Mencius and Masculinities: Dynamics of Power, Morality, and Maternal Thinking by Joanne D. Birdwhistell (review)

Book Reviews 127 He further warns against artificially and statically viewing self-immolation as a single and unchanging practice but rather as a construct that is open to reinterpretation. Finally, he makes a case for the importance of appreciating self-immolators for the impact they have had on both the Buddhist community and Chinese society as a whole. Two useful appendices complete the work. The first provides a synopsis of biographies in the order they appear in the collections. The second supplies translations of the critical evaluations by the compilers of the three biographical collections of eminent monks mentioned above. Burning for the Buddha is a fascinating read, and Benn is certainly right when he reminds us in his conclusion that we should not shy away from materials that may jar our modern sensibilities. As is evident from this book, premodern historians also grappled with the awesomeness of these extreme acts of giving—most explicating Daoxuan’s reference to dying without (the appearance of) pain as a mark of spiritual attainment and instances where this was not the case. Like any good book of this kind, this suggests several avenues of inquiry that might be explored in future. For example, looking at other genre forms may shed more light on the attitudes towards and popularity of the practice of self-immolation among the laity and whether or how much tension existed between the monastic community and the laity to control the practice and the discourse. How was self-immolation viewed within the broader context of austere religious practices that assaulted or abandoned the body; what, if any, practices and so forth were considered most effective to prepare for auto-cremation in the long term; or did/how did medieval attitudes about public displays of bodily harm affect the ways in which self-immolators captured the Chinese imagination? In Burning for the Buddha, James Benn has done an excellent job of presenting a stimulating and wide-ranging set of issues about a subject that in less capable and sensitive hands might have strayed toward the sensational or macabre. This book deserves to be on the bookshelf of all students of Chinese Buddhism and is highly recommended as a classroom tool. LINDA PENKOWER, University of Pittsburgh Mencius and Masculinities: Dynamics of Power, Morality, and Maternal Thinking JOANNE D. BIRDWHISTELL. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2007. ix, 158 pages. ISBN 978-0-7914-7029-9. US$55.00 hardback. Birdwhistell’s book represents yet another feminist critique and deconstruction of the canons via the text of Mencius whose ideas about masculinity, according to Birdwhistell, “are derived 128 Journal of Chinese Religions in a fundamental, but unacknowledged, way from maternal experience” (p. 3). Structure-wise, the book is composed of four blocs of ideas: Chapters 1 and 2 are methodological, exploring a hermeneutic interpretation of the book through the lens of gender; chapters 3 and 4 focus on the analysis of two types of masculinity rejected by Mencius: agrarian and self-centered; chapters 5-7 lay out Mencius’s own ideal of masculinity with compassion, ruling as son and younger brother and ruling as father and mother of the people; and lastly chapters 8-9 hypothesize the process of maternal transcoding as well as the relevance of the issue of gender to today’s world. In sum, this book primarily is written for various feminist communities but is most valuable for those who engage in the discourse on care ethics that take maternal thinking as paradigmatic. Birdwhistell begins her project of unmasking the maternal dimension in Mencius’s thought with the following four methodological assumptions: First, philosophical ideas are particular perspectives inseparable from their original social and historical context; second, gender is one of those critical aspects of all philosophical ideas regardless whether it is consciously attended to or not; third, Mencius’s concept of a benevolent ruler involves cultural processes of transcoding maternal and agricultural thought (that is, maternal thinking is transformed into masculine agricultural thinking) as well as filial piety and compassion, thus making maternal thinking an unacknowledged, hidden foundation; and lastly, the Western feminist critique of traditional canons through the lens of gender is applicable to the Chinese...