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SEMINAR> Buddhist Literature as Philosophy, Buddhist Philosophy as Literature
Dear Colleagues,
Please join us for a three-panel
seminar on ‘Buddhist Literature as Philosophy, Buddhist Philosophy as
Literature’ scheduled to take place at Harvard University on March 18-19 as
part of the 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature
Association.
The seminar abstract states:
Contemporary
debates among Western literary theorists and philosophers regarding formally
literary but/and substantially philosophical texts have shed much light onto
the complex and multiple relations obtaining between the literary medium and
the philosophical message of such works. One insight of prime importance
stemming from this body of scholarship is that the rigid repartitioning of
relevant texts as either literary orphilosophical
is often unjustified by the polyvalent texts themselves.
This wide-ranging intellectual endeavour has generally been undertaken by scholars of Western texts, and is therefore indelibly informed by the presuppositions of the Western literary and philosophical canons. Buddhist textual scholars have by and large neglected these insights, such that their work has been classed in exclusive fashion (by themselves as well as their peers) as either literary criticism or philosophical critique, a dichotomy itself rooted in an easy and unquestioned assumption as to the independence of literature from philosophy in the primary texts themselves. This assumption – according to which one either ‘does literature’ or ‘does philosophy’ – not only forces monolithic Western disciplinary paradigms onto heterogeneous Eastern intellectual traditions, but also flies in the face of the evidence presented by the preponderant body of classical Asian Buddhist texts. For these works typically present Buddhist philosophical thought in highly wrought literary form, thus evincing an awareness of the generic stylistic provisos operative in a given author’s linguistic and cultural tradition and, still more importantly, a mindful utilization of certain textual models as particularly suited to the expression of certain conceptual insights. It is this interplay of literary medium and philosophical message, and the concomitant clarification and/or dissolution of their respective boundaries, that is of foremost interest here.
This seminar thus aims to explore Buddhist literature as philosophy, and Buddhist philosophy as literature, with reference to Buddhist texts composed across the various languages and cultures of the Asian Buddhist world. Comparative papers, and those utilizing indigenous literary theories and hermeneutical approaches, are particularly welcome, though it is hoped that the seminar will also afford Buddhist scholars the opportunity to engage with current ideas in Western literary theory and philosophy of literature. Concomitantly, it is hoped that the specificities of Buddhist texts may illuminate debates hitherto largely restricted to the Western canon.
This wide-ranging intellectual endeavour has generally been undertaken by scholars of Western texts, and is therefore indelibly informed by the presuppositions of the Western literary and philosophical canons. Buddhist textual scholars have by and large neglected these insights, such that their work has been classed in exclusive fashion (by themselves as well as their peers) as either literary criticism or philosophical critique, a dichotomy itself rooted in an easy and unquestioned assumption as to the independence of literature from philosophy in the primary texts themselves. This assumption – according to which one either ‘does literature’ or ‘does philosophy’ – not only forces monolithic Western disciplinary paradigms onto heterogeneous Eastern intellectual traditions, but also flies in the face of the evidence presented by the preponderant body of classical Asian Buddhist texts. For these works typically present Buddhist philosophical thought in highly wrought literary form, thus evincing an awareness of the generic stylistic provisos operative in a given author’s linguistic and cultural tradition and, still more importantly, a mindful utilization of certain textual models as particularly suited to the expression of certain conceptual insights. It is this interplay of literary medium and philosophical message, and the concomitant clarification and/or dissolution of their respective boundaries, that is of foremost interest here.
This seminar thus aims to explore Buddhist literature as philosophy, and Buddhist philosophy as literature, with reference to Buddhist texts composed across the various languages and cultures of the Asian Buddhist world. Comparative papers, and those utilizing indigenous literary theories and hermeneutical approaches, are particularly welcome, though it is hoped that the seminar will also afford Buddhist scholars the opportunity to engage with current ideas in Western literary theory and philosophy of literature. Concomitantly, it is hoped that the specificities of Buddhist texts may illuminate debates hitherto largely restricted to the Western canon.
For full panel details, see:
Feel free to contact me, the
seminar organizer, with any further questions at rstepien@hampshire.edu
Best,
Rafal Stepien
—
Assistant Professor of Asian Religions
Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies
Hampshire College
