Overview
D. Mitra Barua holds a Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in Buddhist Studies administered by the American Council of Learned Societies. Prior to his affiliation to Cornell in August 2014, he taught (2011-14) South and Southeast Asian Buddhism at the Department of Religion and Culture, University of Saskatchewan, Canada. His academic studies of religion developed in two streams, namely Oriental Studies in Sri Lanka (1994-2000), and then Religious Studies in Canada (2003-2011).
Mitra's PhD dissertation (Wilfrid Laurier University) examined the reconfiguration of Sri Lankan Buddhism in three historical periods: colonial Ceylon, post-colonial Sri Lanka and Sri Lankan Buddhist diaspora particularly in Toronto, Canada. He is currently transforming his dissertation into a monograph, provisionally entitled Weaving Ola and Maple Leaves Together: Sri Lankan Buddhists in Toronto (under a contract to Wilfrid Laurier Press, Waterloo, Canada). Mitra's postdoctoral project examines Buddhism in Bengals (1757-1988) from a perspective of minority religion within the nexus of transnational connections with fellow majority Buddhists in Sri Lanka and Myanmar.
Publications
- "Teaching Buddhism to Children: The Evolving Sri Lankan Buddhist Tradition in Multicultural Toronto." In Flowers on the Rock: Global and Local Buddhisms, John Harding, Victory Hori, and Alexander Soucy (eds.), pp. 201-224, Montreal, MQUP, 2014.
- "Temporary Ordination for Character Transformation: A Diasporic Practice with Transnational Connections." In Journal of Global Buddhism Vol. 12 (2011): 51-68.
- "Buddhism for a Multi-cultural Society: Redefining Buddhism for a New Canada-born Generation." In Buddhism Contemporary Studies, edited by Sanath Nanayakkara, and Russell Bowden, 145-185. Colombo: Sri Lankan Association of Buddhist Studies, 2010.