2017 Boston Papers/Panels

TIBETAN AND HIMALAYAN RELIGIONS UNIT SESSIONS:

A18-135
Tibetan and Himalayan Religions Unit
Theme: New Research on Ritual, Politics, and Possession in Himalayan Religions
Sarah Jacoby, Northwestern University, Presiding
Saturday – 9:00 AM-11:30 AM
Hynes Convention Center-201 (Second Level)

Ian MacCormack, Harvard University
Figuring the Divine: Kāvya in Tibetan Political Writing

William Dewey, University of California, Santa Barbara
Geluk Sectarianism and the Tibetan Regency

Christopher Bell, Stetson University
Standardizing the Oracles: Spirit Possession in the Tibetan Monkey Year Festival

Katarina Turpeinen, University of Virginia
Soteriology and Shamanism in the Case of a Tibetan Oracle

Natasha Mikles, University of Virginia
“When is a Hat a Mountain?” Ritual’s Role in Constructing the Object of Vision

Business Meeting:
Benjamin Bogin, Skidmore College
Sarah Jacoby, Northwestern University

A18-328
Tibetan and Himalayan Religions Unit
Theme: Voices from Larung Gar
Michael Sheehy, University of Virginia, Presiding
Saturday – 4:00 PM-6:30 PM
Hynes Convention Center-102 (Plaza Level)

Antonio Terrone, Taiwan National Chengchi University
“Striving to Do Virtuous Deeds”: The Tenth Panchen Lama and Larung Gar in the Making of Modern Buddhism in Tibet

Jann Ronis, University of California, Berkeley
“The Union of Religion and Tibetan Culture”: Rebuttals by Metrül Tenzin Gyatso to the Anti-religious Polemics of Tibetan Secularists

Chelsea Hall, Harvard University
Khenmo Yönten’s Quiet Commentaries: Publishing Female-Authored Buddhist Texts at Serta Larung Gar

Catherine Hardie, University of Oxford
The PRC-based “Larung Movement”: Promoting Listening, Contemplating, and a Superior Mode of Lay Participation for Chinese Newcomers to Tibetan Buddhism

Responding:
Holly Gayley, University of Colorado

A19-257
Buddhist Philosophy Unit and Tibetan and Himalayan Religions Unit
Theme: Tibetan Madhyamaka
Richard Nance, Indiana University, Presiding
Sunday – 3:00 PM-4:30 PM
Marriott Copley Place-Wellesley (Third Level)

Michael Ium, University of California: Santa Barbara
Fake Truths: Jetsunpa, Gorampa, and Sectarian Polemics in Tibet

Jed Forman, University of California, Santa Barbara
Pus and Nectar: Mixing Pramāṇa with Madhyamaka

Douglas S. Duckworth, Temple University
Buddhist High Culture on the Tibetan Plateau: Tsültrim Lodrö on the Middle Way

TIBETAN AND HIMALAYAN RELIGIONS-RELATED PAPERS/PANELS IN OTHER PROGRAM UNITS:

A18-106
Buddhism Unit
Theme: Poetic Turns in Buddhist Literature
Janet Gyatso, Harvard University, Presiding
Saturday – 9:00 AM-11:30 AM
Marriott Copley Place-Grand D (Fourth Level)

Nancy Lin, Vanderbilt University
Promiscuous Bodies of Knowledge: Poetics at the Fifth Dalai Lama’s Court

A18-107
Comparative Studies in Religion Unit
Theme: Embodiment, Place, and Landscape in Buddhist Traditions
Ivette Vargas-O’Bryan, Austin College, Presiding
Saturday – 9:00 AM-11:30 AM
Hynes Convention Center-205 (Second Level)

Eric Huntington, Princeton University
Disembodied Images: Changing Views on the Materiality of Objects in Buddhism

A18-203
Body and Religion Unit and Contemplative Studies Unit
Theme: Remapping, Remodeling, and Recovering the Body: The Subtle Body across Space and Time
David P. Lawrence, University of North Dakota, Presiding
Saturday – 1:00 PM-3:30 PM
Sheraton Boston-Constitution (Second Level)

Kerry Martin Skora, Hiram College
The Subtle Body of Vital Presence in Contemplative Practices of Abhinavagupta’s Trika Shaivism and Longchenpa’s Great Perfection

Sthaneshwar Timalsina, San Diego State University
Reprogramming Embodied Experiences in the Maharthamañjarī of Maheśvarānanda

Loriliai Biernacki, University of Colorado
Rethinking the Body’s Subjectivity through Abhinavagupta’s Contemplation of the Subtle Body

Responding:
M. Alejandro Chaoul, University of Texas, Houston

A18-224
Religion and Economy Unit
Theme: Valuing Religion
Kati Curts, University of the South, Presiding
Saturday – 1:00 PM-3:30 PM
Hynes Convention Center-203 (Second Level)

Elizabeth Williams-Oerberg, University of Copenhagen
Value Creation, Marketization of Spiritual Tourism and Religious Transformation in Ladakh, India

A18-333
Navarātri Seminar
Theme: Navarātri and the Production and Performance of Socio-Political Structures
Ute Huesken, Heidelberg University, Presiding
Saturday – 4:00 PM-6:30 PM
Hilton Boston Back Bay-Maverick B (Second Level)
The full papers are available at https://www.aarweb.org/node/1736#A18-333.

Ehud Halperin, Tel Aviv University
Establishing Gods, Kingship, and Kingdom: Palanquin Rituals in the Kullu Dasahra

Anne Mocko, Concordia College
Removing the Royals from Nepal’s Navarātri

A18-404
Films
Theme: Kundun
Saturday – 8:00 PM-10:00 PM
Sheraton Boston-Constitution (Second Level)

A19-109
Buddhism Unit
Theme: Buddhist Practical Canons: Textual Community in the Pre-modern Buddhist World
José I. Cabezón, University of California, Santa Barbara, Presiding
Sunday – 9:00 AM-11:30 AM
Sheraton Boston-Gardner (Third Level)

Adam Krug, University of California, Santa Barbara
The Early Indian Mahāmudrā Canon and Practical Canonicity in the Esoteric Buddhism of India and Tibet

A19-135
Holmes Welch and the Study of Buddhism in Twentieth-Century China Seminar
Theme: Revisiting the Revival: Holmes Welch’s Work at 50
Rongdao Lai, University of Southern California, Presiding
Sunday – 9:00 AM-11:30 AM
Marriott Copley Place-Regis (Third Level)

Holly Gayley, University of Colorado

A19-134
Economics and Capitalism in the Study of Buddhism Seminar
Theme: Buddhist Practice During Collapse: Economic, Cultural, Institutional, and Political
Richard K. Payne, Graduate Theological Union, Presiding
Sunday – 9:00 AM-11:30 AM
Sheraton Boston-Fairfax B (Third Level)

Elizabeth Williams-Oerberg, University of Copenhagen
The Centrality of “Youth” in Promoting and Reforming Buddhist Monasteries in Ladakh

A19-233
Focus on Sustainability
Religion and Ecology Unit
Theme: Ritual and Community in Religion and Ecology
Melanie L. Harris, Texas Christian University, Presiding
Sunday – 1:00 PM-3:30 PM
Hynes Convention Center-201 (Second Level)

Luke Whitmore, University of Wisconsin, Steven’s Point
Are Local Gods Ecological?

A19-326
Yogācāra Studies Unit
Theme: Reading Vasubandhu’s Triṃśikā and Its Commentaries
Roy Tzohar, Tel-Aviv University, Presiding
Sunday – 5:00 PM-6:30 PM
Sheraton Boston-Commonwealth (Third Level)

Jonathan Gold, Princeton University
Vasubandhu’s Thirty Verses on Non-duality and Figurative Predication

Jay Garfield, Smith College
Trimśika 22 and Its Commentaries and Sequelae

A20-107
Buddhism Unit
Theme: Crime and Punishment: Legal Dialogues between Buddhism and Local Society in East and Central Asia
Mark L. Blum, University of California, Berkeley, Presiding
Monday – 9:00 AM-11:30 AM
Marriott Copley Place-Exeter (Third Level)

Charles Manson, École Pratique des Hautes Études
Conundrums in Tibetan Medieval Crime and Punishment

Vesna Wallace, University of California, Santa Barbara
Why Fermented Mare’ Milk (Airag) and Not Vodka (Arkhɩ)? Cultural Norms and the Limits of the Vinaya in Mongolia

A20-113
Comparative Studies in Religion Unit
Theme: The “Unsayable” in Tibetan Religious Literature
Benjamin Bogin, Skidmore College, Presiding
Monday – 9:00 AM-11:30 AM
Marriott Copley Place-Vineyard (Fourth Level)

Eric D. Mortensen, Guilford College
What Is Not Told about What Was Once Invisible? Performative Lacunae in the Folklore of Tibetans of Geza

Dominique Townsend, Rubin Museum of Art, New York, NY
Unsayably Clear, Empty, and Divine: Cultivating an Awareness of Life and Death as Illusory through a Tibetan Practice of Lucid Dreaming

Annabella Pitkin, Lehigh University
What Cannot Be Said Must Be Remembered: Unsayability and Tibetan Buddhist Aporias of Absence, Loss, Longing, and Realization

A20-237
Yoga in Theory and Practice Unit and Yogācāra Studies Unit
Theme: Yogācāra and Meditation: An Inquiry Into the Practical Dimensions of Yogācāra Doctrine
William S. Waldron, Middlebury College, Presiding
Monday – 1:00 PM-3:30 PM
Marriott Copley Place-Falmouth (Fourth Level)

Yaroslav Komarovski, University of Nebraska
Why Pointing at the Moon in the First Place? How Positive Articulations of Reality Affect Its Non-conceptual Realization

Responding:
Karin Meyers, Kathmandu University

A21-111
Buddhism Unit
Theme: New Work in Buddhist Studies
Reiko Ohnuma, Dartmouth College, Presiding
Tuesday – 9:00 AM-11:30 AM
Hilton Boston Back Bay-Westminster (Second Level)

Blayne Harcey, Arizona State Univeristy
The Search for Buddhist Origins and the Construction of Lineage at Lumbini Nepal

Ian MacCormack, Harvard University
Circling the Square: Rethinking the Lhasa Maṇḍala

Natasha Mikles, University of Virginia
The Butcher, the Baker, and the Hell-Being Maker: How the Embodied Experience of Samsara Makes Buddhist Hell

A21-119
Religion in South Asia Unit
Theme: Constructing Powerful Selves: Autobiography in South Asia
Kristin Bloomer, Carleton College, Presiding
Tuesday – 9:00 AM-11:30 AM
Hynes Convention Center-205 (Second Level)

Alyson Prude, University of Wisconsin, Whitewater
Authority and Vulnerability: Tibetan Buddhist Women’s Oral Life Narratives

Ben Williams, Harvard University
Abhinavagupta as a Cosmopolitan Siddha: Religious Sources for Writing the Self in Medieval Kashmir

Responding:
Janet Gyatso, Harvard University

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