{"podcast":{"title":"New Books in Buddhist Studies","slug":"new-books-in-buddhist-studies-851606","podcast_index_feed_id":851606,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/LIT8948303572","website_url":"https://newbooksnetwork.com/category/religion-faith/buddhist-studies/","image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/b391c9ba-ecf5-11e8-908d-53b9e7cf016b/image/a37eb6d9dc7eaa5c9949983662b71010.png?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"New Books Network","episode_count":416,"summary":"This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies","last_synced_at":"2026-06-27T14:21:55.893820+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-buddhist-studies-851606"},"episode":{"title":"Bruno Shirley, \"Religion, Gender, and Politics in Medieval Sri Lanka: The Reconstruction of Buddhist Kingship, ca. 1070-1215\" (ARC Humanities Press, 2026)","slug":"bruno-shirley-religion-gender-and-politics-in-medieval-sri-lanka-the-reconstruction-of-buddhist-kingship-ca-1070-1215-arc-humanities-press-2026","published_at":"2026-06-05T08:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-buddhist-studies-851606/bruno-shirley-religion-gender-and-politics-in-medieval-sri-lanka-the-reconstruction-of-buddhist-kingship-ca-1070-1215-arc-humanities-press-2026","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-buddhist-studies-851606","url":"https://pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK4015240909.mp3","audio_url":"https://pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK4015240909.mp3","summary":"Dr. Shirley's monograph, Religion, Gender, and Politics in Medieval Sri Lanka: The Reconstruction of Buddhist Kingship, ca. 1070-1215 (ARC Humanities Press, 2026), is now available open access, thanks to the generous support of the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation. This book offers a radical reconsideration of the Poḷon-naruva period, long understood to be a turning point in the history of Theravāda Buddhism. Histories of this period have been overwhelmingly based on a series of literary accounts written long after the fact. But by drawing on textual, inscriptional, numismatic, and material evidence from within the period itself, the book reveals how the intellectual and social histories of Buddhism, politics, and gender were inextricably intertwined in Poḷon-naruva. In particular, it argues that debates over what it meant to be a “good Buddhist king” were intrinsically debates about Buddhist masculinity and about the proper relationship of gender to power. Link to purchase/download the book here. Bruno M. Shirley is a lecturer in Buddhist Studies at Heidelberg University, Germany. He completed his MA in Religious Studies at Te Herenga Waka/Victoria University of Wellington, NZ, and then PhD in Asian Literature, Religion, and Culture at Cornell University in New York, USA. Dr. Shirley is a historian of religion, gender, and politics in early second-millennium Sri Lanka and beyond. As an academic, he is interested in what it meant to understand oneself as “Buddhist” in medieval South Asia. His research explores a wider range of evidence—from royal inscriptions, to monastic disciplinary codes, to elaborate poems—in order to expose the cracks and fissures between competing visions of Buddhism. Resources referred to in the interview: Alastair Gornall, Rewriting Buddhism:…","meta_description":"Dr. Shirley's monograph, Religion, Gender, and Politics in Medieval Sri Lanka: The Reconstruction of Buddhist Kingship, ca. 1070-1215 (ARC Humanities Pres…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3852,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/new-books-in-buddhist-studies-851606/episodes/bruno-shirley-religion-gender-and-politics-in-medieval-sri-lanka-the-reconstruction-of-buddhist-kingship-ca-1070-1215-arc-humanities-press-2026/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-buddhist-studies-851606/bruno-shirley-religion-gender-and-politics-in-medieval-sri-lanka-the-reconstruction-of-buddhist-kingship-ca-1070-1215-arc-humanities-press-2026.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}