'The Matrix of Buddhist Capitalism in East Asia', EASR
2014, University of
Groningen, 11-15 May 2014
CFP 'The Matrix of Buddhist Capitalism in East Asia: Religious Agency,
Social
Dynamics, and Intellectual Practice'
Panel for the EASR 2014, University
of Groningen, the Netherlands, May
11-15, 2014
Panel Organizers: Stefania
Travagnin and Fabio Rambelli
The Matrix of Buddhist Capitalism in East
Asia: Religious Agency, Social
Dynamics, and Intellectual Practice
The
process of transmission and assimilation of Western ideas in East
Asia
started in the pre-modern time and resulted in a constructive but
also
conflictual rethinking of traditional cultures and knowledge. The
Meiji
period marked the beginning of a second phase of active engagement
with
Western intellectual projects for Japan, a phenomenon that also
became
important in China a few decades later.
On the intellectual,
social, and political levels, theories of Capitalism
and Marxism have been
filtered and adapted to East Asia. Buddhists also
participated in the
reception of these discourses and in their assimilation
within the religious
and social contexts. The ways Buddhists intervened in
framing the relations
between religious theories, social dynamics, and
intellectual practice led to
the formation of local ‘Buddhist socialism(s)’
and also to the matrix of a
Buddhist discourse on capitalism.
Capitalism did not reach East Asia as a
unified and self-conscious package,
but as a set of different, and at times
conflicting discourses, attitudes,
and behaviours, ranging from modes of
production (centered on large
industrial complexes), new social relations,
patterns of consumption, ideas
of individualism, cultural stereotypes about
Asia vs the West, statecraft,
and religious attitudes (and critiques
thereof).
This panel aims to discuss the agency of Buddhism (individuals
and
institutions) in drawing a discursive narrative of global capitalism
in
East Asia, and therefore to assess the role that Buddhists played
in
transforming local history of ideas and reshaping social knowledge.
This
panel looks at case studies from Japan and China - with the possibility
to
open it up to other areas in Asia as well - in both their early
engagement
with capitalism and their contemporary approach to it, and thus
proposes
diachronic parallels as well as a cross-regional
analysis.
The panel - that has been already accepted for the European
Association for
the Study of Religions (EASR) Conference in May 2014 -
welcome papers that
address the following questions: What level of agency did
Japanese and
Chinese Sangha have in circulating theories of capitalism among
local
societies? What did obstruct or facilitate East Asian Buddhists in
the
creation of a Buddhist capitalist discourse in East Asia? Is the matrix
of
Buddhist capitalism rooted only in external Western ideas or is it
also
grounded in local discourses and as such also results from East Asian
inner
dynamics? How did capitalism and Marxism interact—and in certain
instances
co-exist—within Buddhism in modern East Asia?
We welcome
papers to join our panel. Please send a 250-word abstract plus a
50-word bio
to s.travagnin@rug.nl by
November 28, 2013.
For more information about EASR 2014:
http://www.godsdienstwetenschap.nl/index.php?page=conference-2014
Best
wishes,
Fabio Rambelli
Stefania Travagnin
*Dr. Stefania
Travagnin*
Rosalind Franklin Fellow and Assistant Professor of Religion in
Asia
Director of the Centre for the Study of Religion and Culture in
Asia
University of Groningen
Faculty of Theology and Religious
Studies
Department of the Comparative Study of Religion
Oude
Boteringestraat 38,
9712 GK Groningen,
The Netherlands
Email: s.travagnin@rug.nl
Staff
webpage: www.rug.nl/staff/s.travagnin
Centre for the Study of
Religion and Culture in Asia:
www.rug.nl/research/centre-religion-culture-asia
