AAR> Buddhism: Sessions of Interest

(From the AAR Buddhism Unit mailing list)

The Buddhism Unit is looking forward to hosting an excellent slate of panels

at the Annual Meeting in San Antonio (some of which will be in-person and some

of which will be virtual). For your convenience, we have put together the

following list of Buddhism-related sessions you might find to be of interest.

The list begins with “Sessions Sponsored by the Buddhism Unit,” and then moves

on to “Other Sessions of Interest.” For the latter list, we have tried to

include all sessions with substantial Buddhism-related content, but it is very

likely that there are things we have missed—our apologies, if that is the

case. Please plan to attend the Buddhism Unit Business Meeting, which will

take place during the last 10-15 minutes of the exciting (virtual) session on

“Manifestos for Buddhist Studies” (AV21-209 in the list below).

We hope to see you in San Antonio (for Bryan) or through a little box on the

screen (for Reiko)!

Best,

Bryan Lowe & Reiko Ohnuma

Buddhism Unit Co-Chairs

SESSIONS SPONSORED OR CO-SPONSORED BY THE BUDDHISM UNIT

AV19-101

(Buddhism Unit and Tibetan and Himalayan Religions Unit)

Reading Queerly: Towards a Queer, Trans, and Feminist Readings of Tibetan

Buddhism

Friday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Melissa Anne-Marie Curley, Ohio State University, Presiding

This panel will set out to weave a complex methodological, genealogical, and

textual reading of Tibetan Buddhist materials and their imbrications with

queerness, transness, and sexual violence. Rather than applying a top-down

analysis that runs Buddhist materials through the theoretical and political

commitments of an essentialized queer studies, this panel proposes to engage

Buddhist source materials in reciprocal conversation with feminist, queer, and

trans hermeneutics. Our panel will ask how not only the materials themselves,

but also our own academic practices and locations, are imbricated with power.

How might we ethically and generatively conceptualize sexual violence,

consent, transness, or queerness? And how might these conceptualizations shift

when considered in different languages or geo-historical locations? Our panel

asserts that scholars must contend with the ways gender, sexuality, and

religion coalesce to create conditions that reproduce hegemonic ways of

knowing. Orienting our questions towards power, instability, and genealogy, we

examine the problematics and potentials that emerge when reading Buddhist

materials through queer, feminist, and trans lenses.

•               Ray Buckner, Northwestern University

Extractive “Tantra”: Reading Orientalism and Transphobia at a Women’s “Tantric

Sex” Retreat

•

•               Learned Foote, Rice University

Narratives of Tibetan Buddhist Homosexuality/Homophobia in the 20th–21st C.

•

•               Amy P. Langenberg, Eckerd College

Sexual Subjectivity in Vinaya Case Law concerning Sexual Violation and

Misconduct

•

•               Joshua Shelton, Northwestern University

Tickling Our Way to Enlightenment: Preliminary Reflections on a Queer Theology

of Buddhist Tantra

•

•               Sarah Jacoby, Northwestern University

Vajrayāna Buddhist Sexual Ethics: Vantage Points from the Margins of the

Tibetan Monastery

•

•               Dawa Lokyitsang, University of Colorado Boulder

Decolonial & Intersectional Interventions against (Neo)Liberal Feminism:

Reflections on Tibetan Feminisms

Responding

Bee Scherer, Intersectional Centre for Inclusion and Social Justice

AV20-209

(Buddhism Unit)

The Lived Realities of Buddhist Economics

Saturday, 12:30 PM-2:30 PM (Virtual)

Gregory Clines, Trinity University, Presiding

This panel illuminates how Buddhist cultures incorporated, and continue to do

so, economics and value-making as a part of maintaining and sustaining

religiosity since 200 BCE. In doing so, this group of papers provides new

perspectives on how Buddhism and economics are not a new theoretical approach

but a continuous necessity of maintaining and sustaining Buddhist sites,

religion, and practices. The study of Buddhist Economics so far primarily

focuses on theory that highlights how Buddhism and economy are in

contradiction. However, this panel provides new research on how Buddhist

groups have always relied upon economics as a means for growth and stability.

In similar ways, groups from South Asia, Tibet, Sikkim, China, and Hawaii

formulate methods of value-making of religious material and sites that expand

beyond ideas of merit-making or purification. In this way, the study of

Buddhism expands to include how religious groups are not constrained by

religious ideas but fully incorporate business models, which are not perceived

as separate or non-religious.

•

•               Alexander Hsu, University of Notre Dame

Anthologist as Entrepreneur: “Scriptural Economy” in a Seventh C. Chinese

Buddhist Anthology

•

•               Renee Ford, Rice University

Come to the Land of Padmasambhava: Sikkim as a ‘Buddhist Nation’

•

•               Matthew Milligan, Trinity University

Moral and Material Prosperity (Hita-Sukha) in Premodern Buddhist Economics

•

•               Jeff Wilson, University of Waterloo

Pennies from the Pure Land: Practicing the Dharma, Hanging Out, and Raising

Funds for the Oldest Buddhist Temple outside Asia

•

•               Kai Shmushko, Tel Aviv University

Towards Understanding the Economy of Lay Tibetan Buddhism in China – the Case

of the “Living Hall” (Shenghuo Guan 生活馆) Model

•

•               Ian MacCormack, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

What Is a Dalai Lama Worth? Reflections on Buddhism, Economy, and State in

Tibet

AV20-406

(Buddhism Unit)

New Work in Buddhist Studies

Saturday, 5:00 PM-6:30 PM (Virtual)

Reiko Ohnuma, Dartmouth College, Presiding

This omnibus panel highlights new research in Buddhist Studies. The first

paper considers Tibetan Buddhist conceptions of the porosity of flesh and the

body by examining how the efficacy of brahmin-flesh pills which promise

liberation through eating is represented and contested across a range of

polemical, liturgical, and narrative writings composed between the 13th and

19th centuries. The second re-examines the possibilities and limitations of

karmic reflection by analyzing Buddhist sources that address humanitarian

crises, where suffering is immense in scale and shared among a large group of

people. The third paper highlights the ambiguities of Buddhist identity

through a case study of the origins and evolution of fojiaotu, the common

modern term for Buddhist in Chinese. The fourth takes up Chinese Buddhist

apologetics in the anti-superstition campaigns in the 1920s and the early

1930s and shows that Buddhists actively engaged with these discourses to

articulate their beliefs and practices.

•

•               Christina A. Kilby, James Madison University

The Limits of Karma: Humanitarian Crises and the Ethics of Governmental

Responsibility

•

•               James Gentry, Stanford University

The Porosity of Brahmin Flesh in Tantric Buddhist Pill Practice in Tibet:

Contested Boundaries and Ambiguous Efficacies

•

•               Wei Wu, Emory University

The True Faith and the Deluded Faith: Buddhism in the Anti-superstition

Campaigns in Modern China

•

•               Douglas Gildow, Chinese University Hong Kong

What Is a Buddhist in Modern China?

AV21-113

(Buddhism Unit and Buddhist Critical-Constructive Reflection Unit)

Challenging Privilege in Buddhist Institutions and in Buddhist Studies

Sunday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Liz Wilson, Miami University of Ohio, Presiding

How is scholarship in the field of Buddhist studies changing in response to

new guiding questions? Has the guild of Buddhist studies changed as a result

of increased awareness of unearned privilege, especially structural inequities

of race, class, and gender? What is the place of Buddhist studies in a

changing academy and what can we in the guild o?er as thought-leaders for

others? This roundtable will bring together scholars who give pride of place

to categories such as race, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, and

gender expression. Participants will reflect on how privilege grounded in

these categories has shaped Buddhist institutions. The panel will also engage

in self-reflexive analysis, asking how privilege configures our work as

scholars. Are there raced, classed, and gendered networks that shape our

guild? If so, what is to be done? Our discussion will center around three

issues: (1) what modes of embedded privilege are tolerable and what modes are

not (2) whether there are certain forms that must be changed so that attention

can be given to less visible modes, and (3) tactics for changing those modes

that need to be addressed immediately.

Panelists

Jimmy Yu, Florida State University

Nirmala S. Salgado, Augustana College

Bee Scherer, Intersectional Centre for Inclusion and Social Justice

Kali Cape, University of Virginia

Amy P. Langenberg, Eckerd College

Bryan Lowe, Princeton University

Responding

Kristin Scheible, Reed College

Business Meeting

Hsiao-Lan Hu, University of Detroit Mercy, Presiding

Barbra R. Clayton, Mount Allison University, Presiding

AV21-209

(Buddhism Unit)

Manifestos for Buddhist Studies

Sunday, 12:30 PM-2:30 PM (Virtual)

Richard Nance, Indiana University, Presiding

What do the legacies of the past and the pressures of the present entail for

the future of Buddhist Studies? How might the field address itself to this

future in such a way as to warrant its continued (if perhaps altered)

existence? And how might an altered vision for the future in turn transform

our engagement with the past and the present? This roundtable discussion aims

to frame a broader conversation regarding the challenges and opportunities

facing the field, in order that we might think creatively together about what

the future study of Buddhism might look like. Current crises educational,

social, political, environmental heighten tensions (among and within scholars)

between critiques of and investments in the structures of knowledge we inherit

and inhabit. The epistemological and ethical questions raised thereby take on

new urgency in the context of shrinking resources and changing institutional

structures and objectives. This session explores some of the ways in which a

reimagined study of Buddhism might speak compellingly to present and future

circumstances, and in the process alter our relationship with the complex

legacies of the field.

Panelists

Rongdao Lai, McGill University

Robert Sharf, University of California, Berkeley

Sarah Jacoby, Northwestern University

Ann Gleig, University of Central Florida

Charles Hallisey, Harvard University

Jacqueline I. Stone, Princeton University

Natalie Gummer, Beloit College

Sonam Kachru, University of Virginia

Janet Gyatso, Harvard University

Melissa Anne-Marie Curley, Ohio State University

Responding

Natalie Avalos, University of Colorado

Business Meeting

Reiko Ohnuma, Dartmouth College, Presiding

Bryan Lowe, Princeton University, Presiding

A21-305

(Buddhism Unit and Class, Religion, and Theology Unit)

Class, Privilege, and Inequality in Contemporary Buddhism

Sunday, 3:00 PM-4:30 PM (In Person)

Convention Center-006B

Alicia Turner, York University, Presiding

Class matters. While it is famously slippery as a concept, there is little

question that the constellation of income, wealth, education, and social

status is an important force in contemporary societies. Nevertheless, it has

played a comparatively small role in the study of religion relative to its

importance. This is perhaps especially true in the study of contemporary

Buddhism. While a number of works have addressed the issue of class obliquely

few have made it a term of analysis or examined the inequalities inherent to

it. This panel offers a corrective to this underutilization. Examining a range

of contexts from across the Buddhist world and beyond, these papers will

investigate dynamics and tactics surrounding differences in class and

privilege in Buddhists religious lives. How do these people advantaged,

disadvantaged, or both deploy their particular repertoires, resources, and

networks to navigate their religious lives and negotiate or contest their

positions in social hierarchies? Drawing on fieldwork, surveys, and textual

sources, the panel will present the diverse ways in which class enables and

constrains actors and shapes their lives as Buddhists.

•

•               Justin R. Ritzinger, University of Miami

Beyond the Mountains Lie the Valleys: Buddhism and Class in Contemporary

Taiwan

•

•               Sara Swenson, Syracuse University

Class Dynamics of Buddhist Charity in Contemporary Vietnam

•

•               Rohit Singh, University of North Carolina, Greensboro

Disrupting Buddhist Social Hierarchies: Ritual, Class Formations, and Counter

Hegemonic Discourses in Ladakh

•

•               Mary Kate Long, Cornell University

Properties of Buddhist Belonging in Contemporary Myanmar

•

•               Jens Reinke, Leipzig University

Spreading the ‘Dharma of Prosperity’: Buddhism, Class, and Ethnic Chinese

Migration to South Africa

A21-405

(Buddhism Unit and Buddhist Critical-Constructive Reflection Unit)

Readings of Bodhicaryāvatāra VI. 9-10

Sunday, 5:00 PM-6:30 PM (In Person)

Convention Center-213

Douglas S. Duckworth, Temple University, Presiding

The Bodhicaryāvatāra by Śāntideva (8th c.) has been discussed widely in India

and Tibet, and more recently has attracted academic and popular interest

globally. Our roundtable session will consider a pair of verses from the sixth

chapter of the Bodhicaryāvatāra, VI.9-10. We bring together a diverse group of

scholars (5 women, 3 men, at various career stages) to speak for five minutes

each on two verses, with the aim to enact a lively conversation, one that both

models the creative and scholarly reading practices of the field, and to

invite audience participation in an inclusive spirit of collaboration. In

Crosby & Skiltons translation, the passage under consideration reads: [9] I

must not disturb the feeling of sympathetic joy, even at the arrival of

something extremely unwelcome. There is nothing desirable in the state of

dejection; on the contrary, the skillful is neglected. [10] If there is a

solution, then what is the point of dejection? What is the point of dejection

if there is no solution?With a series of short "lightning lectures," we aim to

create a space for a lively and collaborative discussion of this classic

Buddhist text (or rather, two verses of it).

Panelists

Emily McRae, University of New Mexico

Jonathan Gold, Princeton University

Amod Lele, Boston University

Constance Kassor, Lawrence University

Amber Carpenter, Yale-NUS College

Charles Goodman, State University of New York, Binghamton

Vesna Wallace, University of California, Santa Barbara

Barbra R. Clayton, Mount Allison University

AV22-109

(Buddhism Unit, Chinese Religions Unit, and Daoist Studies Unit)

Repelling, Averting, and Eluding Calamities: The Logic of "Apotropaic

Solutions" in Chinese Religions

Monday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Eric Huntington, Rice University, Presiding

This panel includes three papers on different types of apotropaic solutions

practiced in China, and, as a whole, accentuates the significance of

apotropaic solutions in Chinese religions by explaining both the ritual logic

and the mechanism of apotropaism. The first paper explains the use of

horoscopic astrology in apotropaic solutions in the Tang by examining relevant

Buddhist and Daoist texts on astral apotropaism; the second paper deals with

the canopy-mounting liturgy at Dunhuang as a unique apotropaic solution to

various problems that a city may face; the third paper examines Buddho-Daoist

practices that can be categorized as the quelling of tiger attacks in late

imperial China. These apotropaic solutions were utilized to repel, avert, or

elude calamities, malignant spirits, and diseases, and the fate of a person, a

local community, or the state could be seen as depending on the successful

execution of a particular apotropaic solution. The panel collectively

addresses the question of how these texts might have been functional for a

practitioner and what kind of mentality, and religious sensibilities

imaginaire enabled the use of these imaginative solutions.

•

•               Jeffrey Kotyk, The University of British Columbia

Petitioning the Planets and Negotiating Astrological Fate in Tang China

•

•               Nan Ouyang, National University of Singapore

Solving the Problem of the Wild: Apotropaic Rituals against Tiger Attacks in

Late Imperial China

•

•               Yi Ding, Stanford University

Symbols Installed and Protection Embodied: The Parasol-Mounting (Zhisan 置傘)

Liturgy as a Apotropaic Solution at Dunhuang

Responding

Michelle C. Wang, Georgetown University

A22-211

(Buddhism Unit and Indian and Chinese Religions Compared Unit)

Buddhists Count: Premodern Buddhist Commentators Reckon with Their Traditions

Monday, 12:30 PM-2:30 PM (In Person)

Convention Center-006A

Alexander Hsu, University of Notre Dame, Presiding

Numbers recur in Buddhist literatures of every genre. Buddhists count

elements, arguments, sects, steps in a ritual, breaths, precepts, scriptures,

beads, worlds, beings, distance, and the passage of time in the tens and

thousands, or sometimes items are "beyond measure." On the one hand numbers

allow for memorizability, reproducibility, routinization, comparison, cross-

reference, and standardization; on the other, impossibly large numbers boggle

and renegotiate the scale of what is even imaginable. More than this,

commentators in Buddhist traditions take measure of these enumerations within

and across the scriptural traditions that matter to them. By scrutinizing

their premodern analogues to footnotes, indices, charts, and distant reading,

Buddhist Studies can better account for how its practitioners did the math

when grappling with textual mysteries that would otherwise be intractable.

This panel produces four case studies where Buddhists took stock of

authoritative textual traditions, and claimed mastery over them through

producing correct accounts.

•

•               Erdene Baatar Erdene-Ochir, University of California, Santa Barbara

"Khyab Mtha'" as a Pedagogy of Counting: Navigating the "Methods to Establish

the Pervasion Boundaries of the Seventy Topics" in Nineteenth-Century

Mongolian Buddhism

•

•               Thomas Newhall, University of California, Los Angeles

5, 6, 7, 8, Group the Rules to Keep Them Straight: Categorizing the Buddhist

Precepts in Daoxuan’s (596–667) Vinaya Commentaries

•

•               Tao Jin, Illinois Wesleyan University

How Did the Chinese Buddhist Exegetes Mark Out the Three-Dimensional

Structures of Their Commentaries? Zhenjian 真鑑 and His <i>Ganzhi</i> 干支

Method

•

•               Bruce Winkelman, University of Chicago

Japanese Buddhist History by the Numbers: Ten or More Ways to Count History

according to Kokan Shiren’s (1278–1346) <i>Genkō Shakusho</i>

•

•               Rae Dachille, University of Arizona

Vajra Math: Enumeration as a Tool for Enlightenment in This Lifetime and This

Body

Responding

Eric Greene, Yale University

AV23-110

(Buddhism Unit)

Poverty as Rhetorical Trope and Lived Reality in Historical Buddhisms

Tuesday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Adeana McNicholl, Vanderbilt University, Presiding

Inspired by this year’s AAR Presidential Theme, this panel seeks to

interrogate the polyvocal perspectives on poverty associated with particular

Buddhist traditions, exploring the ways that the suffering and shame of

poverty are expressed, explained, or explained away; considering the ways that

idealized images of poverty were accorded with the lived realities of economic

privation; and, finally, attending to the role of rituals and other embodied

practices in these cultural negotiations. By highlighting the ways that

different Buddhist communities throughout history (Chinese, Japanese, Korean,

and Tibetan) have both reinforced and contested existing cultural assumptions

about the poor, we aim to shed light on the lived experience of poverty in

these contexts. Moreover, by considering the ways that impecunious Buddhists

throughout time have engaged with a tradition that simultaneously exalted and

belittled them, we see how such individuals thoughtfully and selectively made

meaning from their fragmented, polyvocal cultural inheritances. In so doing,

we seek to take seriously President Fredericks call to interrogate how

religion aids, impedes, and/or amends our common life.

•               David DiValerio, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

Managing Destitution and Sustaining the Self in Long-Term Meditative Retreat

•

•               Bryan Lowe, Princeton University

Rags to Riches, Paper to Pots: Accessing the Religious Lives of the Poor in

Ancient Japan

•

•               Sujung Kim, DePauw University

The Buddhist Way of Hitting the Jackpot: Poverty and Buddhist Talismans in

Late Choson Korea

•

•               Christopher Jensen, Carleton University

Ways of Being Poor: Perspectives on Poverty in Sixth- and Seventh-Century

Chinese Hagiography

Responding

Yongshan He, University of Toronto

OTHER SESSIONS OF INTEREST

AV19-104

(Indian and Chinese Religions Compared Unit and Yogacara Studies Unit)

Roundtable on Eyal Aviv’s Differentiating the Pearl from the Fish-Eye: Ouyang

Jingwu and the Revival of Scholastic Buddhism (Brill, 2020)

Friday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Jingjing Li, Leiden University, Presiding

Bringing together six scholars from Yogācāra studies, Buddhist modernism,

Buddhist philosophy, and modern Confucianism, this roundtable discusses Eyal

Aviv’s new book Differentiating the Pearl from the Fish-Eye: Ouyang Jingwu and

the Revival of Scholastic Buddhism (published by Brill 2020). The composition

of this roundtable reflects the intersectional and interdisciplinary nature of

Aviv’s book that examines how Ouyang Jingwu (1871-1943), a key proponent of

Yogācāra studies in early Republican China, refashioned the scholastic

approach to Buddhist studies as a result of his constant negotiations of the

relationship between the personal and the national, the traditional and the

modern, the authentic and the inauthentic, and Indian religions and Chinese

traditions. Participants of this roundtable work on the writings of Ouyang as

well as his interlocutors, and Aviv will be the respondent. By discussing

Ouyang’s thoughts from different perspectives, participants will shed light on

the implications of the book for the studies of Yogācāra, Buddhist modernism,

and Buddhist-Confucian dialogues. Together, this roundtable provides a well-

rounded portrayal of this ground-breaking book.

Panelists

Ernest Brewster, Iona College

Barbra R. Clayton, Mount Allison University

Ching Keng, National Chengchi University

Rongdao Lai, McGill University

Jessica Zu, Princeton University

Philippe Major, Universit�t Basel

Responding

Eyal Aviv, George Washington University

AV19-105

(Japanese Religions Unit and Religion, Colonialism, and Postcolonialism Unit)

Dharmacakra, Sword, and Chrysanthemum: Buddhist Entanglements in Japan’s

Wartime Empire

Friday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Jessica Starling, Lewis and Clark College, Presiding

This panel investigates the complex relationships of Japanese Buddhists to

Japan's wartime empire (1931-1945) beyond the common dichotomy of resistance

and collaboration. It does so by focusing on figures active in an imperial

grey zone that straddled the ambiguous line between religion and politics. The

first paper discusses the 1934 Pan-Pacific Young Buddhist Association

Conference as an attempt to formulate the vision of a Buddhist bloc against

the background of imperial expansion. The second paper introduces the Buddhist

priest Fujii Sōsen to explore the pressures that worked on individual

Buddhists dedicated to pan-Buddhist ideals in a time of escalating warfare.

The third paper showcases the complex entanglements of religious idealism and

real-world politics by examining a Sino-Japanese Buddhist association that

emerged as an important networking hub for Japanese and Chinese in 1930s North

China. The fourth paper investigates the activities of Japanese agents in

Inner Asia to elucidate the place of Tibeto-Mongolian Buddhism in the Japanese

imperial gaze.

•

•               Erik Schicketanz, Kokugakuin University, Tokyo, Japan

Between Idealism and Geopolitics: Yoshii Hōjun and the Sino-Japanese Society

for the Study of Esoteric Buddhism in 1930s North China

•

•               Daigengna Duoer, University of California, Santa Barbara

Embodying Otherness: Religion, Colonialism, and Japanese Intelligence Agents

under Inner Asian Buddhist Disguises

•

•               Yukiko Sakaida, Aichi University, Toyohashi, Japan

Fujii Sōsen: A Buddhist “China-Hand” and the Two Nationalisms of Sino-Japanese

Buddhist Relations

•

•               Justin Stein, Kwantlen Polytechnic University

Japanese Imperialism and the 1934 Pan-Pacific Young Buddhists’ Associations

Conference

AV19-206

(Buddhism in the West Unit and Buddhist Critical-Constructive Unit)

Author Meets Critics: Sharon A. Suh’s Occupy This Body: A Buddhist Memoir

(Sumeru Press Inc., 2019)

Friday, 12:30 PM-2:30 PM (Virtual)

Ali Altaf Mian, University of Florida, Presiding

This interdisciplinary panel discusses and debates Sharon A. Suh’s Occupy This

Body: A Buddhist Memoir. In this work, a leading scholar of Buddhism confronts

the heavy burdens of silence and invisibility, as well as the living trauma,

that ensnare Asian American women in contemporary America. Panelists will

discuss this memoir’s critique of racism and sexism but also its rich insights

about meditation and mindfulness. The publication of Suh’s memoir also

occasions fresh questions for the field of Buddhism studies and religious

studies more broadly: How might we disrupt the public-private, insider-

outsider, and scholarly-activist binaries by skillfully using the memoir

genre? What are the challenges but also opportunities of autoethnography as a

methodology in religious studies? What types of Buddhist philosophies and

praxes are generated when we center marginalized bodies?

Panelists

Ann Gleig, University of Central Florida

Sophia Arjana, Western Kentucky University

Helen Jin Kim, Emory University

Mark Unno, University of Oregon

Responding

Sharon A. Suh, Seattle University

AV19-220

(Buddhist Pedagogy Workshop)

Reflecting on the Buddhism Survey Course

Friday, 2:00 PM-5:00 PM (Virtual)

Gloria I-Ling Chien, Gonzaga University, Presiding

The Buddhist Pedagogy Seminar invites those who teach an introductory Buddhism

survey course to a three-hour, interactive workshop to explore the questions:

What is the work my Buddhism survey course aims to do? How? And for whom?

Through worksheets, guided writing, and small-group discussions, and using

syllabi as the text, participants will engage in two reflective processes. The

first considers the Buddhism survey in relation to multiple contexts including

students, teacher/scholars, institutions, and social factors. The second

offers an approach to aligning professors, students, and material for better

learning and more satisfying teaching. These processes are helpful both in

building syllabi and in shaping language that affirms the deep purposes of

teachers of Buddhism survey courses. Participants will need to have a copy of

their Buddhism Survey syllabus with them in the workshop.

Panelists

Patricia O'Connell Killen, Pacific Lutheran University

Nicole Willock, Old Dominion University

PV19-305

(Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies)

Buddhist-Christian Responses to Ecological Catastrophe and Climate Change

Friday, 4:00 PM-6:30 PM (Virtual)

Kristin Johnston Largen, Wartburg Theological Seminary, Presiding

Ten of the warmest years globally have occurred since 1998, the arctic has

lost 95% of its oldest ice, 6 of 10 of the largest wildfires in California

occurred in 2020, and the march goes on. As the Intergovernmental Panel on

Climate Change reports, “It is therefore no longer a question of whether to

mitigate climate change or to adapt to it. Both adaptation and mitigation are

now essential.” This paper session explores Buddhist and Christian responses

to climate change in terms of both adaptation and mitigation. What kinds of

responses can be formulated in terms of religious thought, scientific

understanding, environmental activism, and community building?

•

•               Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts

Spiritual Practice and Sacred Activism in a Climate Emergency

•

•               Xiumei Pu, Westminster College

Climate Resilience: a Synergy of Bön, Buddhist, and Womanist Perspectives

•

•               John Becker, Lyon College

The Future of Process Thought in Interfaith Dialogue and Environmental Issues:

Tribute to John B. Cobb, Jr.

•

•               Stephanie Kaza, University of Vermont

Responding to the Climate Crisis: Buddhist Resources for Interreligious

Engagement

AV20-106

(Arts, Literature, and Religion Unit, Comparative Studies in Religion Unit,

Tibetan and Himalayan Religions Unit, and Women and Religion Unit)

Women and Revelation in India, Tibet, and China

Saturday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Alison Melnick Dyer, Bates College, Presiding

This panel analyzes revelatory literature of India, Tibet, and China to shed

light on the key roles women (divine, human, and everything in between) play

in the writing, transmission, and alteration of sacred texts. It focuses on

historical literature as well as oral discourse to compare the modes of

textual production and dissemination in these regions. The papers draw on

revealed literature to identify the social, literary, and ritual conventions

shaping the religious lives of women, and analyze ways women have negotiated

these conventions by engaging with revealed literature and the act of

revelation. Papers in this panel shift the focus away from a Judeo-Christian

concept of revelation by exploring the contours and limits of revelatory

activities as the divine communication between humans and non-human agents in

South and East Asian contexts. They also explore the manifold expressions and

representations of women as recipients and/or bestowers of revelation in these

religious communities, providing wide-ranging perspectives on the experiences

of women and various approaches (e.g., feminist, historical, philological) to

theorize women and revelation in South and East Asia.

•

•               Karen Pechilis, Drew University

A Female Saint’s Power to Speak

•

•               Jue Liang, Denison University

Revealing Khandromas in the Nyingma Treasure Tradition

•

•               Hsin Yi Lin, Fo Guang University

Revelation through Procreation: Mothers, Fetuses and Auspicious Signs in

Medieval Chinese Buddhist Hagiographies

•

•               Antoinette E. DeNapoli, Texas Christian University

Revelation, Performance, and a Guru’s Mobilizing of a Women’s Liberation

Movement in India

Responding

Loriliai Biernacki, University of Colorado

Reviewers

Jon Keune, Michigan State University

Liz Wilson, Miami University of Ohio

AV20-127

(Space, Place, and Religion Unit)

Negotiations of Religious Space: Focus on Economics

Saturday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Kendall Marchman, University of Georgia, Presiding

Case studies of religious spaces in Asia and Buddhist centers in the West

reveal the complex ways economic survival becomes salient. Historical records

from medieval China demonstrate that state control over Buddhist precept

platforms, supported the economic interests of the state, while simultaneously

supporting the broader spiritual interests of the Buddhists. In 18th century

Japan, the port city of Nagasaki, through centering the burakumin ghetto

people, portrays a delicate spatial compromise of the political and economic

apprehensions among foreign economies, religions, and people. These historical

cases in Asia illustrate the shifting relationships between religion, the

state, outsiders, and marginal groups. Shifting to contemporary Britain,

Buddhist organizations utilize funding from wellness retreats for non-

Buddhists as an integral part of financial sustainability, adapting their

physical space to create a fusion of the secular and sacred. The global

Buddhist lineage of popular teacher, author, and Vietnamese Zen master, Thich

Nhat Hanh, has relied on physical retreats at monastic practice centers as a

main source of funding. During the Covid-19 pandemic, these centers have

developed widespread online outreach, representing a model for maintaining

spiritual and financial viability outside of the traditional Buddhist merit

economy. These four case studies analyze the economic negotiations of

religious spaces through a diversity of methods including ethnographic,

historical record analysis, and digital mapping.

•

•               Thomas Newhall, University of California, Los Angeles

“Vaipulya” Precepts Platforms: The Political and Economic Implications of a

Buddhist Ritual Space in China

•

•               Lisa Beyeler-Yvarra, Yale University

Global Networks of Enclosure: Port Cities and the Nagasaki Burakumin Ghetto

•

•               Brooke Schedneck, Rhodes College

Non-merit Buddhist Economies During a Pandemic: A Case Study of Thich Nhat

Hanh’s Plum Village Tradition

•

•               Caroline Starkey, University of Leeds

Wellness Tourism and Buddhist Retreats: Tracing the Contours of the Sacred and

Secular in British Buddhism

Business Meeting

Katie Oxx, Saint Joseph’s University, Presiding

AV20-128

(Tantric Studies Unit)

Discursive Transgression: Tantra and Ritual Language

Saturday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Shaman Hatley, University of Massachusetts, Boston, Presiding

Nonstandard language is a pervasive feature of Tantric traditions. From the

ritualistic use of mantras and dhāraṇīs within Tantric ritual to the

intentionally nonstandard Aiśa Sanskrit in Tantric texts, these traditions

have a clear affinity for intentional language (saṃdhā-bhāṣā) that disrupts

conventional norms and narrative, and also short-circuits the rational and

deluded mind. This panel will consider Tantric language in a variety of

contexts. The first paper will treat the Apabhraṃśa dohās quoted and

"misquoted" in Tantric Buddhist texts, while the second paper treats the

coarse Sanskrit in Jaina Tantric Love Magic. The third paper will discuss the

"gestural language” that allows for dialog between deity and practitioner,

while the fourth paper will look at the semiotics of chommakās within the

Svacchanda Tantra. The final paper will consider the vernacular mantras found

in mass-produced booklets in West Bengal. Whether esoteric or vernacular,

magically protected or distributed at bus stations, these texts and traditions

addressed by this panel offer magical power and accomplishment through fluency

in extramundane discourse, and this panel will treat them comparatively.

•

•               Jackson Stephenson, University of Washington

Apabhraṃśa Dohās in the Buddhakapāla Tantra

•

•               Patricia Sauthoff, University of Alberta, Edmonton

Chommakās in the Svacchanda Tantra

•

•               Aaron Ullrey, University of California, Santa Barbara

Simple Sexy Style: Erotic Magic in Jain Tantras

•

•               Sthaneshwar Timalsina, San Diego State University

The Language of Gestures: Mudrā and Meaning in Tantras

•

•               Joel Bordeaux, Leiden University

This Charming Mantra: Language Choice and Style in Bengali Tantric Chapbooks

AV20-131

(Yogācāra Studies Unit)

Madhyamaka According to Yogācāras: Appraisals and Criticisms of Mādhyamikas’

Middle Way

Saturday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Sumi Lee, Dongguk University, Presiding

This panel engages a straightforward but neglected question in Mahāyāna

Buddhist philosophy: what do followers of Yogācāra have to say about their

Mādhyamika counterparts-cum-rivals? The division between Madhyamaka and

Yogācāra is fundamental to both academic and emic scholarly engagements with

Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy. The question of whether these two are

complementary positions (“allies”) or opposing camps (“rivals”) continues to

be a beneficial focus of attention. An abundance of attention has been given—

by both academics and traditional Buddhist scholars—to questions of how

Mādhyamikas distinguish themselves from their Yogācāra counterparts. The

obvious corollary has received far less attention: what do Yogācāra thinkers

have to say about their Mādhyamika counterparts?

•

•               Amit Chaturvedi, University of Hong Kong

Sthiramati on Mental Representation

•

•               Ernest Brewster, Iona College

Beyond Existence and Emptiness: Kuiji’s and Woncheuk’s Logical Analyses of

Bhāviveka’s Two Inferences for the Emptiness of All Dharmas

•

•               Daniel McNamara, Rangjung Yeshe Institute

Un-stacking the Deck: Taking Seriously the Critiques by Non-Mādhyamikas of

Madhyamaka

•

•               Dan Lusthaus, Harvard University

Yogācāra Critiques of Madhyamaka in India and China

Responding

Sara L. McClintock, Emory University

Business Meeting

Joy Brennan, Kenyon College, Presiding

Douglas S. Duckworth, Temple University, Presiding

PV20-108

(Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies)

Buddhist-Christian Reflections on Nationalism

Saturday, 9:00 AM-11:30 AM (Virtual)

Ruben L. F. Habito, Southern Methodist University, Presiding

In the past several years, the international world has witnessed the rise of

religio-ethno-nationalism. This has not been a singular event but occurred

simultaneously in many countries with the rise of populism and authoritarian

nationalist rulers worldwide. What should we make of counter-response

movements such as Black Lives Matter? In what ways have Buddhists and

Christians resisted as well as been implicated in the rise of nationalism

around the globe? What resources are available to Buddhists and Christians in

responding to problematic nationalism? Business Meeting: 11:00 am-11:30 am

•

•               Neena Mahadev, Yale-NUS College

Buddhist Nationalism and Christian Evangelism: Populism and Prosperity Gospels

in Millennial Sri Lanka

•

•               Kunihiko Terasawa, Wartburg College

Buddhist-Christian Conflicts and Cooperation Against Nationalism in Asia from

pre-WWII to the Present

•

•               Raquel Bouso Garcia, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Responsive Politics of Difference: Rethinking Nationality, Race, Class and

Gender from Buddhist and Christian Perspectives

•

•               Michael Masatsugu, Towson University

Memorials to the Embraced and Discarded: Buddhist-Christian Responses to U.S.

Nationalism

AV20-206

(Asian North American Religion, Culture, and Society Unit)

Jane Iwamura's Virtual Orientalism, Ten Years Later: Reflections and Response

Saturday, 12:30 PM-2:30 PM (Virtual)

SueJeanne Koh, University of California, Irvine, Presiding

This session brings together three different papers that engage Jane Iwamura’s

work, Virtual Orientalism: Asian Religions and American Popular Culture (OUP,

2011), which celebrates the tenth anniversary of its publication this year.

Each paper draws upon the theoretical apparatuses of Iwamura’s work to

illuminate how historical and contemporary examples of popular culture either

challenge or affirm religious Orientalist tropes. These examples include the

film, Minari (2021); the Netflix documentary series, The Chefs Table (2017);

and the early 20th-century film, The Cheat (1915). The last part of the

session will offer an author’s response to these papers.

•               Brett Esaki, University of Arizona

Oriental Conjurer: Inverse of the Monk

•

•               Hyemin Na, Emory University

The Oriental Monk Cooks Enlightenment: Zen Buddhist Nun Jeong Kwan, Korean

Temple Cuisine, and the Future of Food

•

•               Girim Jung, Felician University

The Religious Orientations of Minari and the Undoing of the Ethnic

Bildungsroman

Responding

Jane Naomi Iwamura, University of the West

Business Meeting

SueJeanne Koh, University of California, Irvine, Presiding

Helen Jin Kim, Emory University, Presiding

AV20-211

(Chinese Religions Unit)

Buddhist Intra-religious Networks and Buddhist Religious Innovation in Late

Imperial and Modern Sichuan

Saturday, 12:30 PM-2:30 PM (Virtual)

Annabella Pitkin, Lehigh University, Presiding

This panel aims at bringing attention to the South-West region of China and

focuses on Buddhist intra-religious networks in the late imperial and

Republican periods in Sichuan. Because of war devastation and massive

migration to Sichuan, we observe the establishment of new communities and the

influx of new religious practices that merged with the local religious

landscape. The three papers in this panel will, in different ways, discuss

three interrelated issues: religion movement and migration, the creation of

intra-religious networks, and the creation of wide religious networks. One of

the papers explores the role of migrants to Chongqing and their influence in

creating new Buddhist spaces there. Another paper discusses Tibetan-Han

Buddhism intra-religious exchange in Chengdu. A third paper explores Tibetan

Buddhism and its development from Kham to other national and international

locations. The panel addresses Sichuan as a place of innovation, exchange and

experimentation, a place of original production of religious meanings, where

different religious cultures come together and create new realities, and from

where these realities move far and wide, nationally and internationally.

•

•               Gilbert Chen, Towson University

A Western Model of the Clergy-Laity Relationship? Migration, Rebuilding and

Monastic Landlordism in Mid- and Late Qing Chongqing

•

•               Wei Wu, Emory University

Chan Buddhism and the Rise of Tibetan Buddhism in Sichuan

•

•               Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa, Occidental College

Treasures That Transcend Space and Time: Connections and Networks in the

Migration of the Lineage of Dorje Dechen Lingpa in Sichuan and Beyond

Responding

Elena Valussi, Loyola University, Chicago

Business Meeting

Anna Sun, Duke University, Presiding

Rongdao Lai, McGill University, Presiding

AV20-232

Revisiting Dharma: Neglected Histories and Possible Futures of Buddhist

Philosophy

Revisiting Dharma: Neglected Histories and Possible Futures of Buddhist

Philosophy

Saturday, 12:30 PM-2:30 PM (Virtual)

Ralph Craig, Stanford University, Presiding

As Buddhist philosophy has emerged as a distinct field of research in the

Americas over the last several decades, Anglophone presentations of Buddhist

philosophy have tended to foreground Buddhist questions that pertain to

individuals and/or are relevant to the concerns of contemporary Anglophone

philosophy. This panel takes a different approach, centering some classical

Buddhist texts and ideas from the perspective of Buddhists from marginalized

and oppressed communities. Taking the form of a conversation between scholars

working on 19th and 20th century Indian Buddhist reconstructions of the anti-

caste social philosophy of early Buddhism and contemporary Black Buddhist

scholars, teachers and practitioners in the United States, we propose to

explore topics of salience for Black and Dalit Buddhists such as caste, race,

justice, equality, with the aim of fostering new directions in Buddhist

philosophy.

Panelists

Larry Ward, The Lotus Institute

Rima Vesely-Flad, Warren Wilson College

Aakash Singh Rathore, Independent Scholar

Gitanjali Surendran, Jindal Global Law School

Reviewers

Charles Goodman, State University of New York, Binghamton

A20-235

(Tibetan and Himalayan Religions Unit)

New Research in Tibetan Studies

Saturday, 12:30 PM-2:30 PM (In Person)

Convention Center-221A

Brandon Dotson, Georgetown University, Presiding

This panel showcases new research on twentieth-century eastern Tibet. Gedun

Rabsal’s paper, The Game of Fire and Water: Debates Defining the Four Noble

Truths in Early 20th Century Amdo examines the record of refutation (dgag yig)

tradition in the aftermath of a debate on the nature of suffering at Dhitsa

Monastery in 1911. Catherine Hartman presents on Karma as Interpretive Lens in

the Pilgrim Diary (nyin deb) of Khatag Zamyak (1896-1961) which documents this

Khampa merchants travels across Tibet (1944 to 1956) on the eve of the Chinese

occupation of Tibet. In Monstrosity in Tibetan Narrative as Indigenous

Storywork, Maria Turek discusses how Nangchen Tibetans mobilize native

discourses and epistemologies to resist colonization based on a passage from

the Nangchen Gyalrab (nang chen rgyal rabs) which details a prophetic vision

by the last Nangchen king who saw the red Chinese (rgya dmar) as a monster.

XXXXXXXXX combines textual sources and ethnographic research in Non-

sectarianism and the construction of Tibetan Buddhist identity: The life,

times, and advice (zhal gdams) of Lamo Yongzin Rinpoche (1908-2004). Pete

Faggen’s paper, Contested Hagiography: The stakes to sanctify a non-

traditional lay trlku mother analyzes the collapse of the project to write a

namtar about Kelzang Drlma, (1938-2013), whose life was non-traditional, and

according to some, controversial.

•

•               Peter Faggen, University of Chicago

Contested Hagiography: The Stakes to Sanctify a Non-traditional Lay Trülku

Mother

•

•               Catherine Hartmann, Harvard University

Karma as Interpretive Lens in the Pilgrim Diary of Khatag Zamyak

•

•               Maria Turek, University of Toronto

Monstrosity in Tibetan Narrative as Indigenous Storywork

•

•               XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, Northwestern University

Non-sectarianism and the Construction of Tibetan Buddhist Identity: The Life,

Times, and Advice (Zhaldam) of Lamo Yongzin Rinpoche

•

•               Gendun Rabsal, Indiana University

The Game of Fire and Water: Debates Defining the Four Noble Truths in Early

20th Century Amdo

Business Meeting

Nicole Willock, Old Dominion University, Presiding

AV20-309

(Buddhism in the West Unit)

Critical Reflections on the Buddhist Modernism Paradigm

Saturday, 3:00 PM-4:30 PM (Virtual)

Mark Unno, University of Oregon, Presiding

The paradigm of Buddhist modernism has become one of the primary tools for

studying Buddhists in the colonial and contemporary periods. The model has

produced valuable insights—for example, highlighting changes in cosmology,

monasticism, and meditation.  However, despite its ubiquity, the paradigm has

been subject to very little critical reflection. The panelists in this

roundtable seek to open a discussion around problems with the Buddhist

modernism paradigm and propose potential alternatives. Issues include

questions of agency; tropes of rupture and decline underlying the paradigm;

the  paradigm's predetermining effect on data analysis; use of the paradigm by

native Buddhists as an emic religious discourse on change; the persistent

concern with authenticity embedded in the modernity narrative; the paradigm as

covert theology; slippage between synchronic and diachronic uses of

traditional and modern and resultant essentializing effects; and "modernity as

an empty set category, or a site of continuous hegemonic power plays and thus

shifting meanings" (Rofel 1992: 107) that results in ever-expanding

definitions and highly subjective applications of Buddhist modernism.

Panelists

Natalie Quli, Institute of Buddhist Studies

Nalika Gajaweera, University of Southern California

Scott Mitchell, Institute of Buddhist Studies

Business Meeting

Wakoh Shannon Hickey, Hospice by the Bay, Presiding

Scott Mitchell, Institute of Buddhist Studies, Presiding

AV20-310

(Buddhist Philosophy Unit)

Roundtable on Buddhist Philosophy in Philosophy Departments: Training

Students, Hiring, Teaching

Saturday, 3:00 PM-4:30 PM (Virtual)

Pierre-Julien Harter, University of New Mexico, Presiding

This roundtable provides a forum to discuss obstacles for scholars of Buddhist

philosophy to work in or with philosophy departments and the strategies that

we can employ to address these obstacles. It is well known that philosophy

departments, especially in North America, are Euro-centric, and the related

problems of racism and sexism within philosophy departments have also been

well documented. In this roundtable, we want to move beyond this important

critique to discuss concrete short-term and long-term strategies that faculty,

students, and institutions can use to begin to address the professional

barriers for scholars of Buddhist philosophy. We see this roundtable as an

opportunity to discuss professional issues and strategies, rather than

ideological ones. Panelists will address issues regarding the training of

graduate and undergraduate students, job market preparation, institutional

norms regarding majors and concentrations, and teaching in philosophy

departments. We will keep time very closely in order to ensure that the bulk

of the session is devoted to discussion with the larger audience.

Panelists

Emily McRae, University of New Mexico

Rafal Stepien, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Roy Tzohar, Tel-Aviv University

Tanya Kostochka, University of Southern California

Ronald S. Green, Coastal Carolina University

Reviewers

Charles Goodman, State University of New York, Binghamton

AV20-328

(Tantric Studies Unit)

Tantric Goddesses and Public Esotericism in Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism

Saturday, 3:00 PM-4:30 PM (Virtual)

Rachel Fell McDermott, Barnard College, Presiding

This panel brings together new research on the veneration of goddesses whose

identities and worship cut across exoteric/mainstream and esoteric/tantric

traditions and textual genres—tantra and purāṇa, or tantra and sūtra—and

across the boundaries of Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism. These papers

challenge characterizations of Tantra as quintessentially esoteric and

socially marginal, and problematize the idea that tantric goddesses are

inherently connected with violence, power, and eroticism. In contrast, the

panel foregrounds “public esotericism”: tantric rituals centered upon

relatively benign goddesses in at least partly exoteric cultic contexts. This

research highlights the mobility and complex religious identities of tantric

goddesses, who defy the niches scholarship constructs for them, such as

“Hindu” or “non-soteriological.” Each of these papers engages with distinct

religious traditions and historical periods—mid-first millennium Indian

Buddhism, early-medieval Śāktism, Smārta Hinduism in second-millennium South

India, and contemporary Jainism. In sum, this panel reimagines the

relationship between tantric traditions and mainstream South Asian religions.

•

•               Anna A. Golovkova, Cornell University

Becoming Śrīvidyā: A Vedic Tale of a Kaula Goddess

•

•               Hillary Langberg, Bard College

Mantra-Based Rituals and the Rise of Goddess Worship in Mahāyāna Indian

Buddhism (C. 450–600 CE)

•

•               Ellen Gough, Emory University

The Śrīyantra in Jainism

•

•               Shaman Hatley, University of Massachusetts, Boston

The Devīpurāṇa’s Integration of Tantric Ritual and Civic Religion

Business Meeting

Gudrun Buhnemann, University of Wisconsin, Presiding

Glen Hayes, Bloomfield College, Presiding

AV20-430

(Tantric Studies Unit and Yogacara Studies Unit)

Yogācāra Themes in Tantric Sādhana: Hevajratantra 1.8.24–56

Saturday, 5:00 PM-6:30 PM (Virtual)

John Dunne, University of Wisconsin, Presiding

Traditions of Buddhist tantra show undeniable affinities with Yogācāra. Though

tantra is often associated with Madhyamaka (often for polemical reasons),

tantra is shot through with characteristically Yogācāra committments to the

nonduality of subject and object, vijñaptimātratā, the ineluctable existence

of consciousness, Buddha nature, and the role of mind in the construction of

reality. This text panel proposes to inquire into these affinities by focusing

on a passage from one particularly influential tantra, the Hevajra,

specifically Hevajratantra1.8.2456. Our hope is to initiate discussion that

builds on the passage at hand in a manner that promotes conversation among

scholars with diverse specializations having to do with Yogācāra, tantric

practice, and visionary practices more broadly.

Panelists

Daniel McNamara, Rangjung Yeshe Institute

Davey Tomlinson, Villanova University

Rae Dachille, University of Arizona

Jingjing Li, Leiden University

AV20-431

(Teaching Religion Unit)

Towards a Postcolonial Pedagogy: Teaching Asian Religions in the 2020s

Saturday, 5:00 PM-6:30 PM (Virtual)

Quinn Clark, Columbia University, Presiding

In this roundtable, nine scholars of Asian religions teaching in a broad range

of institutions and locations offer suggestions for postcolonial pedagogies in

this new decade. In short presentations, each of the panelists will suggest a

primary and secondary source pairing and explain how an undergraduate

assignment examining that pairing models anticolonial pedagogy. The occasion

for this session is a collective recognition that in spite of a significant

body of scholarship in religious studies that has challenged Orientalist and

imperialist constructions of religion, we often do not succeed in bringing

these critiques to bear on constructs of Asian religions in the classroom.

While a general rhetorical skepticism concerning the paradigm of World

Religions has grown among scholars of religion, many religious studies

departments retain an institutional investment in frameworks of religious

traditions and geographical areas distributed along an East-West

civilizational axis. Panelists in this roundtable will address these

challenges by considering a collection of innovative class activities and

launching an open discussion about postcolonialism in today’s classroom.

Panelists

Jay Ramesh, Columbia University

Marko Geslani, University of South Carolina

Alexandra Kaloyanides, University of North Carolina, Charlotte

Lang Chen, University of Michigan

Megan Robb, University of Pennsylvania

Manpreet Kaur, Columbia University

Tanisha Ramachandran, Wake Forest University

Adrian Hermann, University of Bonn

Mark Balmforth, University of Toronto

PV21-103

(Society for the Study of Chinese Religions)

Women Scholars in the Study of Chinese Religions

Sunday, 7:30 AM-9:00 AM (Virtual)

AV21-114

(Chinese Religions Unit and Daoist Studies Unit)

White, Green, and No Lotuses: Xiantiandao and the Question of Unities and

Diversities in Chinese Sectarianism in Late Imperial and Modern China

Sunday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Elena Valussi, Loyola University, Chicago, Presiding

This panel sets out to explore the unities and diversities in the field of

sectarian religion in late imperial and modern China by taking the prominent

example of Xiantiandao (Way of Former Heaven) as a point of reference. More

specifically, it aims to probe into the question of how distinctively

sectarian symbols, beliefs, and practices can be observed in religious

contexts beyond genealogical links. In order to unravel to what extent this

sectarian repertoire was shared by some sectarian traditions, and how it was

probably refuted in others, the papers will follow three different examples

from the late imperial and modern periods of Chinese history, thus focusing on

Buddhist-oriented sects in Fujian and Taiwan, late nineteenth-century precious

scrolls in Southeastern China, and twentieth-century redemptive societies and

how they resonated with the sectarian repertoire. Thereby, the panel not only

aims to contribute to the discussions in the field of Chinese religions, but

it also touches on crucial issues in religious studies more generally, such as

questions related to ascribing identity and belonging to religious phenomena.

•

•               Nikolas Broy, Leipzig University

Mother Mythologies: Xiantiandao, Sectarian Repertoires, and ‘Buddhist-

Oriented’ Sects in Late Imperial China and Modern Taiwan

•

•               Matthias Schumann, Heidelberg University

One Dao Pervading Them All? The Role of the Xiantiandao Tradition among

Redemptive Societies.

•

•               Rostislav Berezkin, Fudan Universtiy, Shanghai

Sectarian Teachings and Narrative Baojuan in the Late 19th Century: With the

Example of the Complete Recension of Baojuan of Mulian

AV21-130

(Religion in Southeast Asia Unit)

Magic and Materiality in Southeast Asian Religions

Sunday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

James Hoesterey, Emory University, Presiding

What role do magic and materiality play in Southeast Asian religions? This

panel explores contemporary communities from mainland and maritime Southeast

Asia to understand the role that magical objects play in religious lives. With

particular attention to the Filipino anting-anting (talisman or amulets), a

Donald Trump yantra from Thailand, and massive Hindu monuments in Bangkok, the

papers in this session reveal the power of religious things in Southeast Asia.

•

•               Rudy V. Busto, University of California, Santa Barbara

Rethinking the Anting-Anting: Filipino Magical Objects

•

•               Susanne Kerekes, Skidmore College

The Trump Yantra: How a Magical Cloth Made in Thailand Changed U.S. Politics

•

•               Aditya Bhattacharjee, University of Pennsylvania

When Size Does Matter: Dreams, Visions and Hindu Icons in Buddhist Thailand

Responding

Oona Paredes, University of California, Los Angeles

Business Meeting

Etin Anwar, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Presiding

Alexandra Kaloyanides, University of North Carolina, Charlotte, Presiding

AV21-142

(Exploratory Session)

Poetics, Poiesis, and Buddhist Experiments with the Possible

Sunday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Roy Tzohar, Tel-Aviv University, Presiding

During this time of global crisis, it has become disastrously apparent that

the politics of language is crucial to our collective outcomes. Buddhists have

long recognized the overwhelming capacity of language to shape our shared

sense of reality for better or worse, and to open up possibilities for

transformation and liberation. This exploratory session launches a broad

programmatic examination of the ways in which Buddhists have experimented with

crafting and theorizing verbal modes of expression, poetic language foremost,

in pursuit of collective flourishing. To invite conversation on this topic,

five roundtable speakers will provide brief thematic interventions via case

studies from a wide range of premodern Buddhist textual sources. Their remarks

rethink the category of ornament against European and American legacies of

power in Asia; reframe language as poiesis, with creative and transformative

implications for self and world; trace historical links between poetic craft,

Buddhist doctrines, and Buddhist practices; argue for the key role of emotion

in Buddhist literary forms; and examine the epistemic role of literature in

shaping regimens of attention and patterns of salience.

Panelists

Nancy Lin, University of California, Berkeley

Natalie Gummer, Beloit College

Thomas Mazanec, University of California, Santa Barbara

Janet Gyatso, Harvard University

Sonam Kachru, University of Virginia

Responding

Charles Hallisey, Harvard University

AV21-224

(Japanese Religions Unit)

Barbarians, Dragons and Frightful Women: Demonization, Conversion and the

Grotesque in Premodern Japanese Religions

Sunday, 12:30 PM-2:30 PM (Virtual)

Kristina Buhrman, Florida State University, Presiding

In this panel, we explore the demonic in Japanese religions, considering

various demonic figures; their transformation or conversion; the individual

and collective demonization of women, and the role of the grotesque in

othering both women and foreigners. Bogel interrogates how foreign figures and

deities were depicted as demonic in the famous Yakushiji Buddha pedestal,

locating them within the larger context of Buddhist cosmology. Simpson

explores how both the Korean kingdoms and Empress Kōken-Shōtoku were demonized

in late medieval Hachiman origin stories in order to showcase Hachiman's

efficacy in defending Japan from its enemies. Sanvido shows how women who died

during pregnancy were demonized through associations with dragons, snakes and

women’s pollution, analyzing Zen secret documents detailing the ritual

rehabilitation of such women. Finally, Lazzerini examines the demonic deity

Hārītī’, whose grotesque form is uniquely employed in Nichiren Buddhism in

order to provide tangible evidence of her healing and protective abilities,

challenging canonical Buddhist notions of physio-morality. Our panel thus

troubles the conventional binary between demonic and sacred.

•

•               Emily B. Simpson, Dartmouth College

Demonizing the Depraved: Portrayals of the Foreign and the Feminine in Late

Medieval Hachiman Engi

•

•               Marta Sanvido, University of California, Berkeley

Dragons, Women’s Bodies, and Kōan: The Construction of Ritual Formations in

Early Modern Sōtō Zen Secret Sources

•

•               Cynthea J. Bogel, Kyushu University

The Demonic, Converted, Hybrid, and Foreign: ’Cosmoscapes” beneath the Buddha

and the Construction of a Chinese-Style Imperial State

•

•               Simona Lazzerini, Stanford University

Ugliness as a Mark of Protection: Demonic Icons of Hārītī in Nichiren Buddhism

Business Meeting

Jessica Starling, Lewis and Clark College, Presiding

Levi McLaughlin, North Carolina State University, Presiding

AV21-306

(Buddhist Philosophy Unit)

Mind-Body Philosophy in Buddhism

Sunday, 3:00 PM-4:30 PM (Virtual)

Karen O'Brien-Kop, University of Roehampton, Presiding

Forms of mind-body philosophy, whether explicit or assumed, are inextricable

from the discourse and practice of popular cultivation technologies such as

yoga, meditation, and medicine, and in scientific fields such as psychology,

medicine, AI, and consciousness studies. The philosophical history of Buddhism

offers several intriguing, and thus far little-examined, alternatives to the

Cartesian legacy of dualism in discursive fields such as medicine, tantric

physiology, and Abhidharma cosmology. This panel brings to bear historical and

philosophical research that references but also exceeds the more well- known

(and widely published) work on the topic, such as the decades of Mind & Life

publications overseen by the Dalai Lama and his scientific and philosophical

interlocutors. Indian and Tibetan exegetical traditions in logic and

epistemology (Skt. pramāṇa) offer especially fertile resources to further

globalize the mind-body problem and, thereby, to decenter Cartesian

presumptions and open new analytic territory.

•               Kali Cape, University of Virginia

Mind, Body & Sex in Tibetan Dzogchen

•

•               Matthew King, University of California, Riverside

The Mind beyond the Atom: Lozang Gyatso on the Logical Problems of Brain

Science and Materialist Biomedicine

•

•               Naomi Worth, University of Virginia

Winds and Channels Practice to Become a Buddha: Mind-Body Correlations in Sky

Dharma (gNam chos) Tibetan Yoga

•

•               Kin Cheung, Moravian University

Miracle As Natural: A Contemporary Chinese American Religious Healer

Responding

Hugh Nicholson, Loyola University, Chicago

Reviewers

Charles Goodman, State University of New York, Binghamton

AV21-338

(Buddhist Pedagogy Seminar)

Approaches to Knowledge and Somatic Aspects in the Buddhist Studies Classroom

Sunday, 3:00 PM-4:30 PM (Virtual)

Todd T. Lewis, College of the Holy Cross, Presiding

This session offers five presentations on teaching Buddhism with reflections

on a thread approach and somatic aspects. Beverley McGuire’s paper examines

how the approach of threshold concepts will help educators reflect on the

meanings of Buddhism and Buddhist in the classroom. Gloria Chien considers how

integrating resiliency skills concerning sensations with other contemplation

techniques supports learning about Buddhist meditation and improves students’

emotional well-being during the COVID era. Drawing on the practice of racial

healing, Brian Nichols’s presentation investigates the embodied exercises that

deepen students learning about the concept of dukkha. In the midst of racial

reckoning, Namdrol Adams analyzes a course design in teaching racism in

America from a Buddhist perspective. Finally, Kati Fitzgerald’s paper explores

the hearing domain in teaching Buddhist music with a particular focus on

contemporary hip-hop and rap. In conclusion, this session contributes to the

analysis in teaching Buddhism by offering approaches related to the threshold

concepts, somatic aspects, and racial awareness.

•

•               Beverley Foulks McGuire, University of North Carolina, Wilmington

A Threshold Approach to Teaching Buddhist Studies

•

•               Brian Nichols, Mount Royal University

Bodily Contraction Arises with Dukkha: Embodied Learning or Biohacking?

•

•               Namdrol Miranda Adams, Maitripa College

Do No Harm and Make the Invisible, Visible: Teaching Race and Racism from a

Buddhist Perspective

•

•               Gloria I-Ling Chien, Gonzaga University

Integrating Resiliency into a Buddhist Meditation Course during the COVID Era

•

•               Kati Fitzgerald, Ohio State University

The Sacred and the Profane: Buddhism, Hip-Hop and Discourses of Modernity

Responding

Ben Van Overmeire, Duke Kunshan University

Business Meeting

Trung Huynh, University of Houston, Presiding

Gloria I-Ling Chien, Gonzaga University, Presiding

AV21-437

(Buddhist Pedagogy Seminar)

Clarifying Karma and Monastic Education Today

Sunday, 5:00 PM-6:30 PM (Virtual)

Manuel Lopez, New College of Florida, Presiding

This session includes a presentation on teaching karma and a panel on today’s

Buddhist monastic education. Brooke Schedneck’s paper analyzes assignments

that help students identify misleading aspects of Buddhism within popular

culture and enrich their understanding of the concept of karma. Following this

presentation, the discussion will move to a panel with Manu Lopez presiding

and Kurtis Schaeffer as the respondent. This panel offers an overview of the

challenges and opportunities faced by current monastic institutions in Tibet

and the Himalayas. Karma Lekshe Tsomo and Dorji Gyeltshen focus on the

Buddhist monastic curricula of nunneries and the innovative approaches that

have been implemented in response to new opportunities now open to women.

Andrew Taylor and Nisheeta Jagtiani examine the issues and influences related

to integrating secular and traditional monastic education. In conclusion, this

session contributes to the reflection on teaching the Buddhist concept of

karma and ponder the contemporary monastic instruction concerning pedagogical

issues of innovation, adaptation, and inclusion.

•

•               Brooke Schedneck, Rhodes College

Buddha and Karma Quotes Assignment

•

•               Karma Lekshe Tsomo, University of San Diego

Gender Dynamics in Tibetan Buddhist Monastic Education

•

•               Andrew Taylor, University of Virginia

Gilding the Golden Age: The Proselytizing Functions of the Tibetan Monastic

Curriculum in China

•

•               Nisheeta Jagtiani, Northwestern University

The Making of Buddhist Leaders in India Today: Combining Buddhist and Secular

Education in Monastic Training

•

•               Dorji Gyeltshen, Jigme Singye Wangchuck School of Law

The Monastic Curriculum, the Vows, and the Training Center: The Transformation

of Female Monastic Education in Contemporary Bhutan

Responding

Kurtis Schaeffer, University of Virginia

AV22-110

(Buddhist Philosophy Unit)

Buddhist Philosophy Unit Omnibus Panel

Monday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Karin Meyers, Mangalam Research Center, Presiding

Buddhist Philosophy Unit Omnibus Panel

•

•               Timothy Loftus, Temple University

Ambedkar’s Dharma: A Religion of Principles

•

•               Jeremy Manheim, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Objectless Compassion and the Limits of Emotion: Three Rival Tibetan Accounts

of Anālaṃbana-Karunā

•

•               Chihying Wu, University of California, Berkeley

The Dual Cognitive Aspect of Manas: A Study on Manas as the Contributory

Factor and the Similar and Immediately Antecedent Factor in Cognition in

Yogācāra Buddhism

Responding

Constance Kassor, Lawrence University

Reviewers

Charles Goodman, State University of New York, Binghamton

AV22-120

(Japanese Religions Unit)

Religion in Service to the Japanese State

Monday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Heather Blair, Indiana University, Presiding

This panel brings together research on premodern and modern Japan to highlight

continuities and changes in the religion-state relationship throughout

history. Using the model of two wheels on one cart, representing the twin

principles of religious and sovereign law for the well-being of society, the

presenters examine the position and meaning attributed to religion in three

different contexts. The topics include eighth century use of state protection

Buddhism to ensure a controversial imperial succession, religious

justification for modern day women bans on sacred mountains and in sumo rings,

and the voluntary role of prison chaplains in post-WWII Japan. Each paper

complicates the notion that a one-dimensional line runs from more to less

separation between state and religion and rejects the false binary between

sacred and secular. Moreover, the papers collectively muddle seemingly

singular existences of government, cultural, or religious spaces by

demonstrating their intersectional and multidimensional use. This panel

provides different angles for conceiving of how religion has been and

continues to be used to further the interests of the Japanese state.

•

•               Lindsey DeWitt, Ghent Univeristy

Religion, Women’s Exclusion, and National Self-Image(s) in Modern Japan

•

•               Adam Lyons, Université de Montréal

Religions and the Ideal of Public Service in Contemporary Japan

•

•               Abigail MacBain, Columbia University

Tōdaiji Temple as State Protector and Familial Temple

Responding

Mikael Bauer, McGill University

AV22-212

(Buddhist Philosophy Unit and Hindu Philosophy Unit and Religion in South Asia

Unit)

Productive Influences between Hindu and Buddhist Thought

Monday, 12:30 PM-2:30 PM (Virtual)

Leah Kalmanson, University of North Texas, Presiding

The few hundreds of years bookending the turn of the second millennium CE saw

a golden age of Indian dialectics. A period of highly intertextual

philosophical exchange and debate, this era was incredibly intellectually

productive. Not only were there intense debates raging between philosophical

schools, but within them as well. It was the friction of these exchanges that

defined a forging crucible, helping to further solidify the Indian darśanasand

Buddhism in contradistinction to each other. Indeed, it would be the last

formative event of Indian Buddhism until it all put disappeared from the sub-

continent shortly thereafter. The proposed panel examines the exchange between

Buddhist and Hindu philosophical schools of this era through the lens of their

productivity. That is, each paper examines the manner in which these

confrontations lead to a more nuanced articulation of both Buddhist and Hindu

philosophy.

•

•               Nilanjan Das, University College London

A Reappraisal of Uddyotakara and Buddhists on Universals

•

•               John Taber, University of New Mexico

Apoha for Beginners: Dignāga and Kumārila

•

•               Jed Forman, University of California, Berkeley

Effable or Ineffable? Ratnakīrti’s Differing Rebuttals to Mīmāmṣakas and

Naiyāyikas

•

•               Alex Watson, Ashoka University

Is Recognition Capable of Refuting Momentariness? Jayanta’s Critique

•

•               Amit Chaturvedi, University of Hong Kong

Tracing the Evolution of Buddhist and Nyāya Views on Non-conceptual Perception

Reviewers

Charles Goodman, State University of New York, Binghamton

Business Meeting

Tao Jiang, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, Presiding

Karin Meyers, Mangalam Research Center, Presiding

AV22-219

(Japanese Religions Unit)

Empty Offertory Boxes – Poverty and Precarity within Contemporary Japanese

Religions

Monday, 12:30 PM-2:30 PM (Virtual)

Jolyon Thomas, University of Pennsylvania, Presiding

Following this year’s AAR theme of Religion, Poverty, and Inequality:

Contemplating Our Collective Futures, this panel presents four case studies of

poverty and precarity found within contemporary Japanese religious

institutions. Rather than solely focusing on how Japanese religions attempt to

address such issues outwardly, the panelists demonstrate that Japanese

religious communities themselves are often in precarious, socially and

financially unstable circumstances. From the loss or decline of traditional

sources of income, to recovering from natural disasters, to the material and

social difficulties in maintaining social welfare programs through an

organizations own financial and institutional turmoil, many Japanese religious

institutions are themselves caught in a state of precarity. The panelists seek

to connect with ongoing discussions regarding religion, labor, and economics

through exploring four case studies which illustrate how poverty and

inequality impact religious institutions and religious professionals, and how

they are responding and reacting to crises economic and existential, internal

and external, natural and manmade.

•

•               Pow Camacho-Lemus, University of California, Los Angeles

Compounding Precarity: Assessing Poverty and Economic Impact for Buddhist

Temples in Northeastern Japan after the Triple Disaster

•

•               Timothy Smith, University of North Carolina

Inconvenient “Circumstances”: Empty Churches, Part-Time Priests, and the

Potential and Precarity of Tenrikyō Today

•

•               Dana Mirsalis, Harvard University

Precarious Priesthood: What the ‘Part-Time’ Priest Tells Us about Contemporary

Shinto

•

•               Erica Baffelli, University of Manchester

Volunteering and Precarity: A Case Study from a Buddhist Organization in Japan

during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Responding

Levi McLaughlin, North Carolina State University

AV22-312

(Hindu Philosophy Unit)

Udayana on Buddhist Idealism: A Philosophical Roundtable

Monday, 3:00 PM-4:30 PM (Virtual)

Parimal G. Patil, Harvard University, Presiding

The philosopher Udayana (10th/11th c.) was a leading representative of the

Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika tradition and a fierce critic of Buddhism. This session brings

together several scholars to discuss and debate Udayana’s arguments against

idealism, as presented in the Ātma-tattva-viveka, section 2 (“On the

[Buddhist] Refutation of External Objects”). The goal is to create a space for

lively and rigorous discussion among the panelists and with the audience. A

handout with the original Sanskrit and an English translation of selections

from Udayana’s text will be provided.

Panelists

Nilanjan Das, University College London

Davey Tomlinson, Villanova University

Jed Forman, University of California, Berkeley

Responding

Catherine Prueitt, University of British Columbia

Business Meeting

Michael Allen, University of Virginia, Presiding

AV22-313

(Indian and Chinese Religions Compared Unit)

Centralizing the Borderlines: Devotion, Geo-Poetics and Blood

Monday, 3:00 PM-4:30 PM (Virtual)

Gudrun Buhnemann, University of Wisconsin, Presiding

How do borderlines and marginalization influence religions in geographic,

devotional and corporeal domains? John Keune compares the deity cults of

Vitthal in western India and Mazu in Taiwan to illuminate the different

strategies in Hinduism and Chinese religions for creating and challenging ex-

centric forms of devotion, illustrating how popular religions that may be

marginalized in academic study are central in their regions. In our second

paper, Rachel Pang considers geo-politics and poetics by highlighting the

19th-century verse of Tibetan Buddhist Shabkar and the way in which he

described the borderland Amdo landscape using conceptual models from India,

China and Tibet. In the third paper, Ruth Westoby explores overlaps between

haṭhayoga and Daoism in vital practices that use menstrual blood as a power

substance for transformation. She revisits the vexing questions of whether

Daoist Neidan or ‘inner alchemy’ was a foundation for later Indian yogic

practices. This panel challenges reductionist categories and binary models of

center and periphery in favor of emic perspectives and complex transactions

across conceptual and geographical borders.

•

•               Jon Keune, Michigan State University

Folk, Popular, Regional, and the Mainstream? Placing Vitthal and Mazu in Hindu

and Chinese Traditions

•

•               Ruth Westoby, SOAS University of London

Raising, Refining, Slaying: Menstrual Blood in Haṭhayoga and Nüdan

•

•               Rachel Pang, Davidson College

Shabkar’s (1781–1851) Representation of the Qinghai Border Region Using

Indian, Tibetan, and Chinese Models

Business Meeting

Dan Lusthaus, Harvard University, Presiding

Karen O'Brien-Kop, University of Roehampton, Presiding

AV23-102

(Chinese Religions Unit)

Diffused Chinese Religions and Local Cultures

Tuesday, 8:30 AM-10:00 AM (Virtual)

Megan Bryson, University of Tennessee, Presiding

The four papers on this panel engage with the diffused nature of Chinese

religious in local cultures in distinct ways. The first paper, Religious

Responses to COVID-19: A Case Study of Face Masks as Buddhist Merit, examines

grassroot lay Buddhist religious activity in response to the pandemic in 2020.

It focuses on a Tibetan Buddhist group in Shanghai which adjusted their

prayers and rituals, based their understanding of merits, to accommodate the

situation. Sing Hallelujah to the Lord? Canto-theologies as Diffused Religion

in Hong Kong Localist Identity Formation uses diffused Christianity,

institutional Chinese religions, and vernacular Chinese religions to

demonstrate the ways in which religions are diffused into Hong Kong localist

identity formation. It builds on but transforms C.K. Yang’s classic theory of

diffused religion which he applied to Chinese religions, in order to show that

Christianity can, surprisingly, also express itself as a diffused religion.

Observing Buddhist Precepts by Divination: Practices According to Zhanchajing

examines practices surrounding an apocryphal text produced in sixth-century

China, and explores how a seemingly non-Buddhist practice was broadly accepted

in medieval Chinese and Japanese monasteries. ‘Buddhist Monasticism

Reconsidered On the Construction of Socio-leisure Places in Buddhist

Monasteries and their Economic and Cultural Significances in the 17th Century

Hangzhou’ examines how Buddhist monasteries created social places for gaining

socio-cultural influence and attracting patronages in 17th century Hangzhou.

The paper suggests that the flourishing of Buddhism in the lower Yangtze area

was partially a result of the successful management and strategic expansion of

Buddhist monasticism by physically and culturally creating the social places

catered to the literati’s socio-cultural and psychological needs.

•

•               Guanxiong Qi, Florida State University

Buddhist Monasticism Reconsidered—on the Construction of Socio-Leisure Places

in Buddhist Monasteries and Their Economic and Cultural Significances in the

17th Century Hangzhou

•

•               Xingyi Wang, Harvard University

Observing Buddhist Precepts by Divination: Practices according to Zhanchajing

•

•               Kai Shmushko, Tel Aviv University

Religious Responses to COVID-19- a Case Study of Face Masks as Buddhist Merit

•

•               Ting Guo, University of Toronto

Justin Tse, Singapore Management University

Sing Hallelujah to the Lord? ‘Canto-Theologies’ as Diffused Religion in Hong

Kong Localist Identity Formation

Responding

Dear Members of the AAR Buddhism Unit Mailing List:

The Buddhism Unit is looking forward to hosting an excellent slate of panels

at the Annual Meeting in San Antonio (some of which will be in-person and some

of which will be virtual). For your convenience, we have put together the

following list of Buddhism-related sessions you might find to be of interest.

The list begins with “Sessions Sponsored by the Buddhism Unit,” and then moves

on to “Other Sessions of Interest.” For the latter list, we have tried to

include all sessions with substantial Buddhism-related content, but it is very

likely that there are things we have missed—our apologies, if that is the

case. Please plan to attend the Buddhism Unit Business Meeting, which will

take place during the last 10-15 minutes of the exciting (virtual) session on

“Manifestos for Buddhist Studies” (AV21-209 in the list below).

We hope to see you in San Antonio (for Bryan) or through a little box on the

screen (for Reiko)!

Best,

Bryan Lowe & Reiko Ohnuma

Buddhism Unit Co-Chairs

SESSIONS SPONSORED OR CO-SPONSORED BY THE BUDDHISM UNIT

AV19-101

(Buddhism Unit and Tibetan and Himalayan Religions Unit)

Reading Queerly: Towards a Queer, Trans, and Feminist Readings of Tibetan

Buddhism

Friday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Melissa Anne-Marie Curley, Ohio State University, Presiding

This panel will set out to weave a complex methodological, genealogical, and

textual reading of Tibetan Buddhist materials and their imbrications with

queerness, transness, and sexual violence. Rather than applying a top-down

analysis that runs Buddhist materials through the theoretical and political

commitments of an essentialized queer studies, this panel proposes to engage

Buddhist source materials in reciprocal conversation with feminist, queer, and

trans hermeneutics. Our panel will ask how not only the materials themselves,

but also our own academic practices and locations, are imbricated with power.

How might we ethically and generatively conceptualize sexual violence,

consent, transness, or queerness? And how might these conceptualizations shift

when considered in different languages or geo-historical locations? Our panel

asserts that scholars must contend with the ways gender, sexuality, and

religion coalesce to create conditions that reproduce hegemonic ways of

knowing. Orienting our questions towards power, instability, and genealogy, we

examine the problematics and potentials that emerge when reading Buddhist

materials through queer, feminist, and trans lenses.

•               Ray Buckner, Northwestern University

Extractive “Tantra”: Reading Orientalism and Transphobia at a Women’s “Tantric

Sex” Retreat

•

•               Learned Foote, Rice University

Narratives of Tibetan Buddhist Homosexuality/Homophobia in the 20th–21st C.

•

•               Amy P. Langenberg, Eckerd College

Sexual Subjectivity in Vinaya Case Law concerning Sexual Violation and

Misconduct

•

•               Joshua Shelton, Northwestern University

Tickling Our Way to Enlightenment: Preliminary Reflections on a Queer Theology

of Buddhist Tantra

•

•               Sarah Jacoby, Northwestern University

Vajrayāna Buddhist Sexual Ethics: Vantage Points from the Margins of the

Tibetan Monastery

•

•               Dawa Lokyitsang, University of Colorado Boulder

Decolonial & Intersectional Interventions against (Neo)Liberal Feminism:

Reflections on Tibetan Feminisms

Responding

Bee Scherer, Intersectional Centre for Inclusion and Social Justice

AV20-209

(Buddhism Unit)

The Lived Realities of Buddhist Economics

Saturday, 12:30 PM-2:30 PM (Virtual)

Gregory Clines, Trinity University, Presiding

This panel illuminates how Buddhist cultures incorporated, and continue to do

so, economics and value-making as a part of maintaining and sustaining

religiosity since 200 BCE. In doing so, this group of papers provides new

perspectives on how Buddhism and economics are not a new theoretical approach

but a continuous necessity of maintaining and sustaining Buddhist sites,

religion, and practices. The study of Buddhist Economics so far primarily

focuses on theory that highlights how Buddhism and economy are in

contradiction. However, this panel provides new research on how Buddhist

groups have always relied upon economics as a means for growth and stability.

In similar ways, groups from South Asia, Tibet, Sikkim, China, and Hawaii

formulate methods of value-making of religious material and sites that expand

beyond ideas of merit-making or purification. In this way, the study of

Buddhism expands to include how religious groups are not constrained by

religious ideas but fully incorporate business models, which are not perceived

as separate or non-religious.

•

•               Alexander Hsu, University of Notre Dame

Anthologist as Entrepreneur: “Scriptural Economy” in a Seventh C. Chinese

Buddhist Anthology

•

•               Renee Ford, Rice University

Come to the Land of Padmasambhava: Sikkim as a ‘Buddhist Nation’

•

•               Matthew Milligan, Trinity University

Moral and Material Prosperity (Hita-Sukha) in Premodern Buddhist Economics

•

•               Jeff Wilson, University of Waterloo

Pennies from the Pure Land: Practicing the Dharma, Hanging Out, and Raising

Funds for the Oldest Buddhist Temple outside Asia

•

•               Kai Shmushko, Tel Aviv University

Towards Understanding the Economy of Lay Tibetan Buddhism in China – the Case

of the “Living Hall” (Shenghuo Guan 生活馆) Model

•

•               Ian MacCormack, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

What Is a Dalai Lama Worth? Reflections on Buddhism, Economy, and State in

Tibet

AV20-406

(Buddhism Unit)

New Work in Buddhist Studies

Saturday, 5:00 PM-6:30 PM (Virtual)

Reiko Ohnuma, Dartmouth College, Presiding

This omnibus panel highlights new research in Buddhist Studies. The first

paper considers Tibetan Buddhist conceptions of the porosity of flesh and the

body by examining how the efficacy of brahmin-flesh pills which promise

liberation through eating is represented and contested across a range of

polemical, liturgical, and narrative writings composed between the 13th and

19th centuries. The second re-examines the possibilities and limitations of

karmic reflection by analyzing Buddhist sources that address humanitarian

crises, where suffering is immense in scale and shared among a large group of

people. The third paper highlights the ambiguities of Buddhist identity

through a case study of the origins and evolution of fojiaotu, the common

modern term for Buddhist in Chinese. The fourth takes up Chinese Buddhist

apologetics in the anti-superstition campaigns in the 1920s and the early

1930s and shows that Buddhists actively engaged with these discourses to

articulate their beliefs and practices.

•

•               Christina A. Kilby, James Madison University

The Limits of Karma: Humanitarian Crises and the Ethics of Governmental

Responsibility

•

•               James Gentry, Stanford University

The Porosity of Brahmin Flesh in Tantric Buddhist Pill Practice in Tibet:

Contested Boundaries and Ambiguous Efficacies

•

•               Wei Wu, Emory University

The True Faith and the Deluded Faith: Buddhism in the Anti-superstition

Campaigns in Modern China

•

•               Douglas Gildow, Chinese University Hong Kong

What Is a Buddhist in Modern China?

AV21-113

(Buddhism Unit and Buddhist Critical-Constructive Reflection Unit)

Challenging Privilege in Buddhist Institutions and in Buddhist Studies

Sunday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Liz Wilson, Miami University of Ohio, Presiding

How is scholarship in the field of Buddhist studies changing in response to

new guiding questions? Has the guild of Buddhist studies changed as a result

of increased awareness of unearned privilege, especially structural inequities

of race, class, and gender? What is the place of Buddhist studies in a

changing academy and what can we in the guild o?er as thought-leaders for

others? This roundtable will bring together scholars who give pride of place

to categories such as race, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, and

gender expression. Participants will reflect on how privilege grounded in

these categories has shaped Buddhist institutions. The panel will also engage

in self-reflexive analysis, asking how privilege configures our work as

scholars. Are there raced, classed, and gendered networks that shape our

guild? If so, what is to be done? Our discussion will center around three

issues: (1) what modes of embedded privilege are tolerable and what modes are

not (2) whether there are certain forms that must be changed so that attention

can be given to less visible modes, and (3) tactics for changing those modes

that need to be addressed immediately.

Panelists

Jimmy Yu, Florida State University

Nirmala S. Salgado, Augustana College

Bee Scherer, Intersectional Centre for Inclusion and Social Justice

Kali Cape, University of Virginia

Amy P. Langenberg, Eckerd College

Bryan Lowe, Princeton University

Responding

Kristin Scheible, Reed College

Business Meeting

Hsiao-Lan Hu, University of Detroit Mercy, Presiding

Barbra R. Clayton, Mount Allison University, Presiding

AV21-209

(Buddhism Unit)

Manifestos for Buddhist Studies

Sunday, 12:30 PM-2:30 PM (Virtual)

Richard Nance, Indiana University, Presiding

What do the legacies of the past and the pressures of the present entail for

the future of Buddhist Studies? How might the field address itself to this

future in such a way as to warrant its continued (if perhaps altered)

existence? And how might an altered vision for the future in turn transform

our engagement with the past and the present? This roundtable discussion aims

to frame a broader conversation regarding the challenges and opportunities

facing the field, in order that we might think creatively together about what

the future study of Buddhism might look like. Current crises educational,

social, political, environmental heighten tensions (among and within scholars)

between critiques of and investments in the structures of knowledge we inherit

and inhabit. The epistemological and ethical questions raised thereby take on

new urgency in the context of shrinking resources and changing institutional

structures and objectives. This session explores some of the ways in which a

reimagined study of Buddhism might speak compellingly to present and future

circumstances, and in the process alter our relationship with the complex

legacies of the field.

Panelists

Rongdao Lai, McGill University

Robert Sharf, University of California, Berkeley

Sarah Jacoby, Northwestern University

Ann Gleig, University of Central Florida

Charles Hallisey, Harvard University

Jacqueline I. Stone, Princeton University

Natalie Gummer, Beloit College

Sonam Kachru, University of Virginia

Janet Gyatso, Harvard University

Melissa Anne-Marie Curley, Ohio State University

Responding

Natalie Avalos, University of Colorado

Business Meeting

Reiko Ohnuma, Dartmouth College, Presiding

Bryan Lowe, Princeton University, Presiding

A21-305

(Buddhism Unit and Class, Religion, and Theology Unit)

Class, Privilege, and Inequality in Contemporary Buddhism

Sunday, 3:00 PM-4:30 PM (In Person)

Convention Center-006B

Alicia Turner, York University, Presiding

Class matters. While it is famously slippery as a concept, there is little

question that the constellation of income, wealth, education, and social

status is an important force in contemporary societies. Nevertheless, it has

played a comparatively small role in the study of religion relative to its

importance. This is perhaps especially true in the study of contemporary

Buddhism. While a number of works have addressed the issue of class obliquely

few have made it a term of analysis or examined the inequalities inherent to

it. This panel offers a corrective to this underutilization. Examining a range

of contexts from across the Buddhist world and beyond, these papers will

investigate dynamics and tactics surrounding differences in class and

privilege in Buddhists religious lives. How do these people advantaged,

disadvantaged, or both deploy their particular repertoires, resources, and

networks to navigate their religious lives and negotiate or contest their

positions in social hierarchies? Drawing on fieldwork, surveys, and textual

sources, the panel will present the diverse ways in which class enables and

constrains actors and shapes their lives as Buddhists.

•

•               Justin R. Ritzinger, University of Miami

Beyond the Mountains Lie the Valleys: Buddhism and Class in Contemporary

Taiwan

•

•               Sara Swenson, Syracuse University

Class Dynamics of Buddhist Charity in Contemporary Vietnam

•

•               Rohit Singh, University of North Carolina, Greensboro

Disrupting Buddhist Social Hierarchies: Ritual, Class Formations, and Counter

Hegemonic Discourses in Ladakh

•

•               Mary Kate Long, Cornell University

Properties of Buddhist Belonging in Contemporary Myanmar

•

•               Jens Reinke, Leipzig University

Spreading the ‘Dharma of Prosperity’: Buddhism, Class, and Ethnic Chinese

Migration to South Africa

A21-405

(Buddhism Unit and Buddhist Critical-Constructive Reflection Unit)

Readings of Bodhicaryāvatāra VI. 9-10

Sunday, 5:00 PM-6:30 PM (In Person)

Convention Center-213

Douglas S. Duckworth, Temple University, Presiding

The Bodhicaryāvatāra by Śāntideva (8th c.) has been discussed widely in India

and Tibet, and more recently has attracted academic and popular interest

globally. Our roundtable session will consider a pair of verses from the sixth

chapter of the Bodhicaryāvatāra, VI.9-10. We bring together a diverse group of

scholars (5 women, 3 men, at various career stages) to speak for five minutes

each on two verses, with the aim to enact a lively conversation, one that both

models the creative and scholarly reading practices of the field, and to

invite audience participation in an inclusive spirit of collaboration. In

Crosby & Skiltons translation, the passage under consideration reads: [9] I

must not disturb the feeling of sympathetic joy, even at the arrival of

something extremely unwelcome. There is nothing desirable in the state of

dejection; on the contrary, the skillful is neglected. [10] If there is a

solution, then what is the point of dejection? What is the point of dejection

if there is no solution?With a series of short "lightning lectures," we aim to

create a space for a lively and collaborative discussion of this classic

Buddhist text (or rather, two verses of it).

Panelists

Emily McRae, University of New Mexico

Jonathan Gold, Princeton University

Amod Lele, Boston University

Constance Kassor, Lawrence University

Amber Carpenter, Yale-NUS College

Charles Goodman, State University of New York, Binghamton

Vesna Wallace, University of California, Santa Barbara

Barbra R. Clayton, Mount Allison University

AV22-109

(Buddhism Unit, Chinese Religions Unit, and Daoist Studies Unit)

Repelling, Averting, and Eluding Calamities: The Logic of "Apotropaic

Solutions" in Chinese Religions

Monday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Eric Huntington, Rice University, Presiding

This panel includes three papers on different types of apotropaic solutions

practiced in China, and, as a whole, accentuates the significance of

apotropaic solutions in Chinese religions by explaining both the ritual logic

and the mechanism of apotropaism. The first paper explains the use of

horoscopic astrology in apotropaic solutions in the Tang by examining relevant

Buddhist and Daoist texts on astral apotropaism; the second paper deals with

the canopy-mounting liturgy at Dunhuang as a unique apotropaic solution to

various problems that a city may face; the third paper examines Buddho-Daoist

practices that can be categorized as the quelling of tiger attacks in late

imperial China. These apotropaic solutions were utilized to repel, avert, or

elude calamities, malignant spirits, and diseases, and the fate of a person, a

local community, or the state could be seen as depending on the successful

execution of a particular apotropaic solution. The panel collectively

addresses the question of how these texts might have been functional for a

practitioner and what kind of mentality, and religious sensibilities

imaginaire enabled the use of these imaginative solutions.

•

•               Jeffrey Kotyk, The University of British Columbia

Petitioning the Planets and Negotiating Astrological Fate in Tang China

•

•               Nan Ouyang, National University of Singapore

Solving the Problem of the Wild: Apotropaic Rituals against Tiger Attacks in

Late Imperial China

•

•               Yi Ding, Stanford University

Symbols Installed and Protection Embodied: The Parasol-Mounting (Zhisan 置傘)

Liturgy as a Apotropaic Solution at Dunhuang

Responding

Michelle C. Wang, Georgetown University

A22-211

(Buddhism Unit and Indian and Chinese Religions Compared Unit)

Buddhists Count: Premodern Buddhist Commentators Reckon with Their Traditions

Monday, 12:30 PM-2:30 PM (In Person)

Convention Center-006A

Alexander Hsu, University of Notre Dame, Presiding

Numbers recur in Buddhist literatures of every genre. Buddhists count

elements, arguments, sects, steps in a ritual, breaths, precepts, scriptures,

beads, worlds, beings, distance, and the passage of time in the tens and

thousands, or sometimes items are "beyond measure." On the one hand numbers

allow for memorizability, reproducibility, routinization, comparison, cross-

reference, and standardization; on the other, impossibly large numbers boggle

and renegotiate the scale of what is even imaginable. More than this,

commentators in Buddhist traditions take measure of these enumerations within

and across the scriptural traditions that matter to them. By scrutinizing

their premodern analogues to footnotes, indices, charts, and distant reading,

Buddhist Studies can better account for how its practitioners did the math

when grappling with textual mysteries that would otherwise be intractable.

This panel produces four case studies where Buddhists took stock of

authoritative textual traditions, and claimed mastery over them through

producing correct accounts.

•

•               Erdene Baatar Erdene-Ochir, University of California, Santa Barbara

"Khyab Mtha'" as a Pedagogy of Counting: Navigating the "Methods to Establish

the Pervasion Boundaries of the Seventy Topics" in Nineteenth-Century

Mongolian Buddhism

•

•               Thomas Newhall, University of California, Los Angeles

5, 6, 7, 8, Group the Rules to Keep Them Straight: Categorizing the Buddhist

Precepts in Daoxuan’s (596–667) Vinaya Commentaries

•

•               Tao Jin, Illinois Wesleyan University

How Did the Chinese Buddhist Exegetes Mark Out the Three-Dimensional

Structures of Their Commentaries? Zhenjian 真鑑 and His <i>Ganzhi</i> 干支

Method

•

•               Bruce Winkelman, University of Chicago

Japanese Buddhist History by the Numbers: Ten or More Ways to Count History

according to Kokan Shiren’s (1278–1346) <i>Genkō Shakusho</i>

•

•               Rae Dachille, University of Arizona

Vajra Math: Enumeration as a Tool for Enlightenment in This Lifetime and This

Body

Responding

Eric Greene, Yale University

AV23-110

(Buddhism Unit)

Poverty as Rhetorical Trope and Lived Reality in Historical Buddhisms

Tuesday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Adeana McNicholl, Vanderbilt University, Presiding

Inspired by this year’s AAR Presidential Theme, this panel seeks to

interrogate the polyvocal perspectives on poverty associated with particular

Buddhist traditions, exploring the ways that the suffering and shame of

poverty are expressed, explained, or explained away; considering the ways that

idealized images of poverty were accorded with the lived realities of economic

privation; and, finally, attending to the role of rituals and other embodied

practices in these cultural negotiations. By highlighting the ways that

different Buddhist communities throughout history (Chinese, Japanese, Korean,

and Tibetan) have both reinforced and contested existing cultural assumptions

about the poor, we aim to shed light on the lived experience of poverty in

these contexts. Moreover, by considering the ways that impecunious Buddhists

throughout time have engaged with a tradition that simultaneously exalted and

belittled them, we see how such individuals thoughtfully and selectively made

meaning from their fragmented, polyvocal cultural inheritances. In so doing,

we seek to take seriously President Fredericks call to interrogate how

religion aids, impedes, and/or amends our common life.

•               David DiValerio, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

Managing Destitution and Sustaining the Self in Long-Term Meditative Retreat

•

•               Bryan Lowe, Princeton University

Rags to Riches, Paper to Pots: Accessing the Religious Lives of the Poor in

Ancient Japan

•

•               Sujung Kim, DePauw University

The Buddhist Way of Hitting the Jackpot: Poverty and Buddhist Talismans in

Late Choson Korea

•

•               Christopher Jensen, Carleton University

Ways of Being Poor: Perspectives on Poverty in Sixth- and Seventh-Century

Chinese Hagiography

Responding

Yongshan He, University of Toronto

OTHER SESSIONS OF INTEREST

AV19-104

(Indian and Chinese Religions Compared Unit and Yogacara Studies Unit)

Roundtable on Eyal Aviv’s Differentiating the Pearl from the Fish-Eye: Ouyang

Jingwu and the Revival of Scholastic Buddhism (Brill, 2020)

Friday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Jingjing Li, Leiden University, Presiding

Bringing together six scholars from Yogācāra studies, Buddhist modernism,

Buddhist philosophy, and modern Confucianism, this roundtable discusses Eyal

Aviv’s new book Differentiating the Pearl from the Fish-Eye: Ouyang Jingwu and

the Revival of Scholastic Buddhism (published by Brill 2020). The composition

of this roundtable reflects the intersectional and interdisciplinary nature of

Aviv’s book that examines how Ouyang Jingwu (1871-1943), a key proponent of

Yogācāra studies in early Republican China, refashioned the scholastic

approach to Buddhist studies as a result of his constant negotiations of the

relationship between the personal and the national, the traditional and the

modern, the authentic and the inauthentic, and Indian religions and Chinese

traditions. Participants of this roundtable work on the writings of Ouyang as

well as his interlocutors, and Aviv will be the respondent. By discussing

Ouyang’s thoughts from different perspectives, participants will shed light on

the implications of the book for the studies of Yogācāra, Buddhist modernism,

and Buddhist-Confucian dialogues. Together, this roundtable provides a well-

rounded portrayal of this ground-breaking book.

Panelists

Ernest Brewster, Iona College

Barbra R. Clayton, Mount Allison University

Ching Keng, National Chengchi University

Rongdao Lai, McGill University

Jessica Zu, Princeton University

Philippe Major, Universit�t Basel

Responding

Eyal Aviv, George Washington University

AV19-105

(Japanese Religions Unit and Religion, Colonialism, and Postcolonialism Unit)

Dharmacakra, Sword, and Chrysanthemum: Buddhist Entanglements in Japan’s

Wartime Empire

Friday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Jessica Starling, Lewis and Clark College, Presiding

This panel investigates the complex relationships of Japanese Buddhists to

Japan's wartime empire (1931-1945) beyond the common dichotomy of resistance

and collaboration. It does so by focusing on figures active in an imperial

grey zone that straddled the ambiguous line between religion and politics. The

first paper discusses the 1934 Pan-Pacific Young Buddhist Association

Conference as an attempt to formulate the vision of a Buddhist bloc against

the background of imperial expansion. The second paper introduces the Buddhist

priest Fujii Sōsen to explore the pressures that worked on individual

Buddhists dedicated to pan-Buddhist ideals in a time of escalating warfare.

The third paper showcases the complex entanglements of religious idealism and

real-world politics by examining a Sino-Japanese Buddhist association that

emerged as an important networking hub for Japanese and Chinese in 1930s North

China. The fourth paper investigates the activities of Japanese agents in

Inner Asia to elucidate the place of Tibeto-Mongolian Buddhism in the Japanese

imperial gaze.

•

•               Erik Schicketanz, Kokugakuin University, Tokyo, Japan

Between Idealism and Geopolitics: Yoshii Hōjun and the Sino-Japanese Society

for the Study of Esoteric Buddhism in 1930s North China

•

•               Daigengna Duoer, University of California, Santa Barbara

Embodying Otherness: Religion, Colonialism, and Japanese Intelligence Agents

under Inner Asian Buddhist Disguises

•

•               Yukiko Sakaida, Aichi University, Toyohashi, Japan

Fujii Sōsen: A Buddhist “China-Hand” and the Two Nationalisms of Sino-Japanese

Buddhist Relations

•

•               Justin Stein, Kwantlen Polytechnic University

Japanese Imperialism and the 1934 Pan-Pacific Young Buddhists’ Associations

Conference

AV19-206

(Buddhism in the West Unit and Buddhist Critical-Constructive Unit)

Author Meets Critics: Sharon A. Suh’s Occupy This Body: A Buddhist Memoir

(Sumeru Press Inc., 2019)

Friday, 12:30 PM-2:30 PM (Virtual)

Ali Altaf Mian, University of Florida, Presiding

This interdisciplinary panel discusses and debates Sharon A. Suh’s Occupy This

Body: A Buddhist Memoir. In this work, a leading scholar of Buddhism confronts

the heavy burdens of silence and invisibility, as well as the living trauma,

that ensnare Asian American women in contemporary America. Panelists will

discuss this memoir’s critique of racism and sexism but also its rich insights

about meditation and mindfulness. The publication of Suh’s memoir also

occasions fresh questions for the field of Buddhism studies and religious

studies more broadly: How might we disrupt the public-private, insider-

outsider, and scholarly-activist binaries by skillfully using the memoir

genre? What are the challenges but also opportunities of autoethnography as a

methodology in religious studies? What types of Buddhist philosophies and

praxes are generated when we center marginalized bodies?

Panelists

Ann Gleig, University of Central Florida

Sophia Arjana, Western Kentucky University

Helen Jin Kim, Emory University

Mark Unno, University of Oregon

Responding

Sharon A. Suh, Seattle University

AV19-220

(Buddhist Pedagogy Workshop)

Reflecting on the Buddhism Survey Course

Friday, 2:00 PM-5:00 PM (Virtual)

Gloria I-Ling Chien, Gonzaga University, Presiding

The Buddhist Pedagogy Seminar invites those who teach an introductory Buddhism

survey course to a three-hour, interactive workshop to explore the questions:

What is the work my Buddhism survey course aims to do? How? And for whom?

Through worksheets, guided writing, and small-group discussions, and using

syllabi as the text, participants will engage in two reflective processes. The

first considers the Buddhism survey in relation to multiple contexts including

students, teacher/scholars, institutions, and social factors. The second

offers an approach to aligning professors, students, and material for better

learning and more satisfying teaching. These processes are helpful both in

building syllabi and in shaping language that affirms the deep purposes of

teachers of Buddhism survey courses. Participants will need to have a copy of

their Buddhism Survey syllabus with them in the workshop.

Panelists

Patricia O'Connell Killen, Pacific Lutheran University

Nicole Willock, Old Dominion University

PV19-305

(Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies)

Buddhist-Christian Responses to Ecological Catastrophe and Climate Change

Friday, 4:00 PM-6:30 PM (Virtual)

Kristin Johnston Largen, Wartburg Theological Seminary, Presiding

Ten of the warmest years globally have occurred since 1998, the arctic has

lost 95% of its oldest ice, 6 of 10 of the largest wildfires in California

occurred in 2020, and the march goes on. As the Intergovernmental Panel on

Climate Change reports, “It is therefore no longer a question of whether to

mitigate climate change or to adapt to it. Both adaptation and mitigation are

now essential.” This paper session explores Buddhist and Christian responses

to climate change in terms of both adaptation and mitigation. What kinds of

responses can be formulated in terms of religious thought, scientific

understanding, environmental activism, and community building?

•

•               Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts

Spiritual Practice and Sacred Activism in a Climate Emergency

•

•               Xiumei Pu, Westminster College

Climate Resilience: a Synergy of Bön, Buddhist, and Womanist Perspectives

•

•               John Becker, Lyon College

The Future of Process Thought in Interfaith Dialogue and Environmental Issues:

Tribute to John B. Cobb, Jr.

•

•               Stephanie Kaza, University of Vermont

Responding to the Climate Crisis: Buddhist Resources for Interreligious

Engagement

AV20-106

(Arts, Literature, and Religion Unit, Comparative Studies in Religion Unit,

Tibetan and Himalayan Religions Unit, and Women and Religion Unit)

Women and Revelation in India, Tibet, and China

Saturday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Alison Melnick Dyer, Bates College, Presiding

This panel analyzes revelatory literature of India, Tibet, and China to shed

light on the key roles women (divine, human, and everything in between) play

in the writing, transmission, and alteration of sacred texts. It focuses on

historical literature as well as oral discourse to compare the modes of

textual production and dissemination in these regions. The papers draw on

revealed literature to identify the social, literary, and ritual conventions

shaping the religious lives of women, and analyze ways women have negotiated

these conventions by engaging with revealed literature and the act of

revelation. Papers in this panel shift the focus away from a Judeo-Christian

concept of revelation by exploring the contours and limits of revelatory

activities as the divine communication between humans and non-human agents in

South and East Asian contexts. They also explore the manifold expressions and

representations of women as recipients and/or bestowers of revelation in these

religious communities, providing wide-ranging perspectives on the experiences

of women and various approaches (e.g., feminist, historical, philological) to

theorize women and revelation in South and East Asia.

•

•               Karen Pechilis, Drew University

A Female Saint’s Power to Speak

•

•               Jue Liang, Denison University

Revealing Khandromas in the Nyingma Treasure Tradition

•

•               Hsin Yi Lin, Fo Guang University

Revelation through Procreation: Mothers, Fetuses and Auspicious Signs in

Medieval Chinese Buddhist Hagiographies

•

•               Antoinette E. DeNapoli, Texas Christian University

Revelation, Performance, and a Guru’s Mobilizing of a Women’s Liberation

Movement in India

Responding

Loriliai Biernacki, University of Colorado

Reviewers

Jon Keune, Michigan State University

Liz Wilson, Miami University of Ohio

AV20-127

(Space, Place, and Religion Unit)

Negotiations of Religious Space: Focus on Economics

Saturday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Kendall Marchman, University of Georgia, Presiding

Case studies of religious spaces in Asia and Buddhist centers in the West

reveal the complex ways economic survival becomes salient. Historical records

from medieval China demonstrate that state control over Buddhist precept

platforms, supported the economic interests of the state, while simultaneously

supporting the broader spiritual interests of the Buddhists. In 18th century

Japan, the port city of Nagasaki, through centering the burakumin ghetto

people, portrays a delicate spatial compromise of the political and economic

apprehensions among foreign economies, religions, and people. These historical

cases in Asia illustrate the shifting relationships between religion, the

state, outsiders, and marginal groups. Shifting to contemporary Britain,

Buddhist organizations utilize funding from wellness retreats for non-

Buddhists as an integral part of financial sustainability, adapting their

physical space to create a fusion of the secular and sacred. The global

Buddhist lineage of popular teacher, author, and Vietnamese Zen master, Thich

Nhat Hanh, has relied on physical retreats at monastic practice centers as a

main source of funding. During the Covid-19 pandemic, these centers have

developed widespread online outreach, representing a model for maintaining

spiritual and financial viability outside of the traditional Buddhist merit

economy. These four case studies analyze the economic negotiations of

religious spaces through a diversity of methods including ethnographic,

historical record analysis, and digital mapping.

•

•               Thomas Newhall, University of California, Los Angeles

“Vaipulya” Precepts Platforms: The Political and Economic Implications of a

Buddhist Ritual Space in China

•

•               Lisa Beyeler-Yvarra, Yale University

Global Networks of Enclosure: Port Cities and the Nagasaki Burakumin Ghetto

•

•               Brooke Schedneck, Rhodes College

Non-merit Buddhist Economies During a Pandemic: A Case Study of Thich Nhat

Hanh’s Plum Village Tradition

•

•               Caroline Starkey, University of Leeds

Wellness Tourism and Buddhist Retreats: Tracing the Contours of the Sacred and

Secular in British Buddhism

Business Meeting

Katie Oxx, Saint Joseph’s University, Presiding

AV20-128

(Tantric Studies Unit)

Discursive Transgression: Tantra and Ritual Language

Saturday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Shaman Hatley, University of Massachusetts, Boston, Presiding

Nonstandard language is a pervasive feature of Tantric traditions. From the

ritualistic use of mantras and dhāraṇīs within Tantric ritual to the

intentionally nonstandard Aiśa Sanskrit in Tantric texts, these traditions

have a clear affinity for intentional language (saṃdhā-bhāṣā) that disrupts

conventional norms and narrative, and also short-circuits the rational and

deluded mind. This panel will consider Tantric language in a variety of

contexts. The first paper will treat the Apabhraṃśa dohās quoted and

"misquoted" in Tantric Buddhist texts, while the second paper treats the

coarse Sanskrit in Jaina Tantric Love Magic. The third paper will discuss the

"gestural language” that allows for dialog between deity and practitioner,

while the fourth paper will look at the semiotics of chommakās within the

Svacchanda Tantra. The final paper will consider the vernacular mantras found

in mass-produced booklets in West Bengal. Whether esoteric or vernacular,

magically protected or distributed at bus stations, these texts and traditions

addressed by this panel offer magical power and accomplishment through fluency

in extramundane discourse, and this panel will treat them comparatively.

•

•               Jackson Stephenson, University of Washington

Apabhraṃśa Dohās in the Buddhakapāla Tantra

•

•               Patricia Sauthoff, University of Alberta, Edmonton

Chommakās in the Svacchanda Tantra

•

•               Aaron Ullrey, University of California, Santa Barbara

Simple Sexy Style: Erotic Magic in Jain Tantras

•

•               Sthaneshwar Timalsina, San Diego State University

The Language of Gestures: Mudrā and Meaning in Tantras

•

•               Joel Bordeaux, Leiden University

This Charming Mantra: Language Choice and Style in Bengali Tantric Chapbooks

AV20-131

(Yogācāra Studies Unit)

Madhyamaka According to Yogācāras: Appraisals and Criticisms of Mādhyamikas’

Middle Way

Saturday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Sumi Lee, Dongguk University, Presiding

This panel engages a straightforward but neglected question in Mahāyāna

Buddhist philosophy: what do followers of Yogācāra have to say about their

Mādhyamika counterparts-cum-rivals? The division between Madhyamaka and

Yogācāra is fundamental to both academic and emic scholarly engagements with

Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy. The question of whether these two are

complementary positions (“allies”) or opposing camps (“rivals”) continues to

be a beneficial focus of attention. An abundance of attention has been given—

by both academics and traditional Buddhist scholars—to questions of how

Mādhyamikas distinguish themselves from their Yogācāra counterparts. The

obvious corollary has received far less attention: what do Yogācāra thinkers

have to say about their Mādhyamika counterparts?

•

•               Amit Chaturvedi, University of Hong Kong

Sthiramati on Mental Representation

•

•               Ernest Brewster, Iona College

Beyond Existence and Emptiness: Kuiji’s and Woncheuk’s Logical Analyses of

Bhāviveka’s Two Inferences for the Emptiness of All Dharmas

•

•               Daniel McNamara, Rangjung Yeshe Institute

Un-stacking the Deck: Taking Seriously the Critiques by Non-Mādhyamikas of

Madhyamaka

•

•               Dan Lusthaus, Harvard University

Yogācāra Critiques of Madhyamaka in India and China

Responding

Sara L. McClintock, Emory University

Business Meeting

Joy Brennan, Kenyon College, Presiding

Douglas S. Duckworth, Temple University, Presiding

PV20-108

(Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies)

Buddhist-Christian Reflections on Nationalism

Saturday, 9:00 AM-11:30 AM (Virtual)

Ruben L. F. Habito, Southern Methodist University, Presiding

In the past several years, the international world has witnessed the rise of

religio-ethno-nationalism. This has not been a singular event but occurred

simultaneously in many countries with the rise of populism and authoritarian

nationalist rulers worldwide. What should we make of counter-response

movements such as Black Lives Matter? In what ways have Buddhists and

Christians resisted as well as been implicated in the rise of nationalism

around the globe? What resources are available to Buddhists and Christians in

responding to problematic nationalism? Business Meeting: 11:00 am-11:30 am

•

•               Neena Mahadev, Yale-NUS College

Buddhist Nationalism and Christian Evangelism: Populism and Prosperity Gospels

in Millennial Sri Lanka

•

•               Kunihiko Terasawa, Wartburg College

Buddhist-Christian Conflicts and Cooperation Against Nationalism in Asia from

pre-WWII to the Present

•

•               Raquel Bouso Garcia, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Responsive Politics of Difference: Rethinking Nationality, Race, Class and

Gender from Buddhist and Christian Perspectives

•

•               Michael Masatsugu, Towson University

Memorials to the Embraced and Discarded: Buddhist-Christian Responses to U.S.

Nationalism

AV20-206

(Asian North American Religion, Culture, and Society Unit)

Jane Iwamura's Virtual Orientalism, Ten Years Later: Reflections and Response

Saturday, 12:30 PM-2:30 PM (Virtual)

SueJeanne Koh, University of California, Irvine, Presiding

This session brings together three different papers that engage Jane Iwamura’s

work, Virtual Orientalism: Asian Religions and American Popular Culture (OUP,

2011), which celebrates the tenth anniversary of its publication this year.

Each paper draws upon the theoretical apparatuses of Iwamura’s work to

illuminate how historical and contemporary examples of popular culture either

challenge or affirm religious Orientalist tropes. These examples include the

film, Minari (2021); the Netflix documentary series, The Chefs Table (2017);

and the early 20th-century film, The Cheat (1915). The last part of the

session will offer an author’s response to these papers.

•               Brett Esaki, University of Arizona

Oriental Conjurer: Inverse of the Monk

•

•               Hyemin Na, Emory University

The Oriental Monk Cooks Enlightenment: Zen Buddhist Nun Jeong Kwan, Korean

Temple Cuisine, and the Future of Food

•

•               Girim Jung, Felician University

The Religious Orientations of Minari and the Undoing of the Ethnic

Bildungsroman

Responding

Jane Naomi Iwamura, University of the West

Business Meeting

SueJeanne Koh, University of California, Irvine, Presiding

Helen Jin Kim, Emory University, Presiding

AV20-211

(Chinese Religions Unit)

Buddhist Intra-religious Networks and Buddhist Religious Innovation in Late

Imperial and Modern Sichuan

Saturday, 12:30 PM-2:30 PM (Virtual)

Annabella Pitkin, Lehigh University, Presiding

This panel aims at bringing attention to the South-West region of China and

focuses on Buddhist intra-religious networks in the late imperial and

Republican periods in Sichuan. Because of war devastation and massive

migration to Sichuan, we observe the establishment of new communities and the

influx of new religious practices that merged with the local religious

landscape. The three papers in this panel will, in different ways, discuss

three interrelated issues: religion movement and migration, the creation of

intra-religious networks, and the creation of wide religious networks. One of

the papers explores the role of migrants to Chongqing and their influence in

creating new Buddhist spaces there. Another paper discusses Tibetan-Han

Buddhism intra-religious exchange in Chengdu. A third paper explores Tibetan

Buddhism and its development from Kham to other national and international

locations. The panel addresses Sichuan as a place of innovation, exchange and

experimentation, a place of original production of religious meanings, where

different religious cultures come together and create new realities, and from

where these realities move far and wide, nationally and internationally.

•

•               Gilbert Chen, Towson University

A Western Model of the Clergy-Laity Relationship? Migration, Rebuilding and

Monastic Landlordism in Mid- and Late Qing Chongqing

•

•               Wei Wu, Emory University

Chan Buddhism and the Rise of Tibetan Buddhism in Sichuan

•

•               Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa, Occidental College

Treasures That Transcend Space and Time: Connections and Networks in the

Migration of the Lineage of Dorje Dechen Lingpa in Sichuan and Beyond

Responding

Elena Valussi, Loyola University, Chicago

Business Meeting

Anna Sun, Duke University, Presiding

Rongdao Lai, McGill University, Presiding

AV20-232

Revisiting Dharma: Neglected Histories and Possible Futures of Buddhist

Philosophy

Revisiting Dharma: Neglected Histories and Possible Futures of Buddhist

Philosophy

Saturday, 12:30 PM-2:30 PM (Virtual)

Ralph Craig, Stanford University, Presiding

As Buddhist philosophy has emerged as a distinct field of research in the

Americas over the last several decades, Anglophone presentations of Buddhist

philosophy have tended to foreground Buddhist questions that pertain to

individuals and/or are relevant to the concerns of contemporary Anglophone

philosophy. This panel takes a different approach, centering some classical

Buddhist texts and ideas from the perspective of Buddhists from marginalized

and oppressed communities. Taking the form of a conversation between scholars

working on 19th and 20th century Indian Buddhist reconstructions of the anti-

caste social philosophy of early Buddhism and contemporary Black Buddhist

scholars, teachers and practitioners in the United States, we propose to

explore topics of salience for Black and Dalit Buddhists such as caste, race,

justice, equality, with the aim of fostering new directions in Buddhist

philosophy.

Panelists

Larry Ward, The Lotus Institute

Rima Vesely-Flad, Warren Wilson College

Aakash Singh Rathore, Independent Scholar

Gitanjali Surendran, Jindal Global Law School

Reviewers

Charles Goodman, State University of New York, Binghamton

A20-235

(Tibetan and Himalayan Religions Unit)

New Research in Tibetan Studies

Saturday, 12:30 PM-2:30 PM (In Person)

Convention Center-221A

Brandon Dotson, Georgetown University, Presiding

This panel showcases new research on twentieth-century eastern Tibet. Gedun

Rabsal’s paper, The Game of Fire and Water: Debates Defining the Four Noble

Truths in Early 20th Century Amdo examines the record of refutation (dgag yig)

tradition in the aftermath of a debate on the nature of suffering at Dhitsa

Monastery in 1911. Catherine Hartman presents on Karma as Interpretive Lens in

the Pilgrim Diary (nyin deb) of Khatag Zamyak (1896-1961) which documents this

Khampa merchants travels across Tibet (1944 to 1956) on the eve of the Chinese

occupation of Tibet. In Monstrosity in Tibetan Narrative as Indigenous

Storywork, Maria Turek discusses how Nangchen Tibetans mobilize native

discourses and epistemologies to resist colonization based on a passage from

the Nangchen Gyalrab (nang chen rgyal rabs) which details a prophetic vision

by the last Nangchen king who saw the red Chinese (rgya dmar) as a monster.

XXXXXXXXXX combines textual sources and ethnographic research in Non-

sectarianism and the construction of Tibetan Buddhist identity: The life,

times, and advice (zhal gdams) of Lamo Yongzin Rinpoche (1908-2004). Pete

Faggen’s paper, Contested Hagiography: The stakes to sanctify a non-

traditional lay trlku mother analyzes the collapse of the project to write a

namtar about Kelzang Drlma, (1938-2013), whose life was non-traditional, and

according to some, controversial.

•

•               Peter Faggen, University of Chicago

Contested Hagiography: The Stakes to Sanctify a Non-traditional Lay Trülku

Mother

•

•               Catherine Hartmann, Harvard University

Karma as Interpretive Lens in the Pilgrim Diary of Khatag Zamyak

•

•               Maria Turek, University of Toronto

Monstrosity in Tibetan Narrative as Indigenous Storywork

•

•               XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, Northwestern University

Non-sectarianism and the Construction of Tibetan Buddhist Identity: The Life,

Times, and Advice (Zhaldam) of Lamo Yongzin Rinpoche

•

•               Gendun Rabsal, Indiana University

The Game of Fire and Water: Debates Defining the Four Noble Truths in Early

20th Century Amdo

Business Meeting

Nicole Willock, Old Dominion University, Presiding

AV20-309

(Buddhism in the West Unit)

Critical Reflections on the Buddhist Modernism Paradigm

Saturday, 3:00 PM-4:30 PM (Virtual)

Mark Unno, University of Oregon, Presiding

The paradigm of Buddhist modernism has become one of the primary tools for

studying Buddhists in the colonial and contemporary periods. The model has

produced valuable insights—for example, highlighting changes in cosmology,

monasticism, and meditation.  However, despite its ubiquity, the paradigm has

been subject to very little critical reflection. The panelists in this

roundtable seek to open a discussion around problems with the Buddhist

modernism paradigm and propose potential alternatives. Issues include

questions of agency; tropes of rupture and decline underlying the paradigm;

the  paradigm's predetermining effect on data analysis; use of the paradigm by

native Buddhists as an emic religious discourse on change; the persistent

concern with authenticity embedded in the modernity narrative; the paradigm as

covert theology; slippage between synchronic and diachronic uses of

traditional and modern and resultant essentializing effects; and "modernity as

an empty set category, or a site of continuous hegemonic power plays and thus

shifting meanings" (Rofel 1992: 107) that results in ever-expanding

definitions and highly subjective applications of Buddhist modernism.

Panelists

Natalie Quli, Institute of Buddhist Studies

Nalika Gajaweera, University of Southern California

Scott Mitchell, Institute of Buddhist Studies

Business Meeting

Wakoh Shannon Hickey, Hospice by the Bay, Presiding

Scott Mitchell, Institute of Buddhist Studies, Presiding

AV20-310

(Buddhist Philosophy Unit)

Roundtable on Buddhist Philosophy in Philosophy Departments: Training

Students, Hiring, Teaching

Saturday, 3:00 PM-4:30 PM (Virtual)

Pierre-Julien Harter, University of New Mexico, Presiding

This roundtable provides a forum to discuss obstacles for scholars of Buddhist

philosophy to work in or with philosophy departments and the strategies that

we can employ to address these obstacles. It is well known that philosophy

departments, especially in North America, are Euro-centric, and the related

problems of racism and sexism within philosophy departments have also been

well documented. In this roundtable, we want to move beyond this important

critique to discuss concrete short-term and long-term strategies that faculty,

students, and institutions can use to begin to address the professional

barriers for scholars of Buddhist philosophy. We see this roundtable as an

opportunity to discuss professional issues and strategies, rather than

ideological ones. Panelists will address issues regarding the training of

graduate and undergraduate students, job market preparation, institutional

norms regarding majors and concentrations, and teaching in philosophy

departments. We will keep time very closely in order to ensure that the bulk

of the session is devoted to discussion with the larger audience.

Panelists

Emily McRae, University of New Mexico

Rafal Stepien, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Roy Tzohar, Tel-Aviv University

Tanya Kostochka, University of Southern California

Ronald S. Green, Coastal Carolina University

Reviewers

Charles Goodman, State University of New York, Binghamton

AV20-328

(Tantric Studies Unit)

Tantric Goddesses and Public Esotericism in Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism

Saturday, 3:00 PM-4:30 PM (Virtual)

Rachel Fell McDermott, Barnard College, Presiding

This panel brings together new research on the veneration of goddesses whose

identities and worship cut across exoteric/mainstream and esoteric/tantric

traditions and textual genres—tantra and purāṇa, or tantra and sūtra—and

across the boundaries of Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism. These papers

challenge characterizations of Tantra as quintessentially esoteric and

socially marginal, and problematize the idea that tantric goddesses are

inherently connected with violence, power, and eroticism. In contrast, the

panel foregrounds “public esotericism”: tantric rituals centered upon

relatively benign goddesses in at least partly exoteric cultic contexts. This

research highlights the mobility and complex religious identities of tantric

goddesses, who defy the niches scholarship constructs for them, such as

“Hindu” or “non-soteriological.” Each of these papers engages with distinct

religious traditions and historical periods—mid-first millennium Indian

Buddhism, early-medieval Śāktism, Smārta Hinduism in second-millennium South

India, and contemporary Jainism. In sum, this panel reimagines the

relationship between tantric traditions and mainstream South Asian religions.

•

•               Anna A. Golovkova, Cornell University

Becoming Śrīvidyā: A Vedic Tale of a Kaula Goddess

•

•               Hillary Langberg, Bard College

Mantra-Based Rituals and the Rise of Goddess Worship in Mahāyāna Indian

Buddhism (C. 450–600 CE)

•

•               Ellen Gough, Emory University

The Śrīyantra in Jainism

•

•               Shaman Hatley, University of Massachusetts, Boston

The Devīpurāṇa’s Integration of Tantric Ritual and Civic Religion

Business Meeting

Gudrun Buhnemann, University of Wisconsin, Presiding

Glen Hayes, Bloomfield College, Presiding

AV20-430

(Tantric Studies Unit and Yogacara Studies Unit)

Yogācāra Themes in Tantric Sādhana: Hevajratantra 1.8.24–56

Saturday, 5:00 PM-6:30 PM (Virtual)

John Dunne, University of Wisconsin, Presiding

Traditions of Buddhist tantra show undeniable affinities with Yogācāra. Though

tantra is often associated with Madhyamaka (often for polemical reasons),

tantra is shot through with characteristically Yogācāra committments to the

nonduality of subject and object, vijñaptimātratā, the ineluctable existence

of consciousness, Buddha nature, and the role of mind in the construction of

reality. This text panel proposes to inquire into these affinities by focusing

on a passage from one particularly influential tantra, the Hevajra,

specifically Hevajratantra1.8.2456. Our hope is to initiate discussion that

builds on the passage at hand in a manner that promotes conversation among

scholars with diverse specializations having to do with Yogācāra, tantric

practice, and visionary practices more broadly.

Panelists

Daniel McNamara, Rangjung Yeshe Institute

Davey Tomlinson, Villanova University

Rae Dachille, University of Arizona

Jingjing Li, Leiden University

AV20-431

(Teaching Religion Unit)

Towards a Postcolonial Pedagogy: Teaching Asian Religions in the 2020s

Saturday, 5:00 PM-6:30 PM (Virtual)

Quinn Clark, Columbia University, Presiding

In this roundtable, nine scholars of Asian religions teaching in a broad range

of institutions and locations offer suggestions for postcolonial pedagogies in

this new decade. In short presentations, each of the panelists will suggest a

primary and secondary source pairing and explain how an undergraduate

assignment examining that pairing models anticolonial pedagogy. The occasion

for this session is a collective recognition that in spite of a significant

body of scholarship in religious studies that has challenged Orientalist and

imperialist constructions of religion, we often do not succeed in bringing

these critiques to bear on constructs of Asian religions in the classroom.

While a general rhetorical skepticism concerning the paradigm of World

Religions has grown among scholars of religion, many religious studies

departments retain an institutional investment in frameworks of religious

traditions and geographical areas distributed along an East-West

civilizational axis. Panelists in this roundtable will address these

challenges by considering a collection of innovative class activities and

launching an open discussion about postcolonialism in today’s classroom.

Panelists

Jay Ramesh, Columbia University

Marko Geslani, University of South Carolina

Alexandra Kaloyanides, University of North Carolina, Charlotte

Lang Chen, University of Michigan

Megan Robb, University of Pennsylvania

Manpreet Kaur, Columbia University

Tanisha Ramachandran, Wake Forest University

Adrian Hermann, University of Bonn

Mark Balmforth, University of Toronto

PV21-103

(Society for the Study of Chinese Religions)

Women Scholars in the Study of Chinese Religions

Sunday, 7:30 AM-9:00 AM (Virtual)

AV21-114

(Chinese Religions Unit and Daoist Studies Unit)

White, Green, and No Lotuses: Xiantiandao and the Question of Unities and

Diversities in Chinese Sectarianism in Late Imperial and Modern China

Sunday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Elena Valussi, Loyola University, Chicago, Presiding

This panel sets out to explore the unities and diversities in the field of

sectarian religion in late imperial and modern China by taking the prominent

example of Xiantiandao (Way of Former Heaven) as a point of reference. More

specifically, it aims to probe into the question of how distinctively

sectarian symbols, beliefs, and practices can be observed in religious

contexts beyond genealogical links. In order to unravel to what extent this

sectarian repertoire was shared by some sectarian traditions, and how it was

probably refuted in others, the papers will follow three different examples

from the late imperial and modern periods of Chinese history, thus focusing on

Buddhist-oriented sects in Fujian and Taiwan, late nineteenth-century precious

scrolls in Southeastern China, and twentieth-century redemptive societies and

how they resonated with the sectarian repertoire. Thereby, the panel not only

aims to contribute to the discussions in the field of Chinese religions, but

it also touches on crucial issues in religious studies more generally, such as

questions related to ascribing identity and belonging to religious phenomena.

•

•               Nikolas Broy, Leipzig University

Mother Mythologies: Xiantiandao, Sectarian Repertoires, and ‘Buddhist-

Oriented’ Sects in Late Imperial China and Modern Taiwan

•

•               Matthias Schumann, Heidelberg University

One Dao Pervading Them All? The Role of the Xiantiandao Tradition among

Redemptive Societies.

•

•               Rostislav Berezkin, Fudan Universtiy, Shanghai

Sectarian Teachings and Narrative Baojuan in the Late 19th Century: With the

Example of the Complete Recension of Baojuan of Mulian

AV21-130

(Religion in Southeast Asia Unit)

Magic and Materiality in Southeast Asian Religions

Sunday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

James Hoesterey, Emory University, Presiding

What role do magic and materiality play in Southeast Asian religions? This

panel explores contemporary communities from mainland and maritime Southeast

Asia to understand the role that magical objects play in religious lives. With

particular attention to the Filipino anting-anting (talisman or amulets), a

Donald Trump yantra from Thailand, and massive Hindu monuments in Bangkok, the

papers in this session reveal the power of religious things in Southeast Asia.

•

•               Rudy V. Busto, University of California, Santa Barbara

Rethinking the Anting-Anting: Filipino Magical Objects

•

•               Susanne Kerekes, Skidmore College

The Trump Yantra: How a Magical Cloth Made in Thailand Changed U.S. Politics

•

•               Aditya Bhattacharjee, University of Pennsylvania

When Size Does Matter: Dreams, Visions and Hindu Icons in Buddhist Thailand

Responding

Oona Paredes, University of California, Los Angeles

Business Meeting

Etin Anwar, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Presiding

Alexandra Kaloyanides, University of North Carolina, Charlotte, Presiding

AV21-142

(Exploratory Session)

Poetics, Poiesis, and Buddhist Experiments with the Possible

Sunday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Roy Tzohar, Tel-Aviv University, Presiding

During this time of global crisis, it has become disastrously apparent that

the politics of language is crucial to our collective outcomes. Buddhists have

long recognized the overwhelming capacity of language to shape our shared

sense of reality for better or worse, and to open up possibilities for

transformation and liberation. This exploratory session launches a broad

programmatic examination of the ways in which Buddhists have experimented with

crafting and theorizing verbal modes of expression, poetic language foremost,

in pursuit of collective flourishing. To invite conversation on this topic,

five roundtable speakers will provide brief thematic interventions via case

studies from a wide range of premodern Buddhist textual sources. Their remarks

rethink the category of ornament against European and American legacies of

power in Asia; reframe language as poiesis, with creative and transformative

implications for self and world; trace historical links between poetic craft,

Buddhist doctrines, and Buddhist practices; argue for the key role of emotion

in Buddhist literary forms; and examine the epistemic role of literature in

shaping regimens of attention and patterns of salience.

Panelists

Nancy Lin, University of California, Berkeley

Natalie Gummer, Beloit College

Thomas Mazanec, University of California, Santa Barbara

Janet Gyatso, Harvard University

Sonam Kachru, University of Virginia

Responding

Charles Hallisey, Harvard University

AV21-224

(Japanese Religions Unit)

Barbarians, Dragons and Frightful Women: Demonization, Conversion and the

Grotesque in Premodern Japanese Religions

Sunday, 12:30 PM-2:30 PM (Virtual)

Kristina Buhrman, Florida State University, Presiding

In this panel, we explore the demonic in Japanese religions, considering

various demonic figures; their transformation or conversion; the individual

and collective demonization of women, and the role of the grotesque in

othering both women and foreigners. Bogel interrogates how foreign figures and

deities were depicted as demonic in the famous Yakushiji Buddha pedestal,

locating them within the larger context of Buddhist cosmology. Simpson

explores how both the Korean kingdoms and Empress Kōken-Shōtoku were demonized

in late medieval Hachiman origin stories in order to showcase Hachiman's

efficacy in defending Japan from its enemies. Sanvido shows how women who died

during pregnancy were demonized through associations with dragons, snakes and

women’s pollution, analyzing Zen secret documents detailing the ritual

rehabilitation of such women. Finally, Lazzerini examines the demonic deity

Hārītī’, whose grotesque form is uniquely employed in Nichiren Buddhism in

order to provide tangible evidence of her healing and protective abilities,

challenging canonical Buddhist notions of physio-morality. Our panel thus

troubles the conventional binary between demonic and sacred.

•

•               Emily B. Simpson, Dartmouth College

Demonizing the Depraved: Portrayals of the Foreign and the Feminine in Late

Medieval Hachiman Engi

•

•               Marta Sanvido, University of California, Berkeley

Dragons, Women’s Bodies, and Kōan: The Construction of Ritual Formations in

Early Modern Sōtō Zen Secret Sources

•

•               Cynthea J. Bogel, Kyushu University

The Demonic, Converted, Hybrid, and Foreign: ’Cosmoscapes” beneath the Buddha

and the Construction of a Chinese-Style Imperial State

•

•               Simona Lazzerini, Stanford University

Ugliness as a Mark of Protection: Demonic Icons of Hārītī in Nichiren Buddhism

Business Meeting

Jessica Starling, Lewis and Clark College, Presiding

Levi McLaughlin, North Carolina State University, Presiding

AV21-306

(Buddhist Philosophy Unit)

Mind-Body Philosophy in Buddhism

Sunday, 3:00 PM-4:30 PM (Virtual)

Karen O'Brien-Kop, University of Roehampton, Presiding

Forms of mind-body philosophy, whether explicit or assumed, are inextricable

from the discourse and practice of popular cultivation technologies such as

yoga, meditation, and medicine, and in scientific fields such as psychology,

medicine, AI, and consciousness studies. The philosophical history of Buddhism

offers several intriguing, and thus far little-examined, alternatives to the

Cartesian legacy of dualism in discursive fields such as medicine, tantric

physiology, and Abhidharma cosmology. This panel brings to bear historical and

philosophical research that references but also exceeds the more well- known

(and widely published) work on the topic, such as the decades of Mind & Life

publications overseen by the Dalai Lama and his scientific and philosophical

interlocutors. Indian and Tibetan exegetical traditions in logic and

epistemology (Skt. pramāṇa) offer especially fertile resources to further

globalize the mind-body problem and, thereby, to decenter Cartesian

presumptions and open new analytic territory.

•               Kali Cape, University of Virginia

Mind, Body & Sex in Tibetan Dzogchen

•

•               Matthew King, University of California, Riverside

The Mind beyond the Atom: Lozang Gyatso on the Logical Problems of Brain

Science and Materialist Biomedicine

•

•               Naomi Worth, University of Virginia

Winds and Channels Practice to Become a Buddha: Mind-Body Correlations in Sky

Dharma (gNam chos) Tibetan Yoga

•

•               Kin Cheung, Moravian University

Miracle As Natural: A Contemporary Chinese American Religious Healer

Responding

Hugh Nicholson, Loyola University, Chicago

Reviewers

Charles Goodman, State University of New York, Binghamton

AV21-338

(Buddhist Pedagogy Seminar)

Approaches to Knowledge and Somatic Aspects in the Buddhist Studies Classroom

Sunday, 3:00 PM-4:30 PM (Virtual)

Todd T. Lewis, College of the Holy Cross, Presiding

This session offers five presentations on teaching Buddhism with reflections

on a thread approach and somatic aspects. Beverley McGuire’s paper examines

how the approach of threshold concepts will help educators reflect on the

meanings of Buddhism and Buddhist in the classroom. Gloria Chien considers how

integrating resiliency skills concerning sensations with other contemplation

techniques supports learning about Buddhist meditation and improves students’

emotional well-being during the COVID era. Drawing on the practice of racial

healing, Brian Nichols’s presentation investigates the embodied exercises that

deepen students learning about the concept of dukkha. In the midst of racial

reckoning, Namdrol Adams analyzes a course design in teaching racism in

America from a Buddhist perspective. Finally, Kati Fitzgerald’s paper explores

the hearing domain in teaching Buddhist music with a particular focus on

contemporary hip-hop and rap. In conclusion, this session contributes to the

analysis in teaching Buddhism by offering approaches related to the threshold

concepts, somatic aspects, and racial awareness.

•

•               Beverley Foulks McGuire, University of North Carolina, Wilmington

A Threshold Approach to Teaching Buddhist Studies

•

•               Brian Nichols, Mount Royal University

Bodily Contraction Arises with Dukkha: Embodied Learning or Biohacking?

•

•               Namdrol Miranda Adams, Maitripa College

Do No Harm and Make the Invisible, Visible: Teaching Race and Racism from a

Buddhist Perspective

•

•               Gloria I-Ling Chien, Gonzaga University

Integrating Resiliency into a Buddhist Meditation Course during the COVID Era

•

•               Kati Fitzgerald, Ohio State University

The Sacred and the Profane: Buddhism, Hip-Hop and Discourses of Modernity

Responding

Ben Van Overmeire, Duke Kunshan University

Business Meeting

Trung Huynh, University of Houston, Presiding

Gloria I-Ling Chien, Gonzaga University, Presiding

AV21-437

(Buddhist Pedagogy Seminar)

Clarifying Karma and Monastic Education Today

Sunday, 5:00 PM-6:30 PM (Virtual)

Manuel Lopez, New College of Florida, Presiding

This session includes a presentation on teaching karma and a panel on today’s

Buddhist monastic education. Brooke Schedneck’s paper analyzes assignments

that help students identify misleading aspects of Buddhism within popular

culture and enrich their understanding of the concept of karma. Following this

presentation, the discussion will move to a panel with Manu Lopez presiding

and Kurtis Schaeffer as the respondent. This panel offers an overview of the

challenges and opportunities faced by current monastic institutions in Tibet

and the Himalayas. Karma Lekshe Tsomo and Dorji Gyeltshen focus on the

Buddhist monastic curricula of nunneries and the innovative approaches that

have been implemented in response to new opportunities now open to women.

Andrew Taylor and Nisheeta Jagtiani examine the issues and influences related

to integrating secular and traditional monastic education. In conclusion, this

session contributes to the reflection on teaching the Buddhist concept of

karma and ponder the contemporary monastic instruction concerning pedagogical

issues of innovation, adaptation, and inclusion.

•

•               Brooke Schedneck, Rhodes College

Buddha and Karma Quotes Assignment

•

•               Karma Lekshe Tsomo, University of San Diego

Gender Dynamics in Tibetan Buddhist Monastic Education

•

•               Andrew Taylor, University of Virginia

Gilding the Golden Age: The Proselytizing Functions of the Tibetan Monastic

Curriculum in China

•

•               Nisheeta Jagtiani, Northwestern University

The Making of Buddhist Leaders in India Today: Combining Buddhist and Secular

Education in Monastic Training

•

•               Dorji Gyeltshen, Jigme Singye Wangchuck School of Law

The Monastic Curriculum, the Vows, and the Training Center: The Transformation

of Female Monastic Education in Contemporary Bhutan

Responding

Kurtis Schaeffer, University of Virginia

AV22-110

(Buddhist Philosophy Unit)

Buddhist Philosophy Unit Omnibus Panel

Monday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Karin Meyers, Mangalam Research Center, Presiding

Buddhist Philosophy Unit Omnibus Panel

•

•               Timothy Loftus, Temple University

Ambedkar’s Dharma: A Religion of Principles

•

•               Jeremy Manheim, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Objectless Compassion and the Limits of Emotion: Three Rival Tibetan Accounts

of Anālaṃbana-Karunā

•

•               Chihying Wu, University of California, Berkeley

The Dual Cognitive Aspect of Manas: A Study on Manas as the Contributory

Factor and the Similar and Immediately Antecedent Factor in Cognition in

Yogācāra Buddhism

Responding

Constance Kassor, Lawrence University

Reviewers

Charles Goodman, State University of New York, Binghamton

AV22-120

(Japanese Religions Unit)

Religion in Service to the Japanese State

Monday, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM (Virtual)

Heather Blair, Indiana University, Presiding

This panel brings together research on premodern and modern Japan to highlight

continuities and changes in the religion-state relationship throughout

history. Using the model of two wheels on one cart, representing the twin

principles of religious and sovereign law for the well-being of society, the

presenters examine the position and meaning attributed to religion in three

different contexts. The topics include eighth century use of state protection

Buddhism to ensure a controversial imperial succession, religious

justification for modern day women bans on sacred mountains and in sumo rings,

and the voluntary role of prison chaplains in post-WWII Japan. Each paper

complicates the notion that a one-dimensional line runs from more to less

separation between state and religion and rejects the false binary between

sacred and secular. Moreover, the papers collectively muddle seemingly

singular existences of government, cultural, or religious spaces by

demonstrating their intersectional and multidimensional use. This panel

provides different angles for conceiving of how religion has been and

continues to be used to further the interests of the Japanese state.

•

•               Lindsey DeWitt, Ghent Univeristy

Religion, Women’s Exclusion, and National Self-Image(s) in Modern Japan

•

•               Adam Lyons, Université de Montréal

Religions and the Ideal of Public Service in Contemporary Japan

•

•               Abigail MacBain, Columbia University

Tōdaiji Temple as State Protector and Familial Temple

Responding

Mikael Bauer, McGill University

AV22-212

(Buddhist Philosophy Unit and Hindu Philosophy Unit and Religion in South Asia

Unit)

Productive Influences between Hindu and Buddhist Thought

Monday, 12:30 PM-2:30 PM (Virtual)

Leah Kalmanson, University of North Texas, Presiding

The few hundreds of years bookending the turn of the second millennium CE saw

a golden age of Indian dialectics. A period of highly intertextual

philosophical exchange and debate, this era was incredibly intellectually

productive. Not only were there intense debates raging between philosophical

schools, but within them as well. It was the friction of these exchanges that

defined a forging crucible, helping to further solidify the Indian darśanasand

Buddhism in contradistinction to each other. Indeed, it would be the last

formative event of Indian Buddhism until it all put disappeared from the sub-

continent shortly thereafter. The proposed panel examines the exchange between

Buddhist and Hindu philosophical schools of this era through the lens of their

productivity. That is, each paper examines the manner in which these

confrontations lead to a more nuanced articulation of both Buddhist and Hindu

philosophy.

•

•               Nilanjan Das, University College London

A Reappraisal of Uddyotakara and Buddhists on Universals

•

•               John Taber, University of New Mexico

Apoha for Beginners: Dignāga and Kumārila

•

•               Jed Forman, University of California, Berkeley

Effable or Ineffable? Ratnakīrti’s Differing Rebuttals to Mīmāmṣakas and

Naiyāyikas

•

•               Alex Watson, Ashoka University

Is Recognition Capable of Refuting Momentariness? Jayanta’s Critique

•

•               Amit Chaturvedi, University of Hong Kong

Tracing the Evolution of Buddhist and Nyāya Views on Non-conceptual Perception

Reviewers

Charles Goodman, State University of New York, Binghamton

Business Meeting

Tao Jiang, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, Presiding

Karin Meyers, Mangalam Research Center, Presiding

AV22-219

(Japanese Religions Unit)

Empty Offertory Boxes – Poverty and Precarity within Contemporary Japanese

Religions

Monday, 12:30 PM-2:30 PM (Virtual)

Jolyon Thomas, University of Pennsylvania, Presiding

Following this year’s AAR theme of Religion, Poverty, and Inequality:

Contemplating Our Collective Futures, this panel presents four case studies of

poverty and precarity found within contemporary Japanese religious

institutions. Rather than solely focusing on how Japanese religions attempt to

address such issues outwardly, the panelists demonstrate that Japanese

religious communities themselves are often in precarious, socially and

financially unstable circumstances. From the loss or decline of traditional

sources of income, to recovering from natural disasters, to the material and

social difficulties in maintaining social welfare programs through an

organizations own financial and institutional turmoil, many Japanese religious

institutions are themselves caught in a state of precarity. The panelists seek

to connect with ongoing discussions regarding religion, labor, and economics

through exploring four case studies which illustrate how poverty and

inequality impact religious institutions and religious professionals, and how

they are responding and reacting to crises economic and existential, internal

and external, natural and manmade.

•

•               Pow Camacho-Lemus, University of California, Los Angeles

Compounding Precarity: Assessing Poverty and Economic Impact for Buddhist

Temples in Northeastern Japan after the Triple Disaster

•

•               Timothy Smith, University of North Carolina

Inconvenient “Circumstances”: Empty Churches, Part-Time Priests, and the

Potential and Precarity of Tenrikyō Today

•

•               Dana Mirsalis, Harvard University

Precarious Priesthood: What the ‘Part-Time’ Priest Tells Us about Contemporary

Shinto

•

•               Erica Baffelli, University of Manchester

Volunteering and Precarity: A Case Study from a Buddhist Organization in Japan

during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Responding

Levi McLaughlin, North Carolina State University

AV22-312

(Hindu Philosophy Unit)

Udayana on Buddhist Idealism: A Philosophical Roundtable

Monday, 3:00 PM-4:30 PM (Virtual)

Parimal G. Patil, Harvard University, Presiding

The philosopher Udayana (10th/11th c.) was a leading representative of the

Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika tradition and a fierce critic of Buddhism. This session brings

together several scholars to discuss and debate Udayana’s arguments against

idealism, as presented in the Ātma-tattva-viveka, section 2 (“On the

[Buddhist] Refutation of External Objects”). The goal is to create a space for

lively and rigorous discussion among the panelists and with the audience. A

handout with the original Sanskrit and an English translation of selections

from Udayana’s text will be provided.

Panelists

Nilanjan Das, University College London

Davey Tomlinson, Villanova University

Jed Forman, University of California, Berkeley

Responding

Catherine Prueitt, University of British Columbia

Business Meeting

Michael Allen, University of Virginia, Presiding

AV22-313

(Indian and Chinese Religions Compared Unit)

Centralizing the Borderlines: Devotion, Geo-Poetics and Blood

Monday, 3:00 PM-4:30 PM (Virtual)

Gudrun Buhnemann, University of Wisconsin, Presiding

How do borderlines and marginalization influence religions in geographic,

devotional and corporeal domains? John Keune compares the deity cults of

Vitthal in western India and Mazu in Taiwan to illuminate the different

strategies in Hinduism and Chinese religions for creating and challenging ex-

centric forms of devotion, illustrating how popular religions that may be

marginalized in academic study are central in their regions. In our second

paper, Rachel Pang considers geo-politics and poetics by highlighting the

19th-century verse of Tibetan Buddhist Shabkar and the way in which he

described the borderland Amdo landscape using conceptual models from India,

China and Tibet. In the third paper, Ruth Westoby explores overlaps between

haṭhayoga and Daoism in vital practices that use menstrual blood as a power

substance for transformation. She revisits the vexing questions of whether

Daoist Neidan or ‘inner alchemy’ was a foundation for later Indian yogic

practices. This panel challenges reductionist categories and binary models of

center and periphery in favor of emic perspectives and complex transactions

across conceptual and geographical borders.

•

•               Jon Keune, Michigan State University

Folk, Popular, Regional, and the Mainstream? Placing Vitthal and Mazu in Hindu

and Chinese Traditions

•

•               Ruth Westoby, SOAS University of London

Raising, Refining, Slaying: Menstrual Blood in Haṭhayoga and Nüdan

•

•               Rachel Pang, Davidson College

Shabkar’s (1781–1851) Representation of the Qinghai Border Region Using

Indian, Tibetan, and Chinese Models

Business Meeting

Dan Lusthaus, Harvard University, Presiding

Karen O'Brien-Kop, University of Roehampton, Presiding

AV23-102

(Chinese Religions Unit)

Diffused Chinese Religions and Local Cultures

Tuesday, 8:30 AM-10:00 AM (Virtual)

Megan Bryson, University of Tennessee, Presiding

The four papers on this panel engage with the diffused nature of Chinese

religious in local cultures in distinct ways. The first paper, Religious

Responses to COVID-19: A Case Study of Face Masks as Buddhist Merit, examines

grassroot lay Buddhist religious activity in response to the pandemic in 2020.

It focuses on a Tibetan Buddhist group in Shanghai which adjusted their

prayers and rituals, based their understanding of merits, to accommodate the

situation. Sing Hallelujah to the Lord? Canto-theologies as Diffused Religion

in Hong Kong Localist Identity Formation uses diffused Christianity,

institutional Chinese religions, and vernacular Chinese religions to

demonstrate the ways in which religions are diffused into Hong Kong localist

identity formation. It builds on but transforms C.K. Yang’s classic theory of

diffused religion which he applied to Chinese religions, in order to show that

Christianity can, surprisingly, also express itself as a diffused religion.

Observing Buddhist Precepts by Divination: Practices According to Zhanchajing

examines practices surrounding an apocryphal text produced in sixth-century

China, and explores how a seemingly non-Buddhist practice was broadly accepted

in medieval Chinese and Japanese monasteries. ‘Buddhist Monasticism

Reconsidered On the Construction of Socio-leisure Places in Buddhist

Monasteries and their Economic and Cultural Significances in the 17th Century

Hangzhou’ examines how Buddhist monasteries created social places for gaining

socio-cultural influence and attracting patronages in 17th century Hangzhou.

The paper suggests that the flourishing of Buddhism in the lower Yangtze area

was partially a result of the successful management and strategic expansion of

Buddhist monasticism by physically and culturally creating the social places

catered to the literati’s socio-cultural and psychological needs.

•

•               Guanxiong Qi, Florida State University

Buddhist Monasticism Reconsidered—on the Construction of Socio-Leisure Places

in Buddhist Monasteries and Their Economic and Cultural Significances in the

17th Century Hangzhou

•

•               Xingyi Wang, Harvard University

Observing Buddhist Precepts by Divination: Practices according to Zhanchajing

•

•               Kai Shmushko, Tel Aviv University

Religious Responses to COVID-19- a Case Study of Face Masks as Buddhist Merit

•

•               Ting Guo, University of Toronto

Justin Tse, Singapore Management University

Sing Hallelujah to the Lord? ‘Canto-Theologies’ as Diffused Religion in Hong

Kong Localist Identity Formation

Responding

Rongdao Lai, McGill University

Rongdao Lai, McGill University