Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Health & Society
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Health & Society

Ph.D. Candidate Receives Dissertation Fellowship to Analyze Contemporary Buddhist Charities in Southeast Asia

Wednesday, July 8, 2020, By Dan Bernardi
Share

Sara Swenson, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Religion in the College of Arts and Sciences, is the recipient of the Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship. Awarded by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, the Newcombe Fellowship supports promising scholars completing dissertations examining ethics and religion in interesting, original or significant ways.

Sara Swenson spent 18 months in Vietnam interviewing volunteers from grassroots Buddhist charity organizations.

Swenson is one of 23 scholars in the United States to receive the award, which the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation calls the largest and most prestigious award for Ph.D. candidates in the humanities and social sciences addressing questions of ethical and religious values.

Swenson’s dissertation, “Sharing Hearts: Buddhist Charities and Urbanization in Vietnam,” will provide a deeper understanding of contemporary Buddhism in Southeast Asia. As she explains, while Buddhism has a longstanding history in Vietnam, there has been surprisingly little research on contemporary Buddhist groups. The charities Swenson researched are often comprised of and run by people who do not hold positions of power in official Buddhist institutions. Her research therefore draws attention to how ordinary and marginalized religious practitioners enact Buddhist values on their own unique terms.

Supported by grants from The Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation in Buddhist Studies and Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad, Swenson spent 18 months from 2017 to 2019 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, speaking with nearly 400 volunteers from 25 different grassroots Buddhist charity organizations. She attended two to three volunteer engagements each week, conducting formal and informal interviews with charity participants she met at each event. According to Swenson, each group gathered people from different backgrounds, including young college students, queer couples, retired military veterans, company managers, factory workers and single parents. Some of the people she interviewed had experienced theft, violence, isolation and financial insecurity. They participated in these charity organizations to explore questions about how to live ethically and transform society through altruism.

“They decided to join or establish charities to forge communities of ‘people with heart’ amid the city’s atmosphere of alienation and uncertainty,” says Swenson. “They showed how everyday people can adapt religious ideas and practices in grappling with questions of meaning and belonging, intensified by urban life.”

Thanks to the Newcombe Fellowship, Swenson will now write an analysis of the main themes from her research in the form of a dissertation, which will offer significant findings for religious studies, Vietnam studies, and social scientific theories of altruism. She hopes her research will contribute to deeper understandings of popular religion in Southeast Asia, growing trends in Buddhist humanitarianism and the role of social media in mobilizing grassroots charity networks.

Funded by the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation, the fellowship was created in 1981 and has supported nearly 1,300 doctoral candidates. Newcombe Fellows have gone on to be noted faculty at domestic and foreign institutions, leaders in their fields of study, Pulitzer Prize winners and more.

  • Author

Dan Bernardi

  • Recent
  • 2023-24 Parking Rates Announced
    Friday, May 26, 2023, By News Staff
  • Lutheran Chaplain Announces Retirement
    Thursday, May 25, 2023, By Dara Harper
  • SyracuseCoE Awards $180,000 for 9 Faculty Fellow Projects Supporting Research and Innovation
    Thursday, May 25, 2023, By News Staff
  • From Generation to Generation: Doing Well by Doing Good
    Thursday, May 25, 2023, By Eileen Korey
  • Office of Veteran and Military Affairs Celebrates Graduating Military-Connected Students
    Wednesday, May 24, 2023, By Charlie Poag

More In Health & Society

Syracuse University Ambulance Marks 50 Years of Service to Campus Community and Imparting Lifelong Lessons to Its Members

In the fall of 1973, a medical crisis unit staffed by students was established at Syracuse University to provide first aid at campus events, particularly in Archbold Stadium. The new unit was supported by University administrators, including Dr. Vincent Lamparella,…

Building a Fossil Fuel Free Future

Expert: Electrification Is the Key to a Sustainable Future for Buildings If you’ve been on the market for a new home, properties with a natural gas-powered stove were probably promoted as especially valuable. How Americans heat and cook in their…

Chemistry Professor Presents New Research on Anti-Obesity Drug

An experimental anti-obesity drug could reliably curb appetite and normalize blood glucose levels without causing nausea and vomiting, which are frequent side effects of current weight-loss and diabetes drugs. The new peptide treatment not only reduces food consumption but also…

Bloom Social Scholarship Recipient Salma Silvas Seeks to Support Aging and Dying Community

In her distinguished career as a social worker, Jane Rockberger Bloom devoted her life to improving the lives of refugees who settled in the U.S. Bloom, a 1969 Syracuse University alumna and engaged Falk College Advisory Board member, died in…

Human Development and Family Science Graduate Students Present Research at Prestigious Child Development Conference

Five graduate students from the Department of Human Development and Family Science in the Falk College recently presented their work at the Society for Research in Child Development Biennial Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. Linghua Jiang, Qingyang Liu, Sanum…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • @SUCampus
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2023 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.