The Center for Buddhist Studies is glad to announce four lectures of the Pu Yin Buddhist Studies Lecture Series in spring 2018 at UA. Prof. Albert Welter will give the inaugural lecture on Hangzhou Buddhism. Students and faculty who are interested in our Hangzhou Buddhist Culture Project should attend as important announcements are going to be made. The rest of the three lectures will focus on Chinese Buddhism, American Buddhism, and the concept of Regional Religious System (RRS) in Buddhist studies respectively. All the lectures will be presented in English and open to the public. Please mark your calendar for these events. The Pu Yin Buddhist Studies Lecture Series is sponsored by the Pu Yin Educational Center.
The Inaugural Lecture:
A New Look at Old Tradition: Reimagining East Asian Buddhism through Hangzhou
Prof. Albert Welter, Head, Department of East Asian Studies, University of Arizona
The Hangzhou region, centered in the city of Hangzhou, has long been one of the most important cultural hubs in China, and has had a wide-ranging impact on Chinese culture and Buddhism. The study of Buddhism, however, has been conducted from Indo-centric agendas that have long served to marginalize East Asian Buddhism, including the Hangzhou regions contributions. Seen from the vantage point of Hangzhou, East Asian Buddhism assumes a central role in the interregional spread of religion and culture. The advent and dissemination of indigenous forms of Buddhism conceived in the Hangzhou region precipitated cultural advances that have resonated down to the present.
Time: January 30 (Tuesday), 4-5 pm.
Location: The Little Chapel of All Nations
Address: 1401 E 1st St, Tucson, AZ 85719
Google map: https://goo.gl/maps/EXjuVJmij332
Bio: Albert Welter’s research focuses on the study of Buddhist texts in the transition from the late Tang (9th century) to the Song dynasty (10th-13th centuries). In recent years, he has published Monks, Rulers, and Literati: The Political Ascendancy of Chan Buddhism (Oxford, 2006), The Linji lu and the Creation of Chan Orthodoxy: The Development of Chan’s Records of Sayings Literature (Oxford, 2008), and Yongming Yanshou’s Conception of Chan in the Zongjing lu: A Special Transmission within the Scriptures (Oxford, 2011). He is currently finishing a project on the social and institutional history of Buddhism as conceived through a text compiled in the early Song dynasty, Zanning’s Topical History of the Buddhist Clergy, to be published by Cambria Press in 2018. Stemming from this research interest, Professor Welter has also developed a broader interest in Chinese administrative policies toward religion, including Chinese notions of secularism and their impact on religious beliefs and practices, leading to a co-edited volume (with Jeffrey Newmark), Religion, Culture, and the Public Sphere in China and Japan (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2017). He recently received funding from the Khyentse Foundation for a project, "The Hangzhou Region and the Creation of East Asian Buddhism," in conjunction with Zhejiang University, the Hangzhou Academy of Social Sciences, and the Hangzhou Buddhist Academy. He also received funding from the American Council of Learned Societies (with the support of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation) for an international conference, “Creating the World of Chan/ Sŏn /Zen: Chinese Chan Buddhism and its Spread throughout East Asia,” to be held in March 2018.
Other three lectures:
The Idea, History, and Influence of Master Jinghui’s Living Chan in Contemporary Chinese Buddhism” 當代中國佛教的一個側面：淨慧法師及其生活禪的理念、歷史及影響
Prof. Yaling Chu (Associate Professor at Shijiazhuang College, Visiting Scholar at the Center for Buddhist Studies)
Time: February 9 (Friday), 4-5 pm.
Location: The Little Chapel of All Nations
San Francisco Zen Center and American Buddhism
Norman Fischer (Former Co-abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center)
Time: February 16 (Friday), 3:30-4:30 pm.
Location: Copper Room, UA Student Union
Buddhism as a Regional Religious System
Prof. Karl Ryavec (Professor of World Heritage at the University of California, Merced)
Time: March 15 (Thursday), 4-5 pm.
Location: The Little Chapel of All Nations