Laurence Cox

Laurence Cox is an interdisciplinary researcher, writer and educator whose work explores two key aspects of the making of the modern world: how can we understand the extraordinary variety of ways in which social movements from below have developed and sometimes reshaped societies, and how has the long historical conversation between “Eastern” and “Western” cultures been mediated through the globalisation of Buddhisms?

As an engaged social movements researcher, his work is best known for dialogue with movement practitioners about how to understand movement development: the conversation with Marxism, feminism and other theoretical analyses originating from movements; co-founding the practitioner-oriented journal Interface, co-developing a Master’s in activism and supervising participatory action research in movements; and work in social movement learning and knowledge production. He has published on European and Irish movements and revolutions as well as struggles in the Niger Delta and southeast Mexico. Most recently he co-edited a Handbook of Research Methods and Applications for Social Movements (Elgar 2024), the first such handbook to take a global approach to the subject. He is particularly interested in how social movements can contribute to staving off climate collapse and the rise of authoritarianism.

Within the academic study of religions, his research has rewritten the history of early western Buddhists in Asia as well as the story of Ireland’s encounter with Buddhism, exploring western colonialism, Asian migration to Europe and European converts and more broadly religion as a language of cross-cultural conversation. His latest book is the co-edited East Asian Religiosities in the European Union (Brill 2024), breaking new ground as a systematic study of the field. Meanwhile his Oxford University Press monograph on the Irish Buddhist monk and anti-colonial activist U Dhammaloka has become the subject of a dramatized radio documentary and reviewed in the Wall Street Journal.

Cox has published seventeen books to date as well as many articles, chapters and other academic pieces which can be accessed free from the “Publications” tab. He has spoken at Kyoto University; at Princeton, Harvard and CUNY Graduate Center; at the European University Institute (Fiesole) and the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (Paris); and at many European, British and Irish universities, museums, libraries and conferences. He has also written and spoken widely for social movements and Buddhist centres, events, networks, magazines and podcasts around the world.