CONFERENCE> “Tripitaka for the Future: Envisioning the Buddhist Canon in the Digital Age,” Center for Buddhist Studies, University of Arizona, Tucson, Nov. 2-3

Ouyang Nan Discussion

 

Dear Colleagues,

 

The Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ, US, would like to announce an upcoming conference titled “Tripitaka for the Future: Envisioning the Buddhist Canon in the Digital Age.” For the details of the conference program and participants, see the website at https://conferences.cbs.arizona.edu/.

 

Conference Statement:

Despite rising interests in research on modern East Asian Buddhism in recent years, studies on how Buddhist textual traditions cope with modernity and reinvigorate themselves as vital forces for religious changes in the digital age are conspicuously missing. To fill in this lacuna, the Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of Arizona will hold an international conference on the transformation of the Buddhist canon in history and the digital age to envision a new kind of Tripitaka for the future. Entitled “Tripitaka for the Future: Envisioning the Buddhist Canon in the Digital Age,” this two-day (Nov. 2-3, 2018) conference, invites about twenty leading scholars in the field to reflect upon the most recent trends in the compilation, translation, and digitization of the Buddhist canon in East Asia. This conference will have impact on a wide range of academic fields such as religious studies, the history of the book, history of modern East Asia, politico-religious history, digital humanities, and bibliographical studies.

 

Theme: Tripitaka for the Future: Envisioning the Buddhist Canon in the Digital Age”

Dates: November 2-3, 2018

 

Location: Silver and Sage room, Old Main building (Nov. 2) and Integrated Learning Center Room 119 (Nov. 3), University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, US.

 

Organized by Center for Buddhist Studies, Department of East Asian Studies, Department of Religious Studies and Classics, and the Center for Digital Humanities at The University of Arizona.

 

Sponsored by the World Buddhist Youth Foundation, Society for Promotion of Buddhism (BDK America), and Richard L. Evans Office of Religious Outreach, Brigham Young University (BYU), and Su Wukang East Asia Research Fund.

 

Conference Program

 

NOVEMBER 2, 2018

Location at Silver and Sage room, Old Main building

 

9:00 – 9:20am

OPENING CEREMONY

Host: Jiang Wu | Director, Center for Buddhist Studies
Speakers: Alain-Philippe Durand | Dean, College of Humanities
Representatives of conference sponsors
Kimberly Jones | Vice Dean, College of Humanities

 

9:20 – 9:30am

GROUP PHOTO AND COFFEE BREAK

 

9:30 – 10:50am

PANEL 1. THE BUDDHIST CANON IN THE MODERN ERA

Chair: Albert Welter | University of Arizona

Jiang Wu | University of Arizona

The Chinese Buddhist Canon and the Rise of Textual Modernity in East Asia

Greg Wilkinson | Brigham Young University

The Buddhist Canon in America: Meditation Centers and Scriptural Texts

Dewei Zhang | Sun Yat-sen University

Competing for National Pride: Making New Editions of the Buddhist Canon in Modern East Asia

 

10:50 – 11:00am

COFFEE BREAK

 

11:00am – 12:00pm

PANEL 2. NEW INITIATIVES OF CANON STUDIES

Chair: Caleb Simmons | University of Arizona

Andrew Wong | Maitreya Culture and Education Foundation

A Brief Account of the Beginning of “Selected Edition of Teaching Materials for the Chinese Buddhist Canon” 《汉文大藏经教材选编》 Project

Wayne de Fremery | Sogang University

Data Adaptive Text Extraction Techniques for Individualized Big Data Curation and the Generation of Machine Learning Models for Buddhist Canon Research

 

12:00 – 1:00pm

LUNCH

 

1:00 – 2:20pm

PANEL 3 YOUNG SCHOLAR’S FORUM

Chair: Alison Jameson | University of Arizona

Lixia Dong | University of Arizona

The Transformation of the Sutra of Forty-Two Sections in the Chinese Tripitaka

Youteng Bi | University of Arizona

Susiddhikara Worship Method and the Textual Lineage in Chinese Canonical Tradition

Huiqiao Yao | University of Arizona

The Summary of the Great Vehicle and the Revival of the Yogācāra School during the Late Ming Dynasty

 

2:20 – 2:30pm

COFFEE BREAK

 

2:30 – 4:00pm

PANEL 4. THE BUDDHIST CANON FROM HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

Chair: Jiang Wu | University of Arizona

Albert Welter | University of Arizona

The Uses and Abuses of Buddhist Texts in China: Searching for a “Practical Canon”

Rae Dachille | University of Arizona

Mapping the Body of the Tibetan Buddhist Canon: Citational Practice as “Limitation” and “Ingenuity” in Buddhist Exegesis

James Robson | Harvard University

The Body of Texts Inside of the Buddha’s Body: A Preliminary Assessment of the Canonical Texts Interred Inside of Buddhist Statues in East Asia.

 

4:30 – 6:00pm

KHYENTSE FOUNDATION BUDDHIST STUDIES LECTURE SERIES

(Sponsored by The Khyentse Foundation)
Host and Chair: Albert Welter

A. Charles Muller | Center for Evolving Humanities, University of Tokyo

"Ti-yong ("essence-function"): Toward a More Thorough Understanding of the Ethico-Soteriological Prioritizing Principle for East Asian Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism."

 

6:00 – 7:30pm

RECEPTION AT UA POETRY CENTER

 

NOVEMBER 3, 2018

Location change at Integrated Learning Center Room 119

 

9:00 – 10:30am

PANEL 5: DIGITIZATION OF THE BUDDHIST CANON

Chair: Takashi Miura | University of Arizona

Masahiro Shimoda | University of Tokyo

Building a Digital Infrastructure for the Humanities and the Role of Buddhist Studies

A. Charles Muller | University of Tokyo

The Digital Dictionary of Buddhism and CJKV-E Dictionary of Confucianism and Daoism at 32 Years

Tensho Miyazaki and Kiyonori Nagasaki | International Institute for Digital Humanities

Toward an Ecosystem for Buddhist Studies in the Digital Environments

 

10:30 – 10:40am

BREAK

 

10:40am – 12:10pm

PANEL 6 THE APPLICATION OF AI AND DEEP LEARNING TOOLS (I)

Chair: Bryan Carter | University of Arizona

Jin Lianwen| South China University of Technology

Toward High Performance Optical Character Recognition of Historical Tripitaka Document Images: A Deep Learning Approach

Ven. Xianchao | Longquan Temple

AI-assisted compilation of Buddhist Tripitaka

Jiang Wu and Haiyong Zhang | University of Arizona / Boeckeler Instruments Inc.

Preliminary Research on the Chinese Buddhist Canon based on Google Attention OCR and TensorFlow Applications

 

12:15 – 1:30pm

LUNCH BREAK

 

1:30 – 2:30pm

PANEL 7: THE APPLICATION OF AI AND DEEP LEARNING TOOLS (II)

Chair: Judd Ruggill | University of Arizona

Alex Amies| Google Cloud Platform, Google Inc.

Methods for Indexing, Annotating, and Retrieving Information from Chinese Buddhist Texts

Ven. You Zai | Foguang Temple

Adaptive Machine Learning in the Digitization of the Chinese Buddhist Canon

 

2:30 – 2:45pm

COFFEE BREAK

 

2:45 – 4:30pm

ROUNDTABLE: “THE DIGITAL TRIPITAKA AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE”

Moderator: Ken S. McAllister | Associate Dean of Research and Program Innovation (College of Humanities), Professor of Public & Applied Humanities

Panelists:
Ven. Xianchao | Longquan Temple
Masahiro Shimoda | University of Tokyo
Alex Amies | Infrastructure Department, Google INC
Jiang Wu | The University of Arizona

 

6:00 – 8:00pm

FAREWELL PARTY

NOVEMBER 4, 2018

 

All Day

GUESTS DEPART