Alexander Soucy

Buddhism and globalization; anthropology of religion; Bicycle culture

 

Ph.D. in Anthropology, The Australian National University

M.A. History and Philosophy of Religion, Concordia University

 

 

Buddhism in the Global Eye: Beyond East and West. London: Bloomsbury Academic. (co-edited with John Harding, Victor Sogen Hori) 2020.

 

"Global Flows of Vietnamese Zen." In Jørn Borup and Marianne Qvortrup Fibiger(eds.) Eastspirit: Transnational spirituality and Religious Circulation in East and West pp.149-171. Brill Publishing 2017.

 

"Vietnamese Traditions." In Michael Jerryson (ed.) Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Buddhism pp. 177-195. Oxford University Press 2016.

 

"Constructing Modern Zen Spaces in Vietnam." In Michael Dickhardt and Andrea Lauser (eds.) Religion Place and Modernity: Spatial Articulations in Southeast and East Asia pp. 125-145. Brill Publishing 2016.

 

Flowers on the Rock: Global and Local Buddhisms in Canada. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press. (co-edited with John Harding, Victor Sogen Hori) 2014.

 

"Wedding Invitations and Relationship Management in Hanoi, Vietnam." The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 15.2 (2014):141-157.

 

The Buddha Side: Gender Power and Buddhist Practice in Vietnam. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press 2012.

 

Wild Geese: Studies of Buddhism in Canada. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press. (co-edited with John Harding, Victor Sogen Hori) 2010.

 

"Language, Orthodoxy and Performances of Authority in Vietnamese Buddhism." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 77.2 (2009):348-371.

Alexander Soucy central research question started with how gender relates to the ways that people engage and think about their religious practice. He has been looking at how globalization and modernity have reshaped Buddhism at a transnational level. As an anthropologist, he takes on these topics from an ethnographic perspective. Most recently he has been looking at how global discourses of Buddhism and modernity have fuelled an interest in Zen Buddhism in Hanoi, Vietnam. His research interest is now shifting towards looking at re-enchantment and religious resurgence. He is also leading a research project looking at the development of a bicycle culture in Halifax, Canada, in affiliation with Saint Mary’s Centre for the Study of Sport and Health.