Japanese Buddhism was introduced to a wide Western audience when a
delegation of Buddhist priests attended the World's Parliament of
Religions, part of the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. In
describing and analyzing this event, Judith Snodgrass challenges
the predominant view of Orientalism as a one-way process by which
Asian cultures are understood strictly through Western ideas.
Restoring agency to the Buddhists themselves, she shows how they
helped reformulate Buddhism as a modern world religion with
specific appeal to the West while simultaneously reclaiming
authority for the tradition within a rapidly changing Japan.
Snodgrass explains how the Buddhism presented in Chicago was shaped
by the institutional, social, and political imperatives of the
Meiji Buddhist revival movement in Japan and was further determined
by the Parliament itself, which, despite its rhetoric of fostering
universal brotherhood and international goodwill, was thoroughly
permeated with confidence in the superiority of American
Protestantism. Additionally, in the context of Japan's intensive
diplomatic campaign to renegotiate its treaties with Western
nations, the nature of Japanese religion was not simply a religious
issue, Snodgrass argues, but an integral part of Japan's bid for
acceptance by the international community.