Dear colleagues,
The International Association of Shin Buddhist Studies (IASBS) is pleased to
announce the following call for papers.
Kind regards,
Scott Mitchell
Subjectivity in Pure Land Buddhism:
17th Biennial Conference of the International Association of Shin Buddhist
Studies (IASBS)
Institute of Buddhist Studies, Berkeley, California
Friday, August 7 to Sunday, August 9, 2015
Abstracts due: December 1, 2014
Papers due: July 7, 2015
Studies of Pure Land Buddhism — which address the thought, practice, and
iconography of Pure Land throughout the historical development of Buddhism
generally — are often rooted in modern discourses of religious studies that
take certain foundational concepts for granted: individuality, subjectivity,
historicity. But how have the referents of these modern concepts been
understood in relation to Pure Land Buddhist doctrine and praxis? How has
subjectivity, the answer to the question of who “I” am or who “we” are, been
understood across Buddhist cultures and histories? How does the “who” exist?
How is it known? How is it experienced? The 17th Biennial Meeting of the IASBS
invites individual paper and (four paper) panel proposals related to questions
of subjectivity in Pure Land Buddhism.
Papers might address questions such as:
- Does awareness of living in the declining age of the dharma (mappō) affect
the way persons understand their relationship to Pure Land thought or practice?
Is mappō necessary for Pure Land practice?
- How are notions of subjectivity understood, problematized, or described?
- Can subjectivity be understood as communal or collective or is it necessarily
personal and individual?
- How have Pure Land Buddhist communities reframed subjectivity in relation to
collectives as opposed to individuals?
- Who am “I” or who are “we” as scholars of Pure Land Buddhism?
- How do religious or spiritual experience, often presumed in Western religious
thought to transcend the personal, undermine notion of individual subjectivity?
- How does subjectivity relate to language?
- Does subjectivity in Pure Land Buddhism necessarily include an awareness of
history?
Papers and panels may address all aspects of Pure Land Buddhist studies from
any Buddhist culture (Japan, India, China, Tibet, Vietnam, Korea, the West,
etc.) or from any time period, historical or modern, and approached from a
variety of methodological lenses.
Proposals should include a title, a 150-word abstract, author’s name and
institutional affiliation. Panels should include all of the above for each
member of the panel as well as a title for the panel and suggestions for
moderators or respondents.
Please submit abstracts to iasbs2015@shin-ibs.edu
by December 1, 2014.
____________________________________
Scott A. Mitchell
Assistant Dean of Student Affairs, Institute of Buddhist Studies
Core Doctoral Faculty, Graduate Theological Union
Editorial Committee, Pacific World Journal
