BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//ceres.rub.de//events//
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-WR-TIMEZONE:UTC
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Dunhuang Performative Texts and Manuscript Studies
DTSTART:20221019T120000Z
DTEND:20221019T140000Z
DTSTAMP:20260430T193047Z
UID:dunhuang-performative-texts-and-manuscript-studies-8180@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 18 October 2022\, 12 pm. Zoom lecture times: 2 pm (Amsterdam\, Berli
 n\, Rom\, Vienna)\; 8 pm (Peking)\; 8 am (East Coast)\n\nLecture Series Ov
 erview:\n\nChinese scholarship on the Dunhuang Caves and materials from th
 e so-called Library Cave\, one of the greatest archaeological finds of the
  20th century\, has expanded rapidly over the past twenty years. An ever-i
 ncreasing number of academics\, research projects\, and publications have 
 provided a wealth of scholarly resources for the field. This corpus of res
 earch merits more attention from western scholars\, not just in Dunhuang S
 tudies but from across a variety of disciplines in the humanities and soci
 al sciences. This series of six talks will explore this breath of Chinese 
 scholarship and provide a guide to major areas within Dunhuang Studies\, i
 ts key scholars\, publications\, research projects\, institutions\, and tr
 ends.\n\nThis series of talks also takes an ethnographic approach on two l
 evels. The first is that Dunhuang materials\, given their range and divers
 ity\, can be viewed as a coherent dataset\, the closest we have to an ethn
 ographic collection for medieval Eastern Central Asia. In this sense then\
 , they should be valued in their complex\, interdisciplinary entirety. Sec
 ond\, concentrating on Chinese Dunhuang research in the 21st century\, the
 se talks also engage an ethnological approach to the academic realm in ord
 er to examine how subfields of Dunhuang Studies are delineated in light of
  institutions and ongoing social forces. Availing my position as someone i
 n the field of Dunhuang Studies working at a Chinese research institute\, 
 I will provide on-the-ground observations through discussions with members
  of the scholarly community in China (i.e.\, ‘thick description’)\, wi
 th an emphasis on the explanation of behaviour and agency that accepts emi
 c categories of division of Dunhuang resources and analyses their origins 
 and usages\, as well as how those categories may enhance or constrain rese
 arch together with the production of knowledge and its dissemination.\n\nE
 ach of these lectures will systematically cover the following areas: \n\n
 \n	compilation and editing of primary source materials for all fields\n	ma
 jor scholars and publications\, cooperative projects\n	research trends (th
 emes and topics)\n	reference and research tools\n\n\nFinally\, given the f
 ramework and sponsor of these talks\, the resources explored will be keyed
  to the seven thematic research clusters of the BuddhistRoad Project (Cent
 er for Religious Studies\, Ruhr-Universität Bochum) to further scholarshi
 p on topics within the context of Eastern Central Asia and their relation 
 to Chinese Dunhuang Studies.\n\n\nThis lecture focuses on the wealth of 
 Dunhuang Buddhist resources\, which extends to enacted texts such as sūtr
 a exegesis and performed narratives. This lecture reviews Chinese scholars
 hip on Buddhist exegetical texts and narratives together with their perfor
 mative contexts. It then turns to the wide array of research on popular li
 terature\, much of which was influenced by both Chinese and Central Asian 
 Buddhism and their roles in the vernacularisation of language and literary
  forms. Finally\, we examine how Dunhuang textual resources also offer a r
 ich corpus for linguistic and manuscript studies\, with a growing number o
 f Chinese scholars focusing on the linguistic diversity of the Dunhuang ma
 nuscripts and regional exchanges. \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 literature in ritual a
 nd art\, medieval economic development\, Esoteric Buddhism (Chin. mijiao\,
  密教)\, and the ritual aesthetics of painting and architectural space o
 f the Mogao Caves. He is currently at work on several monographs\, includi
 ng From Byzantium to Japan: Ritual Objects and Religious Exchanges Across 
 Eurasia in Late Antiquity\, tracing the flow of exotic goods and ritual pa
 raphernalia along the Silk Road\, and the first-ever critical bibliographi
 cal survey of Dunhuang materials\, entitled The Comprehensive Guide to Sch
 olarly Resources for Dunhuang Studies.\n\n\nTo join the lecture\, please r
 egister at https://ruhr-uni-bochum.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5MkcemsqDkoH
 NN_9mUxCqH76DoYe3kexqQR
LOCATION:Online Event
URL:https://ceres.rub.de/en/events/dunhuang-performative-texts-and-manuscr
 ipt-studies/
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR