Author: Mariia Lepneva

Doctoral School “Buddhism and Medicine in East Asia”, June 28-July 2, 2021

Abstract: This specialist course will focus on an interdisciplinary approach to the intersection of religion and medicine in medieval and late imperial East Asia, with a particular focus on Buddhism. As a religious and cultural tradition with transnational scope, Buddhism played an important role in circulating medical knowledge around Asia. This course focuses on this history from the perspectives of Religious Studies, History of Medicine, Sinology, and Translation Studies.

Level – Target audience

PhD students with a background in Chinese studies and/or in Chinese religions or in the history/anthropology of medicine. A good knowledge of pre-modern and modern Chinese language is expected for the students attending the classes requiring a sinological background.

Organising & Scientific Committee

  • Contact persons: prof. Ann Heirman, Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, Department: Languages and Cultures, E-mail: and mathieu.torck@ugent.be
  • prof. Christoph Anderl (Department: Languages and Cultures – East Asia), Ghent University
  • prof. Andreas Niehaus (Department: Languages and Cultures – East Asia), Ghent University

Topic

Between 150 and 1100 CE, Buddhism played a central role in introducing Indian medicine to East Asia. This historically represented a relatively discrete corpus of health-related knowledge, relatively unintegrated into East Asian medicine and often ignored in mainstream medical historiography. Nevertheless, Buddhist sources are critical to understanding the history of medicine in medieval East Asia, and it is not an exaggeration to say that this corpus offers one of the most voluminous sources of textual evidence for the transregional communication and reception of medical ideas in first millennium CE Asia that is available anywhere. Buddhist ideas and practices deserve more attention than they have received thus far from Sinologists and scholars of East Asia. This course is meant to introduce young scholars to this exciting emergent field, and to give them the tools to enter into this arena of scholarship.

Objectives and learning outcomes

The course is to provide intensive training for doctoral students with a background in East Asian history, Chinese studies, Chinese religions, Buddhist studies, history of medicine, and/or history of science. Half of the course is dedicated to lectures, and the other half to interaction with students, including a presentation of their dissertation projects, text readings, discussions, and the screening of documentary films. The course is meant to provide students with an insight into the intersection between Buddhism and medicine in East Asia. In detail, the course aims:
1) to enhance students’ understanding of the intersections between religion and medicine in the pre-modern world;
2) to provide new insights into the role of Buddhism in cross-cultural exchange of science, medicine, and technology;
3) to provide students with a knowledge of the practice of Buddhism and healing in contemporary Chinese and diasporic communities;
4) to enhance the students’ presentation competences
5) (for the sinological group) to improve students’ skills in classical Chinese through the reading of examples of Chinese Buddhist literature.

Dates and Program

From Monday 28 June to Friday 2 July 2021 (details see program hereunder)

  • Monday, June 28, 2021: Orientations

10:00-10:30: Welcome Greetings*
10:30-12:00: Buddhist medicine in a global context (Pierce Salguero)*
12:00-13:30: Lunch Break
13:30-16:00: Presentation of current research projects/questions by all participants (moderated by Leslie de Vries)*

  • Tuesday, June 29, 2021: Medieval China

10:00-12:00: Buddhist healing in medieval China (Pierce Salguero) *
12:00-13:30: Lunch Break
13:30-15:30: Health and bodily practices in Chinese Buddhist monastic practice (Ann Heirman) *

  • Wednesday, June 30, 2021: Cross-cultural movements and translations

10:00-12:00: Buddhism and medicine in transit (China, Japan, Vietnam) (Leslie de Vries)*
12:00-13:30: Lunch Break
13:30-15:30: Analysis of medieval Chinese practices of translation (Pierce Salguero)**

  • Thursday, July 1, 2021: Primary Text Readings

10:00-12:00: Text reading: “On Eliminating Disease” from Sūtra of Golden Light (Pierce Salguero)**
12:00-13:30: Lunch Break
13:30-15:30: Text reading: “Buddhism and scholarly medicine: A selection of passages from the medical literature” (Leslie de Vries)**

  • Friday, July 2, 2021: Integrating Research and Teaching

10:00-12:00: Film screening and discussion: Buddhist healing in a contemporary diasporic community in North America (Pierce Salguero)*
12:00-13:30: Lunch Break
13:30-16:00: Open discussion about integrating research and teaching based on this seminar (moderated by Andreas Niehaus)*

* Lectures also suitable for a general audience (no Sinological background needed)
** Sinological background needed

Venue

ONLINE

Lecturers

  • C. Pierce Salguero, Penn State University (Abington College)

Contact details: ; 302 Sutherland Bldg., 1600 Woodland Rd., Abington PA 19001 USA.
Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary medical humanities scholar who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and cross-cultural exchange. He has a PhD in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (2010), and a Master’s Degree in East Asian Studies from University of Virginia (2005).
Thus far, Pierce Salguero has produced an academic monograph on medieval China, an edited volume on China and Japan, a two-volume collection of translations from around the world, thirteen peer-reviewed academic articles and book chapters, and a number of other translations, encyclopaedia entries, and public scholarship projects on various aspects of Buddhism and medicine in East Asia. A second monograph, a global history of Buddhist engagements with health and healing, is under contract with Columbia University Press. He has become well known as a leading specialist in this field through his publication projects, various online professional networks, as well as through his frequent organization of and participation in conferences, workshops, and collaborative online projects. His editorial work with the journal Asian Medicine has also been important to the academic world, and he became the Editor-in-Chief in 2016. He has been invited to present his research at many prestigious American universities, as well as internationally in Canada, England, Germany, Korea, and Taiwan. His research has been recognized by fellowships from humanities centers at the University of Pennsylvania (2011–12) and Duke University (Fall 2013), and has been funded by Fulbright (2008–09), the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation (2009–10), the National Research Foundation of Korea (2015–17), University of Leipzig (2017), and various awards from Penn State.

 

  • Leslie de Vries, University of Kent

Contact details: ; Department of Religious Studies, SECL, Cornwallis North West, University of Kent, Canterbury, CT2 7NF, United Kingdom. Leslie de Vries is a historian of religion and medicine in East Asia. He holds a PhD degree in Oriental Languages and Cultures (Ghent, 2012). From 2013 to 2015, he was a Research Fellow in the Wellcome Trust funded project “Beyond Tradition: Styles of Practice and Ways of Knowing in East Asian Medicine, 1100 to the present” at the University of Westminster. Since 2018, he is a Lecturer in East Asian Studies at the University of Kent.
Leslie de Vries is a leading scholar researching the intersections of medicine and religion in East Asia during the late imperial/early modern period. In his forthcoming monograph, The Thread that Runs Through Medicine: A Style of Practice in Seventeenth-Century China (Berghahn), and earlier journal articles, including “The Authentic Man as Ideal for the Late Ming Dynasty Physician: Daoist Inner Alchemy in Zhang Jiebin’s Commentary on the Huangdi neijing” (Synthesis Philosophica 2014) and “The Dangers of ‘Warming and Replenishing’ (wenbu 溫補) during the Ming to Qing Epistemic Transition” (Asian Medicine 2015), he focused on medicine and the Three Teaching (Buddhism, Confucianism and Daoism) in China. Leslie de Vries is also one of the very few specialists researching Vietnam’s pre-modern medical history. In this field, he published “The Dồng Nhân Pagoda and the Publication of Mister Lazy’s Medical Encyclopedia” (2017) and “Vietnam in the Premodern Period” (forthcoming). Work in progress include research on Buddhist trajectories of medical knowledge transmission from China to Vietnam and Japan in the aftermath of the Ming-Qing transition. As a leading expert, Leslie de Vries is frequently invited to specialist workshops at renowned institutions (Oxford, Cornell, Max Planck Munich, Heidelberg, …). He organised and co-organised international academic conferences (Kent, Michigan) and acts as Book Review Editor (China) for Asian Medicine.

Registration fee

Free of charge for PhD students of the Doctoral School of Arts, Humanities and Law at Ghent University

Registration

Please follow this link: https://webappsx.ugent.be/eventManager/events/buddmedeastasia

Teaching materials

Reading materials (required readings and suggested readings), electronic sources, and the source texts to be translated in class will be (electronically) provided to the participants prior to the course.

Number of participants

Maximum 20

Evaluation criteria (doctoral training programme)

100% attendance (sinological group 20 hrs, non sinological group 16 hrs); active participation (text reading, individual presentations by doctoral researchers, discussions).

2021 PTBS Lecture Series

March 9: Anna Andreeva (Uni Heidelberg & Ghent University) “Buddhism and Women’s Health in Medieval Japan”

March 16: Matthew Orsborn (Oxford University) “Monastic Training and Education in Contemporary Taiwanese Buddhism”

Since the middle of the 20th century, Buddhism in the Republic of China has been led by the reformist ‘Humanistic Buddhism’ (Renjian fojiao 人間佛教) movement. One key area of Taixü’s 太虛 program of modernization was that of monastic education and training, centered on Buddhist colleges (Fo xüe yüan 佛學院). However, this proposed ideal system was unable to be actualized during his lifetime in mainland China. His successors in Taiwan, such as Yin Shun 印順, Hsing Yun 星雲 and Sheng Yen 聖嚴, encountered the challenge of a new social, cultural and political climate. Numerous Buddhist colleges were established by various monastic leaders and monasteries, promoting a flourishing of modern Buddhist education. Such institutions were able to maintain a full range of traditional Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhist models of education, drawing from numerous lineages (zōng 宗). Political forces, however, restricted the Ministry of Education from accrediting these colleges and recognizing the degrees and qualifications offered by such institutions. Meanwhile, ‘Buddhist studies’ (Fo xüe 佛學) as an academic discipline began to emerge in recognized Taiwanese universities, influenced first by Japanese and later Western models of scholarship. Many Humanistic Buddhism monastic orders then set up departments and institutes within their own privately-run universities. But they still face a critical dilemma in educating and training their future generations of monastics: Continuation of training monastics in non-recognized Buddhist colleges under their own control, or adoption of degree-granting university Buddhist studies education which must conform to Ministry of Education secular requirements. This paper seeks to examine the responses of the leading educators of Humanistic Buddhism to this quandary at the start of the 21st century.

Key terms: Humanistic Buddhism, Taiwanese Buddhism, Buddhist college, Buddhist studies, Buddhist education

Matthew Orsborn is a Buddhist studies scholar originally from New Zealand. After starting seminary training with the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist order in 2000, he was an ordained monastic for 17 years. During this time he studied for a master’s degree and PhD at the University of Hong Kong, graduating in 2012. His dissertation on inverted parallel structures in the Perfection of Wisdom literature was later published as The Structure and Interpretation of Early Prajñāpāramitā: An Analysis via Chiasmic Theory, and he has several other journal articles on such structures in other Buddhist texts. Working with Pāli, Sanskrit and Chinese literature, Matthew’s other main work is Old School Emptiness: Hermeneutics, Criticism and Tradition in the Narrative of Śūnyatā, which challenges the standard narrative of emptiness in Indian Buddhism. Along with such writings on Indian Buddhist texts and doctrines, Matthew’s many years of experience in contemporary Chinese/Taiwanese Buddhist traditions has inspired him to recently turn his research attention in this direction. This includes a planned forthcoming series of articles on Chinese Buddhist monastic ordination, education, and the lived experience of monastic life. He has taught Buddhist studies in Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Australia and Thailand, and is presently at the Institute for Oriental Studies at Oxford University in the UK.

March 23: Lewis Doney (Ruhr-Universität Bochum) “Incantations and Empire: A study of some Tibetan dhāraṇī texts from Dunhuang”

From the late eighth century to the middle of the ninth century, the Tibetan empire (circa 600–850) held and administered Dunhuang in what is now Northwest China. From the 820s to the 840s, several copies of texts within the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajñāpāramitā) genre and thousands of copies of an incantation (dhāraṇī ) text called the Aparimitāyur-nāma mahāyāna-sūtra were commissioned as a gift for the Tibetan emperor. Copies of the latter were made in scriptoria in eastern Tibet and Dunhuang and eventually stored in Mogao Cave 17, becoming one of the most represented works within that treasure-trove of manuscripts. As embodiments of a number of buddhas and their teachings, copying and thus spreading the incantation and surrounding sūtra generated merit for the emperor and his realm, his saṃgha and his subjects. The copying project as a whole was supported by taxation and by levies of paper, and so participated in both an employment and ritual economy in which the principles of royal giving and karmic merit dynamically interacted with legal codes, corporal punishment and a posssible “black market” in scripture copies. This talk will contextualise this imperial sūtra copying project and the effect of the Tibetan empire on the Dunhuang Buddhist community that it reveals. Also, by briefly touching on Uṣniṣavjijaya-dhāraṇī texts and some other manuscripts from the same Mogao corpus, it will question to what extent the Aparimitāyur-nāma mahāyāna-sūtra contained the most popular incantation practised around Dunhuang at this time.

Lewis Doney specialises in Tibetan and religious studies and is currently on the BuddhistRoad project at Ruhr-University Bochum. He received his PhD from SOAS, University of London (2011) and has since researched early Tibetan kingship and religion, their connections with South Asia and their impact on Sino-Tibetan communities around Dunhuang and later southern Tibetan Buddhist historiography and ritual. His publications include a monograph, The Zangs gling ma: The First Padmasambhava Biography (International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, 2014) and an edited volume, Bringing Buddhism to Tibet: History and Narrative in the Dba’ bzhed Manuscript (De Gruyter, 2021).

March 30: Matthew Milligan (Trinity University) “Economic Class in Early South Asian Buddhism: Perspectives from Epigraphy and the Divyāvadāna”

To date, most studies of classical South Asian Buddhist demographics have focused on varṇa and conversion, mercantile professions, and, more recently, finally, on gender. Unfortunately, even when scholars have turned their gaze onto demographics they have primarily relied upon anachronistic and generalized readings of literature and/or century old tabulations of inscriptions. As far as I can tell, there have been no attempts to critically examine economic class through close readings of texts and historical documents together. In this paper, I will evaluate the definition of “economic class,” decouple it from classical Sanskrit concepts of idealized varṇa, and introduce some new data from texts and inscriptions to examine the lived realities of “class” from approximately 300 BCE until at least the 5th c. CE when the Divyāvadāna was composed.

Matthew D. Milligan is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Trinity University in San Antonio, TX. He is also a Harwood Research Fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research. He works on the intersections of Buddhism, Economics, and Philology and has published numerous articles on the economic history of Buddhism in South Asia. In addition to forthcoming articles in the Journal of Contemporary Religion and South Asian Studies, he is completing a book manuscript titled Of Rags and Riches: The Disruptive Business of Early Buddhism. His latest project involves decolonizing the field of engaged Buddhist Economics in the United States.

April 20: Lina Verchery (University of Otago) cancelled  “The Personal and the Planetary: Cosmological Thought and the Moral Imagination in Everyday Chinese Buddhist Monastic Life”

Drawing on years of ethnographic research with the Chinese Buddhist monastic organization Fajie Fojiao Zonghui 法界佛教總會, known in English as the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, this talk explores how Buddhist cosmological thought trains the moral imagination in everyday Buddhist monastic life. Situating contemporary Chinese Buddhism as a decidedly global phenomenon, this talk challenges the simplistic categories of “modernism” versus “traditionalism” to instead highlight how very ancient Buddhist ideas about cosmology present resources for reflecting on contemporary questions of immediate concern, including the intensifying climate crisis and our uncertain planetary future.

Lina Verchery is Lecturer in Religion at the University of Otago in New Zealand, where she teaches courses on Buddhism and Asian Religions. Her doctoral dissertation in Buddhist Studies from Harvard University, Impersonal Intimacy: Relational Ethics and Self-Cultivation in a Transnational Chinese Buddhist Monastic Network, is an ethnographic study of sociality, interspecies ethics, and moral cultivation in the Fajie Fojiao Zonghui, a transnational Chinese Buddhist monastic organization. Lina is also an award-winning filmmaker and has produced several documentary and multimedia works as part of her ethnographic research. Prior to joining the University of Otago, she was Visiting Assistant Professor of Asian Religions at Union College.

April 30: Pei-ying Lin (Fu Jen Catholic University) “On the Materiality and Cultural Identity of the Tang Dynasty: East Asian Buddhist Networks behind a Royal Portrait” (this lecture is kindly sponsored by the National Taiwan Library)

May 4: Serena Saccone (Istituto Universitario Orientale, Napoli & IKGA, ÖAW) “One Flew Over the Nest: an Externalist Among Pramāṇavādins”

May 11: Ingo Strauch (University of Lausanne) “Newly discovered Śāradā documents from a private collection in the UK”

These lecture series were generously sponsored by the Tianzhu Foundation.

Publication highlights (2020): Chán Buddhism in Dūnhuáng and beyond: a study of manuscripts, texts, and contexts in memory of John R. McRae

This volume is dedicated to the memory of the eminent Chán scholar John McRae and investigates the spread of early Chán in a historical, multi-lingual, and interreligious context. Combining the expertise of scholars of Chinese, Tibetan, Uighur, and Tangut Buddhism, the edited volume is based on a thorough study of manuscripts from Dūnhuáng, Turfan, and Karakhoto, tracing the particular features of Chán in the Northwestern and Northern regions of late medieval China.

Book details:

Christoph Anderl and Christian Wittern, eds. Chán Buddhism in Dūnhuáng and beyond: a study of manuscripts, texts, and contexts in memory of John R. McRae. Numen Book Series, Volume: 165. Brill, 2020.

E-Book (PDF)
ISBN: 978-90-04-43924-5
Publication: 04 Nov 2020

Hardback
ISBN: 978-90-04-43191-1
Publication: 05 Nov 2020

 

Short-term visiting scholar 2019–2020: Prof. Dr. James A. Benn (McMaster University, Canada)

Professor James A. BENN was trained primarily as a scholar of medieval Chinese religions (Buddhism and Taoism).  His research is aimed at understanding the practices and world views of medieval men and women, both religious and lay, through the close reading of primary sources in literary Chinese—the lingua franca of East Asian religions. He has concentrated on three major areas of research: bodily practice in Chinese Religions; the ways in which people create and transmit new religious practices and doctrines; and the religious dimensions of commodity culture. In particular James A. Benn has worked on self-immolation, Chinese Buddhist apocrypha, and the religious and cultural history of tea.

With the generous support of the Tianzhu Foundation Professor Benn participated in the Kosmoi Conference titled “Good – Better – Best. Asceticism and the Way to Perfection” and organized at the Catholic University of Leuven (October 21–23, 2019). The title of his paper is: “Is Buddhist Self-immolation a Form of Asceticism?”

https://theo.kuleuven.be/kosmoi/conference_2019/programme/

This visit was made possible due to the generous support of the Tianzhu Foundation.

Doctoral School “Sino-Tibetan Languages: Research Methodologies and Approaches to Linguistic Field Studies and Language Documentation among Tibeto-Burman Speaking Minorities in China”, October 26–30, 2020

Abstract: This specialist course will focus on an interdisciplinary approach to the Sino-Tibetan (ST) language family, with an emphasis on languages of the Tibeto-Burman (TB) branch spoken by ethnic minorities in China. In the course there will be an emphasis on linguistic aspects, such as the genetic relations between the ST languages in a historical perspective, comparative approaches to the study of language families, fieldwork research on endangered languages, fieldwork methodologies, as well as the cultural and religious background of ST speaking ethnic minorities in China.

Thanks to the generous support of the TIANZHU FOUNDATION, we are pleased to award up to 800 Euros in travel remuneration of five international PhD students. This money can be used for travel, accommodation, and meals. To apply for this travel grant, please send a one-page cover letter and your CV to Christoph.anderl@ugent.be by July 31st, 2020. The selected candidates will be notified by August 10th , 2020.

Organizers
Name: Prof. Christoph Anderl
Faculty: Arts and Philosophy
Department: Languages and Cultures (Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies / DiaLing)
E-mail: Christoph.anderl@ugent.be
Co-organizers:
Prof. Ann Heirman (Languages and Cultures – East Asia)
Prof. Linda Badan (Translation, Interpreting and Communication / MULTIPLES / DiaLing)

Course
Title: Sino-Tibetan Languages: Research Methodologies and Approaches to Linguistic Field Studies and Language Documentation among Tibeto-Burman Speaking Minorities in China
Dates: October 26 – 30, 2020
Venue: Het Pand, Ghent
Based on the current Covid19 situation, the DS could be also transformed into an online event, if necessary.

Topic of the course

The course focuses on the Sino-Tibetan language family and Tibeto-Burman languages as spoken in Southwestern regions of China, as well as the sociocultural, religious, and ecological contexts of ethnic minorities of these regions. The DS will provide an overview of ST languages in a historical perspective, and deal with the research of language families in a comparative context (especially contrasting / comparing the Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan groups). More specifically, the focus will be on Tibeto-Burman languages as spoken in the Southwestern region of Yunnan, China, many of them being endangered and on the verge of becoming extinct. The linguistic aspects will be discussed in a contextualized way, giving consideration to the sociocultural, religious (e.g., Buddhism, Christianity, and native religions), and environmental / ecological aspects of the ethnic minority communities. Another part of the course will concretely deal with linguistic fieldwork methodologies and the documentation of endangered languages.
Tentative programme with time schedule: The five-day course will have 5 – 6 contact hours a day (ca. 27 contact hours all together), includinglectures, discussions of research material, presentations by the PhD students, round-table discussions, and documentary film screenings.

Program

Monday, October 26th:

11:30 Welcome Greetings (C. Anderl; A. Heirman; L. Badan) / Opening of Zoom room

12:00-14:00: Sino-Tibetan Languages: Introduction and Historical Perspective (Nathan Hill)

14:30-15:30: Tibeto-Burman Languages: An Introduction (Nathan Hill)

15:45-16:45: Sino-Tibetan Languages: Research Methodologies in a Comparative Perspective 1 (Nathan Hill)

Tuesday, October 27th:

12:00-14:00: Linguistic Field Work Methodologies 1: New Developments (Nathan Hill)

14:30-15:30: Sino-Tibetan Languages: Research Methodologies in a Comparative Perspective 2 (Nathan Hill)

15:30-16:15: Discussion with Students (C. Anderl; N. Hill; J. Wang; L. Badan)

Wednesday, October 28th:

10:00-12:00: Religion and Culture of the Biyo Communities of Southwestern China (PhD student Shan Bai) / Discussions

13:00-15:00: Introduction to the Hani language group (Wang Jianhua)

15:15-17:15: Interactive Presentations of StudentsÕ PhD Projects*

Thursday, October 29th:

10:00-12:00: Linguistic Field Work Methodologies 2: Field Work Among Hani Communities in Southwestern China and Beyond (Wang Jianhua)

13:00-15:00: Presentation of a Documentary Film on Minorities in Southwestern China (Wang Jianhua)

15:30-17:30: Interactive Presentation of StudentsÕ PhD Projects**

Friday, October 30th:

12:00-14:00: Linguistic Field Work Methodologies 3 (Linda Badan)

14:30-16:00: Final Discussion with Students(C. Anderl; N. Hill; J. Wang; L. Badan)*
Presentations: (1) Selin Grollmann (Univ. of Bern): A grammar of Nachiring: Describing an endangered language of eastern Nepal /(2) Valentina Punzi (Univ. of Tartu): Linguistic identity and cultural heritagization in the Sino-Tibetan borderlands: reflections of a 90hou Baima ritual expert on mother tongue / (3) Nikita Kuzmin (Univ. of Pennsylvania): How to master the Tangut language? A new view on Tangut manuscripts with Tibetan glosses from Khara-khoto ** Presentations: (4) Deng Bingcong (Max Planck Institute, Euroasia3angle Project): Transeurasian loanwords in Sino-Tibetan: Whatcan they tell us? / (5) Pascal Gerber (Univ. Bern): A historical grammar of Mewahang: Aim, Methods and Preliminary Findings / (6) Bai Shan (Ghent Univ.): Field studies among Biyo communities

Long-term visiting scholar 2019–2020: Prof. Dr. Xuan Fang (Renmin University, China)

Professor XUAN Fang 宣方 is a research fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Religion, Renmin University of China, as well as the executive member of Journal of Religion. His main academic interests focuse on Chinese Buddhist meditative tradition and Modern Chinese Buddhism, particularly Humanistic Buddhism (renjian fojiao), in which fields he published a book and more than 40 articles including. Furthermore, he is also guest professor of many Buddhist academic institutes such as the Institute of Chinese Buddhist Culture, Institute of Peking Buddhist Culture, Peking University, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Xiamen University, and Yunnan University. Xuan Fang will give lectures, seminars and workshops on a variety of topics and at various levels during his stay at Ghent University (6 January–3 March 2020). He will also closely cooperate in the framework of the current research projects.

Professor Xuan gave the following lecture:

“From Tranquility (ji 寂) to Illumination (zhao 照): The Jizhao Temple in the Context of Social Changes in Dali Prefecture” (由寂而照：社会变迁中的寂照庵)(26 February 2020)

The lecture focused on an unknown Buddhist nunnery suddenly going viral, through which Dr Xuan tries to draw the outline of the revival process of Buddhist nunneries in Post-Mao China. This lecture was part of the Buddhist Studies Lecture Series 2019–2020.

This visit was made possible due to the generous support of the Tianzhu Foundation.

Lectures & Workshops Series by Dr. Lia Wei 魏離雅, February and March 2020

Dr. Lia Wei (Lecturer in Archaeology & Museum Studies, School of History, Renmin University, China) will give a series of lectures and workshops supported by the Tianzhu Foundation and Ghent University. The program includes the following topics: landscape painting, ink art, antiquarianism and seal carving. The program is concluded by a lecture on Song dynasty gardens given by Ms. Salome Foltin (University of Tübingen).  All lectures and workshops will take place at the interfaculty study center VANDENHOVE (Rozier 1, 9000 Ghent). Admission is free but for the workshops registration is required. For further inquiries please contact Mathieu.Torck@UGent.be.

PROGRAM 

1. Landscape painting lecture: “Reading and writing the landscape: from physical to literary perceptions”

Venue: Auditorium Vandenhove

Tuesday, February 11, 2020: 1–4 pm

• Topics: conceptual, pictorial and written landscapes

• Discussion: Drawing and Writing

2. Ink art workshop: “Find your way between nature and culture” (registration required!)

Venue: Workshop Room Vandenhove

Monday, February 17, 2020: 4–6 pm

• Session 1: Landscape Analysis & Construction

Tuesday, February 18, 2020: 2–4 pm

• Session 2: Beyond Classification

Tuesday, February 18, 2020: 4–6 pm

• Session 3: Texture Lines & Calligraphic Portraits

3. Antiquarianism lecture: “Future in the Past: printing and carving before and after writing”

Venue: Auditorium Vandenhove

Tuesday, February 25, 2020: 5–6 pm

4. Seal carving workshop: “Connect sign and matter in three steps” (registration required!)

Venue: Workshop Room Vandenhove

Monday, March 2, 2020: 3–6 pm

• Session 1: Etymological Research and Calligraphic Models

Tuesday, March 3, 2020: 3–6 pm

• Session 2: Carving and Printing

5. Lecture by Salome Foltin (M.A. Department of Chinese Studies, University of Tübingen): “The Literati’s Pastime: Visual Renderings of Sima Guang’s 司馬光 (1019-1086) Garden in Ming Dynasty”

Venue: Auditorium Vandenhove

Tuesday, March 3, 2020: 6–7 pm

 

Doctoral School “Chinese Buddhist Historical Records in the Context of Digital Humanities”, October 21–25, 2019

Abstract: The Doctoral School’s specialist course will focus on historical literature, including local gazetteers and Transmission of the Lamp texts, of the Chinese Buddhist schools. While adopting a diachronic perspective, covering texts between the 10th and the 17th century, the special angle of the course is to relate the study of historical sources to modern technologies and most recent advances in Digital Humanities. This will offer students important insights in key Chinese text genres and their study based on modern research tools. This specialist course contributes to the FROGBEAR project.

Description:

Date: October 21–25, 2019
Venue: Het Pand (Ghent University)

Thanks to the generous support of the Tianzhu foundation, we are pleased to award up to 800 Euros in travel remuneration for 5 International PhD students. This money can be used for travel, accommodation, and meals. To apply for this travel grant, please send a one-page cover letter and your CV to Ann.Heirman@ugent.be.

Lecturers

  • Prof. Marcus Bingenheimer (Temple University)
  • Prof. Christian Wittern (Kyoto University)
  • Prof. Christoph Anderl (Ghent University)
  • Sally Chambers (Center for Digital Humanities, Ghent)
  • Prof. Ann Heirman (Ghent University)

Schedule

October 21 – 25, 2019

 

Day One, Monday
Location: Jan Gillis
09:30: Welcome by the Doctoral School organizers (CA and AH)
10:00 – 11:00:* Lecture and discussion 1: Gazetteers literature, reference tools, and print editions of Buddhist Temple Gazetteers (MB)
11:00 – 11:15: Coffee
11:15 – 12:15: Practice session 1: material in printed form (45 mins. practice, 15 mins reports) (MB)
12:15 – 14:15: Lunch break
14:15 – 15:15: Lecture and discussion 2: The Digital Archive of Chinese Buddhist Temple Gazetteers at DDBC (archive / dataset part) (MB)
15:15 – 15:30: Coffee
15:30 – 16:30: Practice session 2: Digital datasets (45 mins. practice, 15 mins reports) (MB)

 

Day Two, Tuesday
Location: Dormitoriumzaal
10:00 – 11:00: Lecture and discussion 3: The Digital Archive of Chinese Buddhist Temple Gazetteers at DDBC (online interface) (MB)
11:00 – 11:15: Coffee
11:15 – 12:15: Text reading 1: Ming-Qing Biographical data and gazetteers (MB)
12:15 – 14:15: Lunch break
14:15 – 15:00: Lecture and discussion 4: The Gazetteers of Mt. Putuo – Chinese whispers or reliable text witness? (MB)
15:00 – 15:15: Coffee
15:15 – 16:15: Text reading 2: Reading of selected historical sources (MB)
16:15 – 17:00: Discussions and Q&A with students (MB and CW)

 

Day Three, Wednesday
Location: Amaat Burssens room (Faculty Library, 2nd floor, behind the Japanese collection)
9:45 – 10:45:* Lecture and discussion 5: A short introduction to the Ghent Database of Chinese Medieval Texts as a flexible research tool (CA, with MB)
10:45 – 11:00: Coffee**
11:00 – 12:30: Presentation of students’ projects 1 (MB, CW, SC, CA)
12:30 – 14:15: Lunch break
14:15 – 15:15: Presentation of students’ projects 2 (MB, CW, SC, CA)
15:15 – 15:30: Coffee**
15:30 – 17:00:* Short presentation of Ghent Centre for Digital Humanities; Discussions and Q&A with students and Digital Humanities researchers from Ghent University: Recent trends in Digital Humanities from an interdisciplinary perspective (SC, MB, CW, CA)

** Note that the coffee breaks on Wednesday will be in the kitchen facilities of the Department of Languages of Cultures (5th floor). Somebody will guide you there, so don’t worry, you won’t miss your coffee!

Day Four, Thursday
Location: Jan Gillis
09:30 – 10:00: Coffee
10:00 – 12:00:* Lecture and discussion 6: Digitization of printed and manuscript historical records: general and specific problems, methods, and results (with example from recent digitization projects of Chan records and the Daoist canon) (CW, with MB and CA)
12:00 – 14:00: Lunch break
14:00 – 15:15: Text reading 3: Reading of selected Chan records (CW)
15:15 – 15:30: Coffee
15:30 – 16:30: Text reading 3 (continued): Reading of selected Chan records (CW)

Day Five, Friday
Location: Jan Gillis
09:30 – 10:00: Coffee
10:00 – 12:00: Text reading 4: Reading of selected Chan records (CW)
12:00 – 14:00: Lunch break
14:00 – 15:30: Text reading 5: Reading and discussion of selected Chan records (CW)
15:30 – 15:45: Coffee
15:45 – 16:30: Final discussions and Q&A with students (CW, with MB und CA)

 

Lecturers /Speakers:
MB = Marcus Bingenheimer
CW = Christian Wittern
CA = Christoph Anderl
AH = Ann Heirman
SC = Sally Chambers (Digital Humanities Research Coordinator, Ghent Centre for Digital Humanities)

Long-term visiting scholar 2019–2020: Dr. Lia Wei (Renmin University, China)

Dr. Lia WEI is currently based at the Department of Archaeology and Museum Studies in Renmin University of China, conducting research and teaching on the archaeology of culture contact and the intersection between intangible and material cultural heritage, as well as contributing to several research-oriented, educational or curatorial collaborations between Renmin University and European partners (Université de Genève, Ghent University).

Dr. Wei has been conducting research in China since 2009, with a focus on medieval Buddhist epigraphy and cave temples in Northeast China (Shandong, Hebei, Henan provinces) as well as funerary landscapes in Southwest China (Sichuan, Chongqing, Guizhou, Yunnan, Hubei and Hunan provinces). She received her PhD with a thesis entitled ‘Highland Routes and Frontier Communities at the Fall of the Han Empire (2nd to 3rd century CE): A Comparative Study of Cave Burials South of the Yangzi River’ at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.

In parallel to her work as an art historian and archaeologist, she engages in practice-based research or creative practices and designs projects that combine academic and artistic research. She was trained in calligraphy, sigillography and landscape painting at the China Academy of Art (Hangzhou 2007) and Sichuan Fine Arts Institute (Chongqing 2008), and recently coordinated a series of events combining conferences and exhibitions in the field of ink painting, literati art and antiquarianism, in particular rubbing techniques (Ink Art Week in Venice 2018, Lithic Impressions Venice 2018, Ink Brussels 2019).

During her stay at Ghent University (18 January–3 A¨pril 2020) Dr. Wei will conduct an elaborate program of lectures and workshops centering on the following topics: landscape painting, antiquarianism, ink art, calligraphy and seal carving. Dr. Wei’s visit and program in Ghent are generously sponsored by the Tianzhu Foundation.

Dr. Lia Wei will give a series of lectures and workshops supported by the Tianzhu Foundation and Ghent University. The program includes the following topics: landscape painting, ink art, antiquarianism and seal carving. The program is concluded by a lecture on Song dynasty gardens given by Ms. Salome Foltin (University of Tübingen).  All lectures and workshops will take place at the interfaculty study center VANDENHOVE (Rozier 1, 9000 Ghent). Admission is free but for the workshops registration is required. For further inquiries please contact Mathieu.Torck@UGent.be.

 

 

Special Guest Lecture “The Uneven Terrain of Gender and Diversity: The View from the Humanities” by Natasha Heller

A Hot Topic Lecture part of the Doctoral School “Women and Nuns in Chinese Buddhism”

By Natasha Heller, Associate Professor of Chinese Religions, University of Virginia

June 6, 2019; 19:00-21:00

Ghent university, Auditorium P (Zaal Jozef Plateau), Campus Boekentoren. Map

Abstract

Despite oft-expressed commitments to diversity, American institutions of higher learning remain centered on white men.  If we agree that the academy would better serve its purpose with a more diverse faculty, how is such an aim achieved?  In this talk I will consider how we talk about gender, diversity, and inclusion, and what these terms mean for different stages and dimensions of academic life.  Through case studies of the disciplines of Religious Studies and Asian Studies, I will consider how the issues of gender and diversity vary in different fields of study—and what this might teach us about the challenges of transforming the academy into a more inclusive space.

Speaker

Natasha Heller is a scholar of Chinese Religions, currently working on contemporary Buddhist children’s literature. At the University of Virginia, she chaired the Faculty Senate committee on Diversity and Inclusion this year. She is also a founder of the website Women in the Study of Asian Religions (wisar.info), which seeks to address the gender imbalance at conferences and lecture series. But, as she notes, her real qualification is being the only woman in the room on too many occasions.

This lecture was co-sponsored by the Tianzhu Foundation.