About Rima Vesely-Flad, Founding Director

Rima Vesely-Flad, PhD, is the author of three books: The Fire Inside: The Dharma of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde (North Atlantic Books, 2026), Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition: The Practice of Stillness in the Movement for Liberation (NYU Press, 2022) and Racial Purity and Dangerous Bodies: Moral Pollution, Black Lives, and the Struggle for Justice (Fortress Press, 2017). She is Founding Director of the Initiative for Black Buddhist Studies and a Visiting Affiliate Fellow at Princeton University’s Center for Culture, Society, and Religion.

Dr. Vesely-Flad is former Founding Director of the Inside Out Prison Education Program, a partnership between the Swannanoa Correctional Institution for Women and Warren Wilson College, and also taught college-level courses at Sing Sing Prison in New York State. She was a Fulbright Scholar and Awardee in South Africa and Ghana.

You can follow her work on Instagram @blackbuddhiststudies or subscribe to the Black Buddhist Studies newsletter.

Communications Director

Sandra Hannebohm, CEO of Twice As Good Media, partners with Black Buddhist Studies to amplify our public scholarship through comprehensive communications support including social media, design, website management, newsletters, podcasts, and course development.

Twice As Good Media is a digital media production company that offers sustainable digital media production practices and services for values-driven organizations, content creators and journalists.

Black Buddhist Studies: 2026 Projects

Buddhism and Black Culture

The Buddhism and Black Culture project centers Black writers and musicians in the interpretation of Buddhist wisdom, emphasizing perspectives and practices for working skillfully with suffering, metabolizing rage, and cultivating compassion. Over the course of six months (January-June 2026), Founding Director Rima Vesely-Flad is undertaking a nationwide speaking tour on The Fire Inside: The Dharma of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde.

Race, Caste, and Buddhist Doctrine

The Race, Caste, and Buddhist Doctrine project focuses on the social conditions of suffering and seeks to bridge Buddhist-inspired caste equity movements in India with Black liberation movements in the United States. This project includes two components: (1) Production of a 15-episode podcast series on Buddhism and structural oppression, hosted by Dr. Rima Vesely-Flad, and (2) Co-creation of an anthology (with Santoshkumar Raut and Jonathan Gold) consisting of contributions from the April 2025 Princeton-based conference “Race, Caste, and the Challenge of Karma: Cultivating Black Buddhist Perspectives.”

Black and Asian-American Buddhist Solidarity

Under the auspices of the Institute of Buddhist Studies, and in partnership with the Asian Pacific American Religion Research Initiative (APARRI), this project includes Asian-American and Black faculty members and research scholars teaching and writing at the intersections of Buddhist identity, practice, and ethics. We aim to address difficult dynamics in the broader landscape of “American Buddhism.” These dynamics include but are not limited to: the erasure of Asian and Asian-American Buddhists in white convert Buddhist institutions; marginalization of Black Buddhists in these same institutions; and anti-Blackness in Asian and Asian-American sanghas. Key questions of this project are: (1) What is an ethical way to acknowledge the historical, scholarly, and practical labor of Asian and Asian-American Buddhist scholars in the formation of American Buddhism? (2) How do we confront erasure and challenge mainstream Buddhist exploitation of Asian and Asian-American Buddhist lineages? (3) What are the responsibilities and constructive ethical practices of Black Buddhists in the process of acknowledging erasure and honoring Asian Buddhist lineages?