This two-day symposium brings to Shanghai an international group of scholars, including art historians, anthropologists and intellectual historians, to look at and think with objects across the Buddhist world. Participants will use a wide range of methodologies to consider the lives and travels of Buddhist objects and icons, their engagement of viewers, modes of experiencing, collecting practices, embodiment, and knowledge making. Drawing on a variety of case studies, the symposium aims to stimulate cross-disciplinary and trans-regional dialogues and map out possible trajectories surrounding the on-going debates on Buddhist material culture and art history.

The symposium is convened by Francesca Tarocco and Tansen Sen and supported by the Office of the Provost, NYU Shanghai and the Center for Global Asia at NYU Shanghai.

Symposium Schedule

Thursday, APRIL 28

9:00  Tea & Coffee

9:15-9:30am Welcome – Joanna Waley Cohen and Francesca Tarocco (NYU Shanghai)

PANEL 1: OF BONES AND RELICS

Chair/commentator – Peter Skilling (French School of Asian Studies)

9: 30-10: 00  Himanshu Prabha Ray (Jawaharlal Nehru University)

Travelling Relics: Spreading the Words of the Buddha

10: 00-10: 30 Sraman Mukerjee (Nalanda University)

Travelling Lives: Archaeologists, the “Buddhist Pope” and the Bones of Śākyamuni

10:30-11:30  Roundtable discussion

11: 45-13:00  Lunch break

PANEL 2: AUTHORSHIP, OWNERSHIP AND TRAVELING TEXTS

Chair/Commentator — Tansen Sen (NYU Shanghai/Baruch College)

13:30-14:00 Alexey Kirichenko (Moscow State University)

The Circulation of Buddhist Manuscripts in Myanmar

14:00-14:30 Peter Skilling (French School of Asian Studies)

Mapping Buddhist Ritual Through Stamped Clay Tablets

14:30-15:30  Roundtable discussion

17:30 – 18:30 PUBLIC LECTURE

Fabio Rambelli (University of California, Santa Barbara)

Of Matter, Spirits and Places: Japanese Discourses on the Bodies of the Shinto Divinities (Kami)

Friday, APRIL 29

9:00-9:30  Tea & Coffee

PANEL 3: SEEING, BELIEVING AND THE THINGS IN BETWEEN

Chair/Commentator — Ronit Yoeli Tlalim (Goldsmiths, University of London)

9: 30 -10:00 Francesca Tarocco (NYU Shanghai)

Seeing is Believing: Buddhism and Chinese Visual Culture

10:00-10: 30 Tansen Sen (NYU Shanghai/Baruch College)

Buddhas on the Move: Replanting Buddhism in its Homeland

10: 30-11: 30 Roundtable discussion

11: 45-13:00 Lunch Break

PANEL 4: THE PUBLIC LIVES OF THINGS

Chair/Commentator — Francesca Tarocco (NYU Shanghai)

13: 00-13:30   Fabio Rambelli (University of California, Santa Barbara)

Moving Objects, Shifting Significations: The Lives and Values of Buddhist Sacred Objects

13:30-14:00   Ellen Van Goethem (Kyushu University)

Buildings on the Move: Temple Construction and Capital Relocation in Ancient Japan

14: 00-15:00 Roundtable Discussion

PANEL: 5 HEALING AND SOTERIOLOGY

Chair/Commentator — Himanshu Prabha Ray (Jawaharlal Nehru University)

15: 30-16:00   Georgios T. Halkias (Hong Kong University)

Travelling Spells: Mystical, Healing and Soteriological Encounters with the Dhāraṇī of Aparimitāyurjñāna in Tibetan contexts

16: 00-16: 30 Ronit Yoeli Tlalim (Goldsmith, University of London)

Moving Medical Knowledge: Contextualizing the “Bower” Manuscript

16:30-17:30   Roundtable discussion and wrap up

18:00-20:00  Visit to Aurora Museum