virtual-orientalism_iwamura-jane.md

title	authors	year	publisher	status	olid	course	tags	pages
Virtual Orientalism: Asian Religions and American Popular Culture	iwamura-jane	2011	oxford	featured	OL24566653M	west	american ambulit orientalism media film	214

Growing tolerance toward Asian peoples and cultures was fostered in a mass-mediated environment in which the role of the visual image took on increasing importance. While this environment allowed a popular engagement with Asian religious traditions, it also relied on and reinforced certain racialized notions of Asianness and Asian religiosity. These notions form patterns of representation that, because they are linked to such positive images, go unchallenged and unseen.

This fascinating and compelling history of the "Oriental Monk" figure in 20th century American media shows how Americans came to have certain feelings and expectations (that is to say, stereotypes) about Eastern spirituality in general and monks in particular which continue to shape Buddhism to this day.