[Buddha-l] "Western Self, Asian Other"

[JKirkpatrick]

It's really too bad that Thurman's critique of Lopez is not
freely available online! The full reference is:

"Critical Reflections on Donals S. Lopez Jr.s Prisoners of
Shangrila: 
Tibetan Buddhism and the West"
by Robert A.F. Thurman, Journal of the American Academy of
Religion 2001
69(1):191-202:
http://jaar.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/pdf_extract/69/1/191

Curt
=============
Hi Curt,

I read a few articles in his _Curators of the Buddha_, and found
not contempt for scholars or for Buddhism of various kinds _per
se_, but more for the period biases of some scholars, and also
for sentimentality about Buddhism and its objects. But I might be
off the mark --not sure, since I've not read the books just
mentioned. In his book about Gendun Chophel, which I did read,
there's no discernible contempt for his subject.
He seemed to me to be more approving of Buddhists who heartily go
against the grain, as compared to folks who (in his view) are
unthinking (some meanies would say, knee-jerk) devotees. 

So, in Richard's term of over-compensation, I've noticed in
myself and in some other folks I know a tendency to feel
embarrassed by and therefore negative toward sentimentality when
it comes to the "spiritual quest"......maybe Lopez is too. (One
wonders, with that surname, if he might have been born a Roman
Catholic. If so, might be some repercussions there, too.)

Might you be able to make a pdf of it and post it to those of us
who'd like to read Thurman's review? 
Thanks for noting the review, anyway.
JK