discourses on Chinese patronage of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries”. Religion Compass 2015: 462-482.