Editor’s Note: This article was adapted from information provided by the Department of Religion.

When major disasters strike, international relief organizations dominate the headlines. But across the globe, much of the day-to-day work of addressing human need happens spontaneously and without fanfare. In Vietnam, many of the people doing that work are inspired by Buddhist altruism, which inspired religion researcher Sara Ann Swenson G'21 to spend years trying to understand why.

Her new book, Near Light We Shine: Buddhist Charity in Urban Vietnam, published through Oxford University Press in the prestigious American Academy of Religion (AAR) Series, traces the rise of grassroots Buddhist charity movements in contemporary Vietnam. The book takes its title from a Vietnamese adage — Gần đèn thì sáng, or "near light we shine" — used by volunteers to emphasize the power of authentic generosity to inspire those around it.

A Diverse Landscape of Giving

The communities Swenson profiles include low-income day laborers, elderly women, Buddhist nuns, urban migrants, college students and queer men. They share a commitment to addressing urgent social problems — rising cancer rates, the cost of HIV/AIDS treatment, homelessness and domestic violence — through informal, often impulsive acts of giving.

Swenson finds that volunteers promote distinct styles of Buddhist practice that are often at odds with one another. The result is a portrait of Buddhism as a dynamic, contested and highly adaptable resource for communities navigating rapid change.

A Selective Distinction

The AAR Series through Oxford University Press is among the most competitive publication venues in religious studies. Swenson's selection caps years of recognized scholarly achievement that began at the College of Arts and Sciences, where she received the Marleigh Grayer Ryan Graduate Writing Prize, the Vietnam Studies Group Graduate Paper Prize and the Mary Hatch Marshall Award for the best essay written by a graduate student in the humanities. In 2022, she received the Syracuse University All-University Doctoral Prize for Superior Achievement in Completed Dissertations.

Her research has also attracted support from the American Council of Learned Societies, a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad grant and The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Dissertation Fellowship in Buddhist Studies, among other funders.

From Syracuse to Oxford

Since completing her Ph.D., Swenson has presented her work at Yale, Cornell, UCLA, the University of Oslo, Edinburgh University and Oxford, and has been interviewed by the BBC. She currently serves as an assistant professor of religion at Dartmouth College and credits her Ph.D. training at Syracuse for her ability to connect with audiences across disciplines.

"At SU, I learned how to listen and connect with any audience — whether I am doing public scholarship with Asian American activist communities, lecturing for philologists at Oxford, or debating with Vietnam War historians, I always lead with stories from the charity volunteers I interviewed," Swenson says. "Stories humanize complex problems. Those kinds of stories are timeless."

Swenson now encourages her own students to pursue religious studies for the same transferable analytical skills she developed at Syracuse.

"Studying religion can give you access to existential resources for navigating the natural ups and downs of life," she says. "That kind of existential knowledge and self-awareness won't go out of date when the latest AI model rolls out. It's one of the best gifts universities can give our students to equip them for their futures, despite a chaotic world."