Dr. Patrick Pranke was our speaker for Far Away Places with Strange Sounding Names Series on October 18, 2012 at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Bowling Green, KY. He spoke about “Paths to Liberation in Burmese Buddhism.”
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Dr. Patrick Pranke will be our speaker for Far Away Places with Strange Sounding Names Series on October 18, 2012. He will be speaking about “Paths to Liberation in Burmese Buddhism.” Dr. Pranke is the assistant professor of Religious Studies in the Department of Humanities where he teaches Asian religions with a focus on Theravada Buddhism and Burma. He is a native of Minnesota and grew up in a farming family. He was influenced by stories of far away places and far away times and wanted to be an archaeologist. He attended schools in Forest Lake, Minnesota. After high school he attended the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin where he studied anthropology and South Asian Studies. Pranke received his doctorate in Buddhist Studies from the University of Michigan in 2004. He has conducted research and worked in Burma and northern India for a number of years and is affiliated with the Buddhist academy, Thitagu Kaba Buddha Takkathol, in Sagaing, Burma, where he has served as an instructor and translator. His research interests include Burmese Buddhist monastic history and historiography, Sangha-state relations, Buddhist scholasticism, and Burmese popular religion. His interests in north India include village Hinduism, pilgrimage and the geography of sacred sites. In the United States he examines immigrant Buddhism and the dynamics of integration. Pranke’s articles have appeared in Buddhism in Practice, the Encyclopedia of Buddhism, and the Journal of Burma Studies.