THEOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS STUDIES
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About the Department
Research
Rita Langer
Lecturer in Buddhist Studies
MA (Hamburg), Dip (Kelaniya), PhD (Hamburg)
Phone: 0117 928 8248
Fax: 0117 331 7933
E-mail: rita.langer@bristol.ac.uk
Biography
Rita Langer was born in Germany and educated at Hamburg University (MA, PhD Indology) and Kelaniya University (Diploma in Buddhist Studies). She joined the Department as full time member of staff in January 2007 (Research Associate) and was appointed Lecturer in Buddhist Studies in August 2007.
Research
My research focuses on two different but complementary areas of Buddhism: (1) theory of consciousness in the early Pali sources and (2) Buddhist ritual and its origin (in South and South East Asia, particularly Sri Lanka). My approach is interdisciplinary and combines textual studies with field work. Building on my PhD research on Sri Lankan funerals rites I am now researching death rituals in Laos and Thailand as part of an AHRC funded project on Death Rituals in Southeast Asia and China.
Publications
Books
- Buddhist Rituals of Death and Rebirth: A study of contemporary Sri Lankan practice and its origins (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2007).
- Das Bewusstein als Träger des Lebens: einige weniger beachtete Aspekte des vinnana im Palikanon, Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde (Vienna: Arbeitskreis für tibetische und buddhistische Studien Universität Wien, 2001).
Chapter in Edited Book
- 'Chanting as "bricolage technique" a comparison of South and Southeast Asian funeral recitation' in Buddhist Funeral Cultures of Southeast Asia and China edited by Paul Williams and Patrice Ladwig (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2012).
- 'Feasting for the Dead: Theravāda Buddhist Funeral Rites', in Studying Buddhism in Practice edited by John S. Harding (London: Routledge, 2012), 51-64
- ‘Von Göttern, Geistern und Krähen: Buddhistische Beerdigungsriten in Sri Lanka’, in Abschied von den Toten: Trauerrituale im Kulturvergleich edited by Jan Assman, Franz Maciejewski and Axel Michaels (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2005), pp.125-149.
Article
- ‘Synkretismus und Inklusivismus am Beispiel der buddhistischen Beerdigungsriten im zeitgenössischen Sri Lanka’ in Buddhismus in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Universität Hamburg) 4 (2002), pp. 48?64.
Review
- Bryan J. Cuevas and Jacqueline I. Stone (eds), The Buddhist Dead: Practices, Discourses, Representations (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press 2007) reviewed in Buddhadharma 6, number 2 (Winter 2007), pp. 67-68.