June 11, 1963, in Saigon, Vietnam, a Buddhist monk, Thich Quang Duc immolatedhimself in a busy intersection. The following is an excerpt taken frommy Manufacturing Religion, pp. 167-177, which discusses this incident. RepresentingVietnamese "Self-Immolations" botat-thichquangduc-01010010_0Theoften-occluded relations among power, imperial politics, and the specificportrayals of religious issues is perhaps no more apparent than in thecase of the interpretations American media and intellectuals gave to themuch publicized actions of several Vietnamese Buddhists who, beginningin mid-June of 1963, died by publicly setting themselves on fire. The firstof these deaths occurred at a busy