Learning to Read from Mahāyāna Sūtras

Why read Mahāyāna sūtras? These seemingly fantastical, overtly manipulative, frankly baffling ancient texts might seem to have little to attract contemporary readers. I will argue, however, that they have much to teach us about the act of reading. Because they assume a sacrificial cosmology in which reading is a ritual for transforming self and world, they help us to recognize and question the features of our own technologically informed cosmology of reading. In our time, when reading is often reduced to information transfer or an optional leisure activity, Mahāyāna sūtras show us how word-born worlds enter and alter our bodyminds. In the process, they challenge us to rethink, and experience, literature differently. Learning to read Mahāyāna sūtras—and learning to read from Mahāyāna sūtras—demands that we recognize the ritual aspects of literature, Buddhist and beyond.

Biography

Natalie Gummer is Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies and holds the Edwin F. Wilde, Jr. Distinguished Service Chair at Beloit College, where she also directs the Center for Integrative Learning. Her research examines textual and ritual practices in premodern Mahāyāna Buddhist literary cultures, with particular interests in performance, translation, and the contemporary ethical possibilities of Buddhist literature. She received her Ph.D. from Harvard University.