Abstract
Ikeda Daisaku (1928 – 2023) was a global peacebuilder, educator, and Buddhist leader and philosopher. Pervading his work and many writings in these areas is an abiding “literary selfhood”—a dialogic and lived engagement with transnational literature, poetry, writers, and their thought and ideals—that uniquely animated his approach to these spheres of influence and nurtured and vindicated his faith in human possibility across them. There is perhaps no more accomplished individual in any of these areas, let alone all three, who has similarly infused their work therein with the world of literature as a justifying force, paean of the people, and crystallization of the bond between individuals, people and society, and humanity and nature. Ikeda regularly drew on literary thought from a constellation of periods, geographies, and cultures to illuminate his Buddhist perspective on universal matters concerning the human condition, social reform, planetary peace, and genuine, almost existential, happiness. Employing critical and bilingual/bicultural (Japanese/English) discourse analyses of Ikeda’s voluminous corpus across seven decades, this interpretive research examines Ikeda’s engagement with world literature as the lodestar to our most human and just becoming, a constant and living presence exhorting us to realize our “greater selves.” It introduces Ikeda’s views and unique approach to the literary humanities—beyond critique, forms, and frameworks—as a new, necessary, and embodied current in the role literature can play in pioneering a better age.
Presenters
Jason GoulahProfessor and Director, Institute for Daisaku Ikeda Studies in Education, Leadership, Language and Curriculum, DePaul University, Illinois, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Literary Selfhood, Daisaku Ikeda, World Literature, Peacebuilding, Human Becoming, Justice
