AAR Buddhism Section Newsletter 2000-1

Dear Colleagues:

Below you will find the announcements of sessions and individual papers to be sponsored or co-sponsored by the Buddhism section at the 2000 annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Nashville, Tennessee, Nov. 18-22. Because we are posting this announcement by e-mail, diacritics and italics have not been included, although they should appear in the annual meeting program book. We ask for your understanding.

Please note that only those sessions directly sponsored by the Buddhism section are given here. Sessions of related interest sponsored by other program units will be announced in the fall edition of this Newsletter, prior to the annual meeting. Hope to see you in Nashville!

Sincerely,
John Strong
Jacqueline Stone
co-chairs, AAR Buddhism Section
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Buddhism Section program for AAR 2000 annual meeting

Session #1

Theme: Buddhism and Violence
Sara L. McClintock, Harvard University, presiding

Geoffrey Samuel, University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia
"Vajrayana Spells for Destroying Enemy Armies and their Context in Indic Religious Life"

Stephen Jenkins, Humbolt State University
"Compassionate Violence in Indian Buddhist Literature"

John D. Dunne, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"Licensed to Kill: Ethics, Authority and the Bodhisattva Assassin in Tibet"

Tara N. Doyle, Emory University
"'Educate! Agitate! Organize!'-- Dalit Buddhists' Call to Battle"

Respondent: Christopher Queen, Harvard University

Session #2

Theme: Buddhist Visual Culture in South and Southeast Asia

Kevin Trainor, University of Vermont, presiding

Andy Rotman, Smith College
"Seeing, Prasada, and Giving: Issues of Practice and Agency"

Jacob N. Kinnard, College of William and Mary
"The Dialectics of Tara Representation"

Julie Gifford, University of Chicago
"The Art of the Path: Visuality and Practice at Barabudur"

Gary Michael Tartakov, Iowa State University
"Navayana Buddhist Iconography"

Respondent:
Richard Davis, Bard College

Session #3

Theme: Buddhism between Tibet and Pre-Republican China (co-sponsored with Tibetan and Himalayan Religions)

Janet Gyatso, Amherst College, presiding

Matthew T. Kapstein, University of Chicago
"Mulian in the Land of the Snows: Chinese Traditions of the Arhat Madgalyayana and Their Legacy in Tibet"

Rob Linrothe, Skidmore College
"The Commissioner's Commissions: Late Thirteenth Century Tibetan and Chinese Buddhist Art in Hangzhou under the Mongols"

Karl Debreczeny, The University of Chicago
"Sino-Tibetan Wallpainting at Dabaojigong"

Paul Nietupski, John Carroll University
"rGya nag pa tshang at Labrang Monastery"

Session #4

Theme: The Doctrine of Bodhicitta and the Buddhist Path

John Maraldo, University of North Florida, presiding

Francis Brassard, Berry College
"The Concept of Bodhicitta in Shantideva's Bodhicaryavatara"

Suzanne Mrozik, Western Michigan University
"Bodies Good to Eat: The Material Effects of Bodhisattva Vows"

Dale S. Wright, Occidental College
"Hua-yen Bodhicitta: The 'Dependent Arising' of Enlightenment in Fa-tsang"

Robert F. Rhodes, Otani University, Kyoto
"T'ien-t'ai Chih-i's Interpretation of Bodhicitta"

Mark L. Blum, State University of New York, Albany
"The Sudden Pure Land: Bodhicitta in the Nirvana Sutra"

Respondent:
Alexander T. Naughton, Mississippi State University

Session #5

Theme: Lineage, Transmission, and Legitimacy in Sung Dynasty Buddhism (co-sponsored with Chinese Religions)

Steven Heine, Florida International University, presiding

Mark Halperin, Ohio State University
"What Makes a Monk Eminent?: The View of the Laity"

Ding-Hwa Hsieh
Truman State University
"Yuan-wu K'o-ch'in's (1063-1135) Redefinition of Ch'an Dharma Transmission"

Miriam Levering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
"The Social Realities of Lineage, Yin-k'o and Transmission as Reflected in the Self-narratives of Ta-hui Tsung-kao"

Morten Schlutter, University of Wisconsin, Madison
"Inheritance Certificates, Dharma Transmission and the Power of the Abbot"

Albert Welter, University of Winnipeg
"Lineage and Context in the Patriarchs' Hall Collection and the Transmission of the Lamp"

Session #6

Theme: Funerals, Death Rituals and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism (cosponsored with Japanese Religions)

Hank Glassman, Stanford University, presiding

Sarah Horton, University of Colorado at Boulder
"Mukaeko: Practice for the Deathbed"

Jacqueline I. Stone, Princeton University
"'With the Help of Good Friends': Deathbed Ritual Pratices in Early Medieval Japan"

Brian D. Ruppert, University of Illinois
"Death and the Damned Emperor: The Tale of Nichizo's Journey to the Afterlife as Mimetic Representation of Medieval Japanese Society"

Duncan Williams, Trinity College
"Sudden Salvation and Gradual Care of the Dead: Soto Zen and the Blood Pool Hell Sutra"

Mariko Namba Walter, University of New England
"The Structure of the Japanese Buddhist Funeral"

Respondent:
Mark L. Blum, State University of New York, Albany

Session #7

Theme: Reinterpreting Texts and Traditions (individual papers)

Grace Burford, Precott College, presiding

Sid Brown, University of the South
"Nunneries for Nuns and Other Monastic Moves of the Institute of Thai Nuns"

Jeffrey Samuels, University of Virginia
"Samanera Training Centers: A New Form of Monastic Training in Sri Lanka"

David McMahan, Franklin and Marshall College
"Tantric Sadhana as Ritualization of Encounter Narratives in Mahayana Sutras"

Stuart Chandler, Cambridge, Massachusetts
"Vanguard of Humanistic Buddhism: An Analysis of the the Fo-kuang-shan Monastic Corps"

Daniel Marc Veidlinger, University of Chicago
"Overlooked or Looked-Over?: The Role of Buddhist Manuscripts in Sixteenth Century Northern Thailand"