Today
Thank you to everyone who joined our international symposium, “A Buddhist Heaven on Earth: Hangzhou Buddhism and Its Historical Significance,” and helped make the conference such a success.
Over two days, the symposium brought together seven panels and 30 papers, exploring Hangzhou Buddhist culture from multiple perspectives: Buddhist art, grottoes, pagodas, and doctrinal imagery; urban Buddhism and everyday life; sacred landscapes, water, tea, and religious authority; texts, canon, and Buddhist knowledge production; transregional Chan networks connecting Hangzhou with Japan and East Asia; transformations of Hangzhou Buddhism through gender, media, and diaspora; and new directions in digital humanities and international dialogue.
The symposium also celebrated the publication of the Encyclopedia of Hangzhou Buddhist Culture, with the editorial team presenting the project’s development process and next steps. At the closing session, participants engaged in lively discussions about the possibility of developing the symposium papers into an edited volume.
We hope you will continue to support and follow the next stages of this collaborative Hangzhou project.
We are deeply grateful to all presenters, chairs, discussants, participants, and organizers for their contributions. Special thanks to our sponsors: UArizona College of Humanities, Department of East Asian Studies, University of South Dakota College of Arts & Sciences, and Department of History.
