Natasha Heller

Link to program: asiacenter.harvard.edu/events/illum...

The Kuroda Institute is pleased to announce a symposium on Nov 21 to honor Peter Gregory—use the QR to access the full program

How to Raise a Little Bodhisattva In Taiwan, a new generation of children’s books quietly transforms Buddhist family life.

Franz Metcalf @franzmetcalf.bsky.social reviews Natasha Heller's @nlheller.bsky.social new book on Buddhist picture books for children.

"These books become the material form of modern family Buddhism, giving rise to new practices rooted not in the temple but in the home."

Accessible Link

My review of Don Lopez’s amazing new history of Buddhism

Virginia General Assembly demands answers about Ryan's resignation in Aug. 1 letter In a 10-page letter obtained by The Cavalier Daily, State Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, demanded written responses and documentation from University Rector Rachel Sheridan and University Vice ...

State Sen. Creigh Deeds asks the BOV: “What is your understanding of the importance of shared governance in a university? What is your understanding of the significance of having lost the confidence of the people who educate students in that university?” www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...

A simple idea: faculty should be represented in the search for UVa’s next president: www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...

4 RELIGIOUS STUDIES FACULTY: Where are the humanities professors? Lawyers, financiers, teachers, students and, yes, Olympic swimmers belong on the search committee. But, surely, faculty members who carry out a core mission of the University belong there, too.

To be clear, the Olympic swimmer is not the problem. www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...

You are far more optimistic than I am that “books” and “dissertations” will still exist a thousand years from now, and in any case I erased it

I am annoyed by people who write in library books but especially astounded by this—at least it is not in pen!

Face/Off Lots of scholars from different disciplines study and write about things that happened in the past. So what, if anything, makes history a separate and coherent discipline? While Contingent is a histor...

We're pairing up contingent historians with contingent scholars in other fields for a face off! Click through to learn more and let us know if you want to participate.

Opinion | What the University of Virginia Should Have Done

The title is a little misleading, but this is a clear explanation of what’s happened at UVa. TLDR: the people appointed or elected to represent the University are in fact its opponents. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/30/o...

Polo Buddies and Rental Cabs: The Donkeys of Tang China and Their Poetic Destinies - Medievalists.net The humble donkey was a constant presence across Tang China and a regular feature in the day-to-day business of people from all walks of life. How were these animals remembered by writers of the time?

Polo Buddies and Rental Cabs: The Donkeys of Tang China and Their Poetic Destinies www.medievalists.net/2022/06/donk... #MedievalChina

More polling just dropped -- by a pretty huge margin Americans think that having international students at US universities is good for the country, not bad -- 56% to 14% (+42)

and for 18-29 YOs, nearly 1/2 say international students are "very good"

New Visa Policies Put America First, Not China - United States Department of State Under President Trump’s leadership, the U.S. State Department will work with the Department of Homeland Security to aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to ...

This policy, which is so real it was published on the State Department's actual website and not its Substack, is about as bad a policy as one could imagine for American national security and prosperity. The Rubio of 4 months ago would call it insane. Which it is.

www.state.gov/releases/off...

When you’ve finished it, I’d love a copy of your op-ed to include in a class on Buddhism and the environment

Academic friends, how do you think about summer writing? What strategies or resources have been useful for you? What are the biggest challenges?

The image is a black and white illustration depicting the interior of a Chinese "joss house" in San Francisco. The scene features an ornate altar with intricate carvings and five icons. Two large hanging lanterns flank the altar and a board inscribed with Chinese characters hangs above. Several figures are present: a man and woman in Western attire accompanied by a child who are observing the scene; a person bowing in front of the altar holding incense; and other individuals standing or walking, dressed in traditional Chinese clothing.

In 1871, Harper’s Weekly published a wood engraving depicting the interior of a San Francisco Chinese temple, a rare print subject before the 1906 earthquake.

Clues suggest it shows the main hall of Eastern Glory Temple located off Jackson St. on St. Louis Alley. 🧵
🗃️ 📜 #Chinatown

On a dairy farm run on Hindu principles, cow 'friends' yield milk and higher consciousness PORT ROYAL, Pennsylvania (RNS) — Hare Krishna farmers produce 'non-violent,' or ahimsa, dairy from cows that are loved and cared for.

On this farm and creamery run by Hindu devotees and modeled after a traditional Indian gaushala, both soil and soul are cultivated with God in mind.
religionnews.com/2025/04/25/o...

Call For Pitches: The Losses “But you could go work for the government! Or museums—maybe a non-profit?” Grad students and adjuncts leaving academic history in the United States have often gotten the above advice from well-meaning...

Pitches for this are due Sunday. If you know someone who might want to contribute, please share this with them!

Registration information for the fighting attacks on higher ed in red states workshop.

Registration information for the immigrants rights defense workshop.

Registration information for the Who Rules the Academy (and how to Fight Back) workshop.

Registration for the universities as political battlegrounds workshop.

Want to brush up on your skills about fighting back against repression and political interference in #highered? Join an online session for the April 17 #DayofActionforHigherEd. Register: www.dayofactionforhighered.org/events

A tree with 40 different fruits planted in Philadelphia Move over, Liberty Bell.

"This art project is a single grafted tree that produces 40 varieties of apricots, cherries, peaches, plums, and other stone fruits."

what!

www.popsci.com/environment/...

“The fires gutted the 1,300-year-old Gounsa temple in Uiseong city”

Opinion | Restoring Academic Ties With China Is a Matter of U.S. National Security Decisions on U.S. policy toward China are being made based on diminishing insight into the country’s internal dynamics.

"For Western scholars of China, the era before the pandemic now feels like a distant golden age." Yanzhong Huang on the withering of academic engagement with China thanks to domestic factors in both countries, as well as heightened tensions between Beijing and Washington.

Email sent to FFSP.

The Fulbright Foreign Student Program invites graduate students from abroad to come study in the US and guarantees funding for them to do so paid in a monthly stipend. Yesterday, some FFSP scholars received notification that they're only getting a week of their stipend.

I love our library

Literature for Little Bodhisattvas: Making Buddhist Families in Modern Taiwan In Literature for Little Bodhisattvas, Natasha Heller makes two key interventions: first, she argues that picturebooks are a new genre of Buddhist writing, and second, she calls attention to an eme…

Recently published by Natasha Heller: Literature for Little Bodhisattvas: Making Buddhist Families in Modern Taiwan uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/litera...

Thank you

Manuscript page from the Massachusetts Historical Society with "Chinese temple" written on top. [https://www.masshist.org/thomasjeffersonpapers/doc?id=arch_N119&archive=arch&query=chinese&tag=text&num=10&rec=5&numRecs=5#firstmatch]

Thomas Jefferson's Monticello design notebook from 1771 contains a description for a "Chinese temple" - it was never built.

Loosely based on Chinese Buddhist pagodas, this would have been an open air gazebo (sometimes also called a pagoda).

#ManuscriptMondays 🗃️

@arianam.bsky.social could you add me to the Buddhism starter pack?

Writing a book on East Asian Buddhism and need support to finish it? Apply for the Kuroda Institute Manuscript Completion Grant, which provides funds for developmental editing, line editing for non-native speakers, manuscript workshops, child/eldercare, and more.
networks.h-net.org/group/announ...