Justin McDaniel Awarded 2013 George McT. Kahin Book Prize on Southeast Asia

Justin McDaniel, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, was awarded the 2013 George McT. Kahin Book Prize on Southeast Asia by the Association for Asian Studies for his book, The Lovelorn Ghost and the Magical Monk: Practicing Buddhism in Modern Thailand. The Kahin Prize of the Association for Asian Studies is given biennially to an outstanding scholar of Southeast Asian studies from any discipline, to recognize distinguished scholarly work on Southeast Asia beyond the author's first book.

Focusing on representations of the ghost and monk from the late eighteenth century to the present, McDaniel builds a case for interpreting modern Thai Buddhist practice through the movements of these transformative figures. He follows embodiments of the ghost and monk in a variety of genres and media, including biography, film, television, drama, ritual, art, liturgy, and the Internet. Sourcing nuns, monks, laypeople, and royalty, he shows how relations with these figures have been instrumental in crafting histories and modernities. McDaniel is especially interested in local conceptions of being “Buddhist” and the formation and transmission of such identities across different venues and technologies. Establishing an individual’s “religious repertoire” as a valid category of study, McDaniel explores the performance of Buddhist thought and ritual through practices of magic, prognostication, image production, sacred protection, and deity and ghost worship, and clarifies the meaning of multiple cultural configurations.

In awarding the Kahin Prize, the selection committee cited his ability to address theoretical ideas without being pedantic, and his capacity to bring personalities to life. "[...his scholarship is a] tribute to his disciplinary knowledge and his deep familiarity with Thai language and culture … Looking beyond Buddhist studies, this book charts methodological paths for any enterprise attempting to understand the multiple ways in which ordinary people understand and respond to the ever-shifting interplay between social practice and religious teachings."

McDaniel's research foci include Lao, Thai, Pali and Sanskrit literature, Southeast Asian Buddhism, manuscript studies, and Southeast Asian history. His first book, Gathering Leaves and Lifting Words, won the Harry Benda Prize for the best first book in Southeast Asian Studies. He has received grants from the NEH, Mellon Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Fulbright Foundation, PACRIM, the SSRC, among others. He is the co-editor of the journals Buddhism Compass and Journal of Lao Studies. He has won teaching and advising awards at Harvard University, Ohio University, the University of California at Riverside, and the Ludwig Prize for Teaching at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2012 he was named a Guggenheim Fellow.