Oxford Press prints 2 books by YSU professor

YOUNGSTOWN — A Youngstown State University professor has the honor of having two books published by Oxford University Press.

Michael Jerryson, who teaches religious studies, edited “The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Buddhism” and co-edited “Violence and the World’s Religious Traditions: An Introduction.”

He said the latter is a more accessible version of his 2012 publication, “The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence,” which Jerryson edited with Mark Juergensmeyer of the University of California, Santa Barbara and Margo Kitts of Pacific University. His co-editors on that project contributed to this one as well.

Jerryson said the study of religion and violence is increasingly relevant to our current political climate, and the volume looks at how the 10 largest global religions engage in violence.

“What is there in their scriptures that seem to allow for and justify violence,” Jerryson asked. “How have they engaged in violence?”

He said our decisions are guided by our values which are often informed by religion – values such as, ‘do no harm.’

“There are always going to be excuses for why to do harm,” Jerryson said. “Unless we really investigate those nuances and understand and accept them, we’re going to continue to step on land mines and create a lot more violence than is necessary.”

Jerryson said his other recent publication, “The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Buddhism,” is likely the most comprehensive book on Buddhism in the modern world. It includes contributions from 44 experts around the world.

The first part of the book looks at how Buddhism is practiced in different areas around the world, and the second part focuses on how the religion interacts with things such as architecture, medicine and technology.

Jerryson said he’s attracted to areas of Buddhism that don’t always get attention. He said there is debate over whether women should be ordained in the religion and how it interacts with gender, orientation and race in general.

“In the United States, we think of Buddhism as this very inclusive hippie religion,” he said. “But a lot of Buddhist doctrine is very against homosexuality. That’s changing over time, but historically it has not been.”

Jerryson said he is working on two new books, one will look at Muslim-Buddhist relations in Southeast Asia and the other, to be published by Oxford, will look at the ways in which different religions interpret violence.

“The way in which we understand violence is different depending upon which religion we’re in,” he said. “So I think this is an avenue that needs further exploration, and I’m looking forward to further exploring it.”