April Webinar: Mountain Monasteries as Sites for Wellness Tourism

Date: April 20th, 2023
Time: 7 pm CT
Location: Online

About the Webinar

This presentation examines Templestay, a short-term retreat program held for laypersons at Buddhist monasteries, as a form of wellness tourism amid the happiness crisis in South Korea. Challenging the polarized view that posits socially engaged Buddhism as the opposite of traditional monastic Buddhism, this study argues that Templestay facilitates Buddhism’s engagement with the prevailing psychological predicament of society and with people’s aspirations and desperation to live a good life. Opening monasteries day and night for a standard fee, a way of formatting staying at temples as an experiential commodity, allows the distressed laity space for self-reflection and enhancement of their wellbeing. This study illuminates the interplay of secular retreats in sacred sites, vernacular therapeutic culture, and wellness tourism.

Speaker: Kyoim Yun

Kyoim Yun is associate professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Kansas. An interdisciplinary scholar, she has published her research in several journals. She is also the author of The Shaman’s Wages: Trading in Ritual on Cheju Island published by the University of Washington Press, and is currently working on her second book project on Templestay, a short-term retreat program held for laypersons at Buddhist monasteries. Her paper “Engaged Buddhism in Mountain Monasteries: Templestay as Wellness Tourism in South Korea” will be published in Asian Ethnology this fall. As a Keeler Intra-University Professor hosted by the Department of Geography and Atmospheric Science, she is developing an online course “Happiness in East Asia” to be offered this fall. She is also the author of The Shaman’s Wages: Trading in Ritual on Cheju Island published by the University of Washington Press, and is currently working on her second book project on Templestay

Moderator: Samuel Hawkinson