Rev. Danny Fisher

Today’s mailbag question comes from a friend of mine studying Buddhism in Southeast Asia. In preparation for some work he has to do, he’s currently looking for examples of ethnographic research outside his own area of expertise. He wrote to a couple of friends asking for examples of ethnographic research from area studies we have specific training in. In my case, he asked for examples from Indo-Tibetan Buddhist studies. Though we exchanged messages privately, this was another case where I felt like it might be helpful to share. (You might be interested to learn about particular books, and if you’re an expert you can share other titles and information that might help my pal out.) Please feel free to leave comments, further questions, quibbles, or your own recommendations below.

DEAR ANONYMOUS: First, just to state the obvious, I’m not an anthropologist. One such professional would certainly know more about this than I. That said, I’m a pretty voracious reader of Buddhist studies materials–a nerd, if you will–and I suspect you would find some or all of the following helpful in terms of offering good theoretical models from which to learn:

In the video below from the Associated Press, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) discusses documents he released which show that hotels near Olympic venues in Beijing have been ordered to install spying software. For more information, check out this blog post at Mother Jones, which has lots of good links (including one to an Amnesty International report published today).

Via the U.S. Campaign for Burma: At 10:30 this morning, from the Oval Office, George W. Bush signed a piece of legislation and a joint resolution that will renew old sanctions and restrictions and impose new ones on Burma. He said:

Laura and I are welcome–are pleased to welcome members of the Lantos family–Mrs. Lantos, thanks for joining us–and members of Congress who care deeply about democracy in Burma. I’m going to sign a piece of legislation and a joint resolution that will continue some sanctions, propose new sanctions, and extend the import restrictions. On the Burmese regime, our message is: The United States believes in democracy and freedom.

Not only will I sign the joint resolution, I’m also looking forward to signing the Tom Lantos Block Burmese JADE Act of 2008. Thank you all for joining us. Thank you for your caring.

Via deathpower: A group of scholars of Southeast Asian studies have composed an open letter regarding the standoff between Cambodia and Thailand at Preah Vihear. Among other things, the scholars assert that sovereignty over Preah Vihear belongs to Cambodia, and express their hope that a solution can be reached through peaceful mediation.

The Southeast Asian Archaeology Newsblog has collected a group of articles about the second round of talks between Thailand and Cambodia regarding the situation at Preah Vihear. The early word is that this second round of negotiations is not going well.