Prof. Duncan Williams：

AMERICAN SUTRA: A Story of Faith and Freedom in the Second World War

On Friday afternoon, May 3^rd, Professor Duncan Ryuken Williams of USC will offer a dharma talk and conversation with Hozan Alan Senauke at Berkeley Zen Center, based on his remarkable new book, American Sutra. This groundbreaking history, just released by Harvard University Press, tells the little-known story of how, in one of our country’s darkest hours, Japanese Americans fought to defend their faith and preserve religious freedom. The mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II is not only a tale of injustice; it is a moving story of faith. In this path-breaking account, Prof. Williams reveals how, even as they were stripped of their homes and imprisoned in camps, Japanese American Buddhists launched one of the most inspiring defenses of religious freedom in our nation’s history, insisting that they could be both Buddhist and American.

See the book and project’s website for more information: https://www.duncanryukenwilliams.com/american-sutra

Time: 5:40pm

Berkeley Zen Center—1933 Russell Street, Berkeley, CA 94703