April 15th, 2026-- The University of Colorado-Denver's Philosophy Department has invited James Mark Shields to speak to our community in North Classroom, Rm 1539 at 3:30pm.
Abstract: Buddhism in the West is most often encountered as a practice of individual stress-reduction or quietist retreat. Even its more politically engaged forms — what scholars call "Socially Engaged Buddhism" — tend toward liberal reformism rather than structural critique. Yet this picture obscures a countercurrent running through Buddhist thought for over a century: a genuinely radical tradition, explicitly anti-capitalist in orientation, that engaged with Marxism, anarchism, anti-colonial nationalism, and secular humanism. This talk introduces radical Buddhism as a coherent analytical and normative category through the lens of a current book project, Radical Buddhism: An Introduction, Primer and Sourcebook (forthcoming, SUNY Press). Drawing on a variety of Asian Buddhist figures including Seno'o Girō, Uchiyama Gudō, Han Yongun, Taixu, and B.R. Ambedkar, it develops three core philosophical claims: that suffering (duḥkha) is irreducibly social and structural; that interdependence (pratītyasamutpāda) entails systemic accountability rather than personal equanimity; and that the original Buddhist sangha models a form of collective life that challenges both capitalist individualism and state socialism.
Refreshments and conversation will follow the event.