Background
Hardacre, Helen was born on May 20, 1949 in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Daughter of Paul Hoswell and Gracia Louise (Manspeaker) Hardacre.
( Helen Hardacre, a leading scholar of religious life in ...)
Helen Hardacre, a leading scholar of religious life in modern Japan, examines the Japanese state's involvement in and manipulation of shinto from the Meiji Restoration to the present. Nowhere else in modern history do we find so pronounced an example of government sponsorship of a religion as in Japan's support of shinto. How did that sponsorship come about and how was it maintained? How was it dismantled after World War II? What attempts are being made today to reconstruct it? In answering these questions, Hardacre shows why State shinto symbols, such as the Yasukuni Shrine and its prefectural branches, are still the focus for bitter struggles over who will have the right to articulate their significance. Where previous studies have emphasized the state bureaucracy responsible for the administration of shinto, Hardacre goes to the periphery of Japanese society. She demonstrates that leaders and adherents of popular religious movements, independent religious entrepreneurs, women seeking to raise the prestige of their households, and men with political ambitions all found an association with shinto useful for self-promotion; local-level civil administrations and parish organizations have consistently patronized shinto as a way to raise the prospects of provincial communities. A conduit for access to the prestige of the state, shinto has increased not only the power of the center of society over the periphery but also the power of the periphery over the center.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691020523/?tag=2022091-20
( Basing her book on four years of field work (including ...)
Basing her book on four years of field work (including interviews, a survey of 2,000 Reiyukai members, and eight months of residence with believers), she analyzes Reiyukai ancestor worship and veneration of the Lotus Sutra. She explains the enduring appeal of a religion, founded in 1919, that dedicates itself to the spread of true Buddhism" and that retains its core intact, in spite of a number of schisms. Originally published in 1984. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691072841/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00D5FE9CM/?tag=2022091-20
( Helen Hardacre provides new insights into the spiritual...)
Helen Hardacre provides new insights into the spiritual and cultural dimensions of abortion debates around the world in this careful examination of mizuko kuyo—a Japanese religious ritual for aborted fetuses. Popularized during the 1970s, when religious entrepreneurs published frightening accounts of fetal wrath and spirit attacks, mizuko kuyo offers ritual atonement for women who, sometimes decades previously, chose to have abortions. As she explores the complex issues that surround this practice, Hardacre takes into account the history of Japanese attitudes toward abortion, the development of abortion rituals, the marketing of religion, and the nature of power relations in intercourse, contraception, and abortion. Although abortion in Japan is accepted and legal and was commonly used as birth control in the early postwar period, entrepreneurs used images from fetal photography to mount a surprisingly successful tabloid campaign to promote mizuko kuyo. Enthusiastically adopted by some religionists as an economic strategy, it was soundly rejected by others on doctrinal, humanistic, and feminist grounds. In four field studies in different parts of the country, Helen Hardacre observed contemporary examples of mizuko kuyo as it is practiced in Buddhism, Shinto, and the new religions. She also analyzed historical texts and contemporary personal accounts of abortion by women and their male partners and conducted interviews with practitioners to explore how a commercialized ritual form like mizuko kuyo can be marketed through popular culture and manipulated by the same forces at work in the selling of any commodity. Her conclusions reflect upon the deep current of misogyny and sexism running through these rites and through feto-centric discourse in general.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520216547/?tag=2022091-20
Hardacre, Helen was born on May 20, 1949 in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Daughter of Paul Hoswell and Gracia Louise (Manspeaker) Hardacre.
Bachelor, Vanderbilt University, 1971. Master of Arts, Vanderbilt University, 1972. Doctor of Philosophy, University Chicago, 1980.
Assistant professor Department of Religion Princeton (New Jersey) University, 1980-1986, associate professor Department of Religion, since 1986. Professor Japanese studies Griffith University, Australia, 1990-1992. Professor Reischauer Institute Japanese Religions & Society Harvard University, since 1992.
Assistant editor (Japan) Journal Asian Studies, 1986-1989. Associate editor Journal of America Academy of Religion, 1986-1989.
( Basing her book on four years of field work (including ...)
( Helen Hardacre provides new insights into the spiritual...)
( Helen Hardacre, a leading scholar of religious life in ...)
( The description for this book, Kurozumikyo and the New ...)
Member American Society for the Study of Religion, American Academy of Religion, Association for Asian Studies.