Associate Professor of Religious Studies Richard Seager returned from a year-long leave devoted to researching the history of Soka Gakkai, a Japan-based, global Buddhist movement. His research was sponsored by the Boston Research Center for the 21st Century.
During Seager's leave, his activities included two research trips to Japan and one to Singapore. He also participated in the opening of Soka University of America in southern California. He interviewed Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles and Dean Lawrence Carter, chaplain of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse, about their work with Soka Gakkai in promoting civil rights around the globe.
Seager also published "Buddhism in the United States" in Buddhism in the West, (University of California); "Buddhism in New York State" in The Encyclopedia of New York State (Syracuse University); and "Taking Or Receiving the Buddhist Precepts," "Buddhist Chanting In Soka Gakkai International," and "Visualizing Chenrezi in American Tibetan Buddhism" in Religions in the United States in Practice (Princeton University).
