Vargas-O’Bryan Publishes Co-Edited Book on Disease and Healing in Asia

SHERMAN, TEXAS—

Ivette Vargas-O’Bryan, Austin College associate professor of

religious studies, and her colleague Zhou Xun of the University of Essex in the United Kingdom, have edited the book Disease, Religion and Healing in Asia: Collaborations and Collisions, published by Routledge Publications in January 2015. Vargas-O’Bryan also contributed the chapter “Balancing tradition alongside a progressively scientific Tibetan medical system” based on her historical and ethnographic work in Tibetan areas of China.

The book is part of the Routledge Studies in Asian Religion and Philosophy Series. The vision for the book began during Vargas-O’Bryan’s tenure as a Fulbright Scholar in Hong Kong in 2009, when she and Dr. Zhou Xun decided to organize an international conference to explore these issues. In 2010, their conference on the intersection of religion and medicine entitled Convergence and Collisions: Disease, Religion, and Healing in Asia www.chm.hku.hk/convergence.html received wide support from medical and liberal arts faculty at the University of Hong Kong.

The book itself arose from a long-term concern in scholarship in studying culturally-embedded healing traditions that incorporate religious viewpoints in order to better understand local and global healing phenomena.

The volume in three sections (disease management in medical and ritual contexts, religion and medical explanatory models, and cultural interfaces and collisions) covers diverse models of healing and perspectives on health in local and institutional medical contexts that interplay with culture and religion in Asia. It is particularly concerned with the convergences and collisions a society must negotiate, especially the symbiotic relationship of disease, religion, and healing and their colliding values. Vargas-O’Bryan said original studies by renowned scholars across the globe challenge the reader to rethink predominantly long-held Western interpretations of disease management and religion. The book, she said, especially draws attention to religious, political, and social dynamics; issues of identity and ethics; practical and epistemological transformations; and analogous cultural patterns in the study of religion and health in Hong Kong, mainland China, Tibet, India, and Japan.

Vargas-O’Bryan is known for her work on the intersection of religion with medical traditions and local illness cults in Indian and Tibetan cultural contexts as well as historical and ethnographic work in Buddhist monastic and fasting traditions. She has authored several publications and presented papers on religion and healing, Asian monasticism and devotional movements, animals in religion, and religion and the environment. Her proposals for two other book projects, one on the lineage of the Indian nun Dge slong ma Dpal mo and the bodhisattva Avolokitesvara in South Asia and Tibet, and the other on snake-demon cults, illness, and the environment in Indian and Tibetan religions, have received favorable reviews from Brill Publications.

Awarded several prestigious awards and grants Vargas-O’Bryan served as a Fulbright Scholar in Hong Kong in 2009. During her Fulbright assignment, she was a lecturer at City University of Hong Kong and collaborator and consultant for the Fulbright General Education initiative. She was invited to be co-conveyor of the Health in Asia cluster at the newly established Centre for the Humanities and Medicine, a collaborative center at the Faculty of Arts and Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong. Related projects have been supported by the Fulbright Scholar Program, the Mellon Foundation, The Wabash Center; Asia Network Title VI Grant, the Fritz-Thyssen Foundation, and Austin College Cullen and Richardson Grants. She earned master’s degrees in Buddhist studies and in Sanskrit and Indian Studies, as well as a Ph.D. in Buddhist studies at Harvard University.

Austin College, a private national liberal arts college located north of Dallas in Sherman, Texas, has earned a reputation for excellence in academic preparation, international study, pre-professional foundations, leadership development, committed faculty, and hands-on, adventurous learning opportunities. One of 40 schools profiled in Loren Pope’s influential book Colleges That Change Lives, Austin College boasts a welcoming community that embraces diversity and individuality, with more than 36 percent of students representing ethnic minorities. A residential student body of 1,250 students and a faculty of more than 100 allow a 12:1 student-faculty ratio and personalized attention. The College is related by covenant to the Presbyterian Church (USA) and cultivates an inclusive atmosphere that supports students’ faith journeys regardless of religious tradition. Founded in 1849, the College is the oldest institution of higher education in Texas operating under original name and charter.