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SUMMARY:Connections with the Divine: Religious Life in Dunhuang
DTSTART:20231213T130000Z
DTEND:20231213T150000Z
DTSTAMP:20260430T195921Z
UID:connections-divine-religious-life-dunhuang-8179@ceres.rub.de
CATEGORIES:
DESCRIPTION:BuddhistRoad Guest Lecture Series by Neil Schmid (Dunhuang Ac
 ademy)\n\nThe lecture will be available live at Zoom. Please pre-register 
 until 12 December 2023\, 12 pm. Zoom lecture times: 2 pm (Amsterdam\, Berl
 in\, Rom)\n\nLecture Series Overview:\n\nChinese scholarship on the Dunhua
 ng Caves and materials from the so-called Library Cave\, one of the greate
 st archaeological finds of the 20th century\, has expanded rapidly over th
 e past twenty years. An ever-increasing number of academics\, research pro
 jects\, and publications have provided a wealth of scholarly resources for
  the field. This corpus of research merits more attention from western sch
 olars\, not just in Dunhuang Studies but from across a variety of discipli
 nes in the humanities and social sciences. This series of six talks will e
 xplore this breath of Chinese scholarship and provide a guide to major are
 as within Dunhuang Studies\, its key scholars\, publications\, research pr
 ojects\, institutions\, and trends.\n\nThis series of talks also takes an 
 ethnographic approach on two levels. The first is that Dunhuang materials\
 , given their range and diversity\, can be viewed as a coherent dataset\, 
 the closest we have to an ethnographic collection for medieval Eastern Cen
 tral Asia. In this sense then\, they should be valued in their complex\, i
 nterdisciplinary entirety. Second\, concentrating on Chinese Dunhuang rese
 arch in the 21st century\, these talks also engage an ethnological approac
 h to the academic realm in order to examine how subfields of Dunhuang Stud
 ies are delineated in light of institutions and ongoing social forces. Ava
 iling my position as someone in the field of Dunhuang Studies working at a
  Chinese research institute\, I will provide on-the-ground observations th
 rough discussions with members of the scholarly community in China (i.e.\,
  ‘thick description’)\, with an emphasis on the explanation of behavio
 ur and agency that accepts emic categories of division of Dunhuang resourc
 es and analyses their origins and usages\, as well as how those categories
  may enhance or constrain research together with the production of knowled
 ge and its dissemination.\n\nEach of these lectures will systematically co
 ver the following areas: \n\n\n	compilation and editing of primary source
  materials for all fields\n	major scholars and publications\, cooperative 
 projects\n	research trends (themes and topics)\n	reference and research to
 ols\n\n\nFinally\, given the framework and sponsor of these talks\, the re
 sources explored will be keyed to the seven thematic research clusters of 
 the BuddhistRoad Project (Center for Religious Studies\, Ruhr-Universität
  Bochum) to further scholarship on topics within the context of Eastern Ce
 ntral Asia and their relation to Chinese Dunhuang Studies.\n\n\nThis thir
 d talk explores the Dunhuang caves (i.e.\, Mogao\, Yulin\, Western and Eas
 tern Thousand Buddha Caves\, and Wugemiao) which\, together with their ma
 terial culture and textual resources\, are fundamentally Buddhist in natur
 e. Given that much of 21st century Chinese scholarship on Dunhuang has foc
 used on Buddhism\, this talk first examines the rich corpus of research on
  Buddhist texts\, doctrines and ritual. Research over the past twenty year
 s has also increasingly turned to non-Buddhist religions and practices\, r
 anging from Syriac Christianity to Manichaeism. We then examine how at the
  heart of this interest is the ever-increasing contemporary Chinese focus 
 on the Silk Road as a conduit of transmission that served to establish rel
 igious networks of exchange across Eastern Central Asia.\n\n\nNeil Schmid 
 is Research Professor at the Dunhuang Academy. His scholarship centres on 
 Dunhuang and explores a range of topics\, including the role of Buddhist l
 iterature in ritual and art\, medieval economic development\, Esoteric Bud
 dhism (Chin. mijiao\, 密教)\, and the ritual aesthetics of painting and 
 architectural space of the Mogao Caves. He is currently at work on several
  monographs\, including From Byzantium to Japan: Ritual Objects and Religi
 ous Exchanges Across Eurasia in Late Antiquity\, tracing the flow of exoti
 c goods and ritual paraphernalia along the Silk Road\, and the first-ever 
 critical bibliographical survey of Dunhuang materials\, entitled The Compr
 ehensive Guide to Scholarly Resources for Dunhuang Studies.\n\n\nTo join t
 he lecture\, please register at https://ruhr-uni-bochum.zoom.us/meeting/r
 egister/u50ocuqvqz8oG9VPX9ck5xHjg2LUUf1Ctj5e#/registration
LOCATION:Online Event
URL:https://buddhistroad.ceres.rub.de/en/events/connections-divine-religio
 us-life-dunhuang/
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