Routledge Research in American Literatur Daisaku Ikeda Transnationalism and American Literature: Dialogues of the Heart (Hardcover)

Daisaku Ikeda Transnationalism and American Literature: Dialogues of the Heart examines the writings of Nichiren Buddhist philosopher poet and peacebuilder Daisaku Ikeda (1928-2023) focusing on how American literature and transnationalism are integral to the development of his Buddhist philosophy and practices in peacebuilding religion and education. Each chapter explores his engagement with a diverse array of literary texts from Emerson Whitman and other authors of the American Renaissance to the philosophical pragmatism of John Dewey and Martin Luther King Jr. African American literature by Ralph Ellison and Langston Hughes and a global culture of letters by Muriel Rukeyser Ben Okri and others. Throughout contributors demonstrate the transformative power of literature and philosophy including their capacities to inspire dialogue and shape Ikeda s global peacebuilding and human rights agenda. Topics addressed include how poetry enables a pragmatist call to action and how Buddhism inspired avant-gardism in American literature and Black literature in the United States as well as in Africa. This edited volume utilizes a range of methodologies to study Ikeda including a historicist analysis of Ikeda s evolving engagement with American literature the application of literary theory and philosophy to Ikeda s work and comparative analyses of Ikeda s views with other thinkers as well as analyses of Ikeda s poetry alongside that of other poets.