Episode 96 - Dr. Jolyon Thomas (Penn)

In this episode, Dr. Thomas revisits the history of religion during the Meiji Period, outlining the impacts of the Restoration on Buddhism in Japan.  We discuss the anxiety felt by Buddhists after 1868, Buddhist practitioners' reactions to institutionalized Shinto in the prewar period, the religious consequences of the postwar American Occupation, and links between animation and religious practice in contemporary Japan. (Transcript here).