2025 Classes & Events

April 4 – 5, 2025

Race, Caste, and the Challenge of Karma: Cultivating Black Buddhist Perspectives

Princeton University

While Buddhism has been adopted by people who suffer from racial oppression, it remains difficult to reconcile traditional Buddhist approaches to karma with projects to counter systemic injustice. This conference brings together contemporary scholars of caste, race, and Buddhism to think through classical Buddhist perspectives on karma alongside Ambedkarite Buddhist perspectives and the ideas of Buddhists working against anti-Black racism in the U.S. today. It proposes to establish a conversational space for reconsidering karma constructively, to test its pitfalls and its liberatory potentials for addressing race and caste. Invited speakers will address traditional Buddhism both in its ideals and its cultural history; B.R. Ambedkar’s rejection of karma as he resisted the Brahmanic caste system; contemporary Black Buddhist activist, practitioner and theorist perspectives on karma; and comparative approaches to race and caste in the light of karma.