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SUMMARY:Life Cycles: Calendars\, Festivals and Death at Dunhuang
DTSTART:20240110T130000Z
DTEND:20240110T150000Z
DTSTAMP:20260420T030737Z
UID:life-cycles-calendars-festivals-and-death-dunhuang-8181@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-registe
 r until 09 January 2024\, 12 pm. Zoom lecture times: 2 pm (Amsterdam\, Ber
 lin\, Rom\, Vienna)\; 8 pm (Peking)\; 8 am (East Coast)\n\nLecture Series 
 Overview:\n\nChinese scholarship on the Dunhuang Caves and materials from 
 the so-called Library Cave\, one of the greatest archaeological finds of t
 he 20th century\, has expanded rapidly over the past twenty years. An ever
 -increasing number of academics\, research projects\, and publications hav
 e provided a wealth of scholarly resources for the field. This corpus of r
 esearch merits more attention from western scholars\, not just in Dunhuang
  Studies but from across a variety of disciplines in the humanities and so
 cial sciences. This series of six talks will explore this breath of Chines
 e scholarship and provide a guide to major areas within Dunhuang Studies\,
  its key scholars\, publications\, research projects\, 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 dive
 rsity\, can be viewed as a coherent dataset\, the closest we have to an et
 hnographic collection for medieval Eastern Central Asia. In this sense the
 n\, they should be valued in their complex\, interdisciplinary entirety. S
 econd\, concentrating on Chinese Dunhuang research in the 21st century\, t
 hese talks also engage an ethnological approach to the academic realm in o
 rder to examine how subfields of Dunhuang Studies are delineated in light 
 of institutions and ongoing social forces. Availing my position as someone
  in the field of Dunhuang Studies working at a Chinese research institute\
 , I will provide on-the-ground observations through discussions with membe
 rs of the scholarly community in China (i.e.\, ‘thick description’)\, 
 with an emphasis on the explanation of behaviour and agency that accepts e
 mic categories of division of Dunhuang resources and analyses their origin
 s and usages\, as well as how those categories may enhance or constrain re
 search together with the production of knowledge and its dissemination.\n\
 nEach of these lectures will systematically cover 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 tools\n\n\nFinally\, given the
  framework and sponsor of these talks\, the resources explored will be key
 ed to the seven thematic research clusters of the BuddhistRoad Project (Ce
 nter for Religious Studies\, Ruhr-Universität Bochum) to further scholars
 hip on topics within the context of Eastern Central Asia and their relatio
 n to Chinese Dunhuang Studies.\n\n\nThis lecture begins with a review of C
 hinese scholarship on Dunhuang manuscripts that offers key insights into t
 he vibrant exchange of medical and scientific knowledge across Eurasia\, o
 ften embedded in religious discourse. These exchanges influenced multiple 
 domains of life at Dunhuang\, including the astral sciences and calendrics
 . Over the last twenty years work in China has begun showing an increasing
  interest in these areas and\, as well as in the relationships between rel
 ated texts and visual materials in Dunhuang caves. One of the strengths of
  recent scholarship has been research on the festival and seasonal year\, 
 which fundamentally configured lay and religious life at Dunhuang. In keep
 ing with the topic of the quotidian\, this lecture will also examine recen
 t scholarship on fundamental issues concerning the death and the life cycl
 e\, including karmic\, together with the role of these play in the constru
 ction of Dunhuang caves.\n\n\nNeil Schmid is Research Professor at the Dun
 huang Academy. His scholarship centres on Dunhuang and explores a range of
  topics\, including the role of Buddhist literature in ritual and art\, me
 dieval economic development\, Esoteric Buddhism (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 Byz
 antium to Japan: Ritual Objects and Religious Exchanges Across Eurasia in 
 Late Antiquity\, tracing the flow of exotic goods and ritual paraphernalia
  along the Silk Road\, and the first-ever critical bibliographical survey 
 of Dunhuang materials\, entitled The Comprehensive Guide to Scholarly Reso
 urces for Dunhuang Studies.\n\n\nTo join the lecture\, please register at
  https://ruhr-uni-bochum.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5YqfuGtrjwjG9MH3woZYhq
 yERF_H5cHY_g5#/registration
LOCATION:Online-Veranstaltung
URL:https://ceres.rub.de/de/events/life-cycles-calendars-festivals-and-dea
 th-dunhuang/
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