Dear Members:
We are pleased to announce two events in February. Thank you for your ongoing support.
CBS Staf
The Politics of Humor: A Historical Perspective of the Vessantara Jataka in Thailand
Katherine Bowie
Professor of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
10383 Bunche Hall
UCLA Campus
The Vessantara Jataka is the most famous of all the folktales about the previous lives of the Buddha. This talk highlights significant variations in both interpretations and performances of the Vessantara Jataka across three regions of Thailand. Although the Vessantara Jataka continues to play an important role in the annual cycle of temple festivals in northeastern Thailand, its importance in central and northern Thailand has been steadily declining. Taking a historical perspective, this essay will explore the changing politics of humor as an explanation for this regional variation.
Katherine Bowie is Professor of Anthropology and current Director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has lived in Thailand eight years. An expert in village life, her research combines oral histories, participant-observation and interviews with archival sources. Her publications include Voices from the Thai Countryside: The Necklace and Other Short Stories of Samruam Singh (University of Wisconsin Press, 1998); Rituals of National Loyalty: An Anthropology of the State and the Village Scout Movement in Thailand (Columbia University Press, 1997), and articles in Journal of Asian Studies, American Anthropologist, American Ethnologist, and Comparative Studies in Society and History. She teaches courses on cultural anthropology, political anthropology, historical anthropology, Theravada Buddhism and mainland Southeast Asian societies. Her research interests range from Thai peasant history and politics to gender and religion.
Free and open to the public.
Co-sponsored by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies and the Center for Buddhist Studies.
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"Rediscovering Chinese Scholastic Chan in Edo Japan," talk by George Keywor
This talk explores how and why particular Japanese Zen monastics reevaluated the transmission narrative of Chinese Chan and especially the case of scholastic or literary Chan/Zen (Ch. wenzi Chan, Jpn. moji Zen) to show that when Zen thrives as a teaching, it has everything to do with the arts, and that when Zen degenerates it ignores them.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM
243 Royce Hall, UCLA
Dr. Keyworth (B.A. UCSB 1992; M.A. UCSB 1995; Ph.D. UCLA 2001) is a scholar of Zen Buddhism in medieval China and Japan; Buddhist and Daoist rituals and spells; and esoteric Buddhism in East Asia and Tibet. Currently an Assistant Professor of East Asian Religions at the University of Saskatchewan, he has contributed to Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras (E.J. Brill, 2011) and submitted several recent articles for publication on topics including the Spell of the White Canopy of the Buddha’s Sinciput (Ch. Baisangai foding zhou, Jpn. Byakusangai bucchōshu, Skt. Sitātapatra-buddhôṣṇīṣa-dhāraṇī) from the Chinese *Śūraṃgama-sūtra (T. 945), and the Japanese monk-pilgrim Jōjin (1011-1081). His book manuscript, Zen and the Literary Arts, is currently under review with Oxford University Press.
Cost: Free and open to the public
