Benjamin Penny

Last updated

Benjamin Penny
Born (1959-10-27) 27 October 1959 (age 64)
Melbourne, Australia
NationalityAustralian
Education Newington College
University of Sydney
University of Cambridge
Australian National University
Occupation(s)Associate professor
research fellow,
School of Culture, History & Language
Australian National University
College of Asia and the Pacific
Website Benjamin Penny at NLA

Benjamin David Penny (born 27 October 1959) is an Australian academic specialising in religious and spiritual movements in modern and contemporary China. He is a Harold White Fellow at the National Library of Australia. [1]

Contents

His area of speciality is Falun Gong as well as the interpretation of Chinese religions by westerners and the history of the religions of Chinese Australians. [2] The Times Literary Supplement states that in The Religion of Falun Gong Penny "makes a good case for defining Falun Gong as a modern Chinese religion. . . . [He] provides an admirable guide to the short history of Falun Gong and the eclectic complexities of its doctrine, which he sets within the framework of indigenous religious belief over the centuries." [3]

Family and education

Penny is the younger brother of professor Simon Penny (born 1955) who is a theorist, curator and teacher in the field of Interactive Media Art. Benjamin Penny was born in Melbourne and attended Newington College (1972–1977). [4] He was awarded a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Sydney, a Master of Philosophy from University of Cambridge and a PhD from the Australian National University.

Benjamin has a son.

Career

After university study, Penny was a post-doctoral fellow at the ANU. From 1999 until 2005, he was the first Executive Officer of the Herbert and Valmae Freilich Foundation. During the years 2003 and 2004 he was a research fellow at the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research. Penny was appointed to the Division of Pacific and Asian History in October 2005. Since January 2010 he has been Deputy Director, and a Research Fellow, at the School of Culture, History & Language ANU College of Asia and the Pacific. [5]

Awards

Selected publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Falun Gong</span> New religious movement from China

Falun Gong or Falun Dafa is a new religious movement. Falun Gong was founded by its leader Li Hongzhi in China in the early 1990s. Falun Gong has its global headquarters in Dragon Springs, a 427-acre (1.73 km2) compound in Deerpark, New York, United States, near the residence of Li Hongzhi.

<i>China Youth Daily</i> Chinese Communist Party newspaper

The China Youth Daily has been the newspaper of the Communist Youth League of China since 1951. It has editorial and financial independence in the People's Republic of China.

Li Hongzhi is a Chinese religious leader. He is the founder and leader of Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa, a United States-based new religious movement. Li began his public teachings of Falun Gong on 13 May 1992 in Changchun, and subsequently gave lectures and taught Falun Gong exercises across China.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Falun Gong</span>

Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa, is a spiritual practice and system of beliefs that combines the practice of meditation with the moral philosophy articulated by its leader and founder, Li Hongzhi. It emerged on the public radar in the Spring of 1992 in the northeastern Chinese city of Changchun, and was classified as a system of qigong identifying with the Buddhist tradition. Li claimed to have both supernatural powers like the ability to prevent illness, as well having eternal youth and promised that others can attain supernatural powers and eternal youth by following his teachings. Falun Gong initially enjoyed official sanction and support from Chinese government agencies, and the practice grew quickly on account of the simplicity of its exercise movements, impact on health, the absence of fees or formal membership, and moral and philosophical teachings.

Li Hongzhi published the Teachings of Falun Gong in Changchun, China in 1992. They cover a wide range of topics ranging from spiritual, scientific and moral to metaphysical.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australian Academy of the Humanities</span> Chartered non-profit organisation in Australia

The Australian Academy of the Humanities was established by Royal Charter in 1969 to advance scholarship and public interest in the humanities in Australia. It operates as an independent not-for-profit organisation partly funded by the Australian Government.

The Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident took place in Tiananmen Square in central Beijing, on the eve of Chinese New Year on 23 January 2001. There is controversy over the incident; Chinese government sources say that five members of Falun Gong, a new religious movement that is banned in mainland China, set themselves on fire in the square. Falun Gong sources disputed the accuracy of these portrayals, and claimed that their teachings explicitly forbid violence or suicide. Some journalists have claimed that the self-immolations were staged.

David Murray Horner, is an Australian military historian and academic.

John Minford is a British sinologist and literary translator. He is primarily known for his translation of Chinese classics such as 40 chapters of The Story of the Stone, The Art of War, the I Ching and the Tao Te Ching. He has also translated Louis Cha's wuxia novel The Deer and the Cauldron and a selection of Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Persecution of Falun Gong</span> Antireligious campaign in China

The persecution of Falun Gong is the campaign initiated in 1999 by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to eliminate the spiritual practice of Falun Gong in China, maintaining a doctrine of state atheism. It is characterized by a multifaceted propaganda campaign, a program of enforced ideological conversion and re-education and reportedly a variety of extralegal coercive measures such as arbitrary arrests, forced labor and physical torture, sometimes resulting in death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geremie Barmé</span> Australian sinologist

Geremie R. Barmé is an Australian sinologist and film-maker on modern and traditional China. He was formerly Director, Australian Centre on China in the World and Chair Professor of Chinese History at Australian National University College of Asia and the Pacific in Canberra.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kuang Biao</span>

Kuang Biao (邝飚) is an influential Chinese political cartoonist and microblogger. He has worked at the Southern Metropolis Daily as its Cartoon Editor, and his work has been published in China Digital Times and the once-popular weekly Chinese newspaper Satire and Humor. Kuang says his cartoons mainly satirize official policy pronouncements and the misbehaviour of Communist party officials.

Liu Ts'un-yan 柳存仁 (1917–2009) was a scholar of Chinese letters and thought, an author of fiction, drama, and screenplays, and a major figure in the development of Asian Studies in Australia.

Lo Hui-min was a Chinese and Australian historian of the late Qing and Republican periods, best-known for his work on George Ernest Morrison and Ku Hung-ming.

The George Ernest Morrison Lecture in Ethnology is given annually at the Australian National University in honour of George Ernest Morrison. The Lectures, founded by the Chinese community in Australia "to honour for all time the great Australian who rendered valuable service to China" were also, in the words of Geremie Barmé "related to Chinese-Australian resistance to White Australia policy, reflecting also the alarm and outrage resulting from the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931." Several of the older lectures were reprinted in 1996 by East Asian History.

East Asian History is a biannual peer-reviewed open-access academic journal published by the Australian National University. It was established in 1970 as Papers on Far Eastern History, obtaining its current title in 1991. Published by ANU's Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, it was part of a growth in publication on Asian studies in Australia in the 1970s. Originally "founded as a forum for the publication of papers written by the faculty and students of Australian National University" affiliates of ANU continued to "represent the large majority of its contributors, although over the years there have been increasing contributions from scholars from other universities in Australia and abroad." Chinese History: A Manual included the journal as one of the main Western-language journals for research on Chinese history.

<i>The Religion of Falun Gong</i>

The Religion of Falun Gong is a 2012 nonfiction book by Benjamin Penny, published by the University of Chicago Press, that discusses the Falun Gong's belief system.

Falun Gong and the Future of China is a 2008 book by David Ownby, published by Oxford University Press.

Qigong Fever: Body, Science, and Utopia in China is a 2007 book by David A. Palmer, published by Columbia University Press. It is about the "Qigong fever" in the late 20th century in China.

References

  1. 1 2 Harold White Fellow. Retrieved 14 January 2015
  2. Dr Benjamin Penny, Deputy Director, Australian Centre on China in the World. Retrieved 14 January 2015
  3. The Religion of Falun Gong – Editorial Reviews. Retrieved 30 January 2015
  4. Newington College Register of Past Students 1863–1998 (Syd, 1999) pp155
  5. ANU Researcher. Retrieved 14 January 2015
  6. Choice Magazine: CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Awards University of Chicago Press
  7. Penny, Benjamin (13 April 2012), The religion of Falun Gong, University of Chicago Press (published 2012), ISBN   978-0-226-65501-7
  8. University of Chicago Press. Retrieved 14 January 2015
  9. The Religion of the Falun Gong University of Toronto Library
  10. Dr Benjamin Penny. Retrieved 14 January 2015
  11. Penny, Benjamin; Liu, Cunren (2006), Daoism in history : essays in honour of Liu Tsʼun-yan, Routledge (published 2005), ISBN   978-0-415-34852-2
  12. Penny, Benjamin (2002), Religion and biography in China and Tibet, Curzon, ISBN   978-0-7007-1177-2