Shouting, Clapping, and Laughing with the Monks: Toward a boisterous, cosmopolitan argumentation pedagogy

Contrary to expectations based on stereotypes, Tibetan monasteries are actually full of playful, boisterous, highly physical argumentation (see Drepung, 2009). Tibetan monks could be described as “fi rst and foremost homo disputans ” (Dreyfus, 2003, p. 204), having adopted and adapted Indian philosophical debate in their seventh century turn to Buddhism (Perdue, 2008). Unfamiliar observers often describe the format as mesmerizing to watch; one Westerner even thought he was watching some type of new, emerging genre like “Tibetan Socrates meets Jerry Springer” (“Tibetan Monks,” 2007, para. 2).