The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Fellowship and Grant Competitions in Buddhist Studies

The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Fellowship and Grant Competitions in Buddhist Studies

Fellowship and Grant Competitions in Buddhist Studies

2017-18 Call for Applications

The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) invites applications in the 2017-18 competition year of The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studies. In cooperation with the Foundation, ACLS offers an integrated set of fellowship and grant competitions supporting work to expand the understanding and interpretation of Buddhist thought in scholarship and society, to strengthen international networks of Buddhist studies, and to increase the visibility of innovative currents in those studies.

Dissertation Fellowships: one-year stipends to PhD candidates for full-time preparation of dissertations

Postdoctoral Fellowships: two-year stipends to recent recipients of the PhD for residence at a university for research, writing, and teaching

Research Fellowships: one-year stipends for scholars who hold a PhD degree, with no restrictions on time from the PhD

Grants for Critical Editions and Scholarly Translations: one-year stipends for the creation of critical editions, translation of canonical texts, and translation of scholarly works

New Professorships: multi-year grants to colleges and universities to establish or expand teaching in Buddhist studies

These are global competitions. There are no restrictions as to the location of work proposed, the citizenship of applicants, or the languages of the final written product. Applications must be submitted in English. Program information and applications are available at http://www.acls.org/programs/buddhist-studies/.

Deadline for submission of fellowship applications: November 15, 2017.

Deadline for institutional applications for New Professorships: January 10, 2018.

For more information, please email BuddhistStudies@acls.org.

The American Council of Learned Societies, a private, nonprofit federation of 75 national scholarly organizations, is the preeminent representative of American scholarship in the humanities and related social sciences. Advancing scholarship by awarding fellowships and strengthening relations among learned societies is central to ACLS’s work. This year, ACLS will award more than $20 million to over 300 scholars across a variety of humanistic disciplines.

Established in 2005, The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation is a private philanthropic organisation based in Hong Kong. The Foundation’s dual mission is to foster appreciation of Chinese arts and culture to advance global learning and to cultivate deeper understanding of Buddhism in the context of contemporary life.

The Foundation’s Buddhist studies and Buddhist art programmes include the Buddhist Ministry Initiative at Harvard Divinity School; a centre and an endowed professorship in Buddhist studies at Stanford University; a centre for Buddhist studies at the University of Toronto; an endowed chair and programme in Buddhism and Contemporary Society at the University of British Columbia; a multi-year lecture series at SOAS University of London; the Centre for Buddhist Art and Conservation and MA programme at The Courtauld Institute of Art; the Galleries of Buddhist Art at the Victoria and Albert Museum; a three-year exhibition, Encountering the Buddha: Art and Practice Across Asia, opening in the Sackler Gallery in Washington in October 2017, and other exhibitions of Buddhist art around the world. www.rhfamilyfoundation.org.

Lecture: Space, Body, Light: An Exploration of Buddhist Art Across Time & Space

Lecture: Space, Body, Light: An Exploration of Buddhist Art Across Time & Space (Part 1)
When: Sun., Sept. 3, 6-7 p.m.

Buddhist art is an immense topic. From its inception in India around 250 BCE, it has grown into a vast web of traditions spreading throughout South & Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Himalayas, East Asia – and now the west in the era of global modernism. In this talk, Art History Professor Elizabeth Davis will investigate, discuss, and enjoy a handful of extraordinary artworks that represent pivotal moments within the magnificent history of Buddhist visual culture.

Price: FREE

Tibetan Nyingma Institute
1815 Highland Pl. (Berkeley-North)
510-809-1000
nyingma-institute@nyingma.org
http://nyingmainstitute.com/

Mirror at the Gate: Greek Buddhist and Christian Art and Archaeology

Mirror at the Gate: Greek Buddhist and Christian Art and Archaeology
Sponsored by Springfield Museums
Thursday, October 26, 2017 – 12:15pm to 1:15pm

Location:
Springfield Museums
21 Edwards Street
Springfield, MA 01103
United States

http://www.springfieldmuseums.org

Mirror at the Gate: Greek Buddhist and Christian Art and Archaeology

Joseph A.P. Wilson, PhD, Fairfield University, Connecticut

Early Greek-Buddhist art and artifacts of Central Asia appear remarkably similar to early Christian art and artifacts of the Middle East. This presentation will present material connections between these neighboring regions during Late Antiquity. Eastern and Western religions were not entirely distinct. Political turmoil of the late Roman Empire spurred migration between these ancient cultures which deeply influenced the artistic traditions of both.

Call for Papers and Essays

We have pleasure to announce that the 7th International Conference Buddhism & Australia will be held on 1-3 February, 2018 in Perth, Western Australia.

All Buddhists, scholars and members of the general public interested in Buddhism are invited to present their papers in this coming conference. Researchers across a broad range of disciplines are welcomed as well the submission of pre-formed panel proposals

The main themes 2018

Rituals
Rituals and the Image of Buddha
Silk Road Buddhism
Death of the Buddha

The organizers are open to proposals for contributions on Buddhist history, philosophy, texts as well for proposals on any related theme.

Important Dates

Deadline for Abstract Submission: 25 October, 2017
Deadline for Full Paper Submission: 25 November, 2017

For those who have prepared for certain big task and who are able to put some sort of idea on certain topics, we have a proposal to compose an essay which needs to create a bridge back to the Buddha. Anyone, from any country, is free to apply. Selected essays will be published on the conference website. Topics

Buddha for every home
Buddha versus Jesus
Buddhism is in the way of economy
Buddhist monks – people with weak vitality and mentality
Buddhist cosmology and contemporary astronomy and astrophysics are not brothers
Virtual reality as the modern day Nirvana
Could Buddha turn on a computer?
Is virtual reality beyond our reality or not?
Who reads the teachings of the dead Buddha?

UC Berkeley to open first university center for Silk Road study in North America

Many of the archaeological, art historical and textual remains left behind on the trade routes are now found at hundreds of remote cave sites scattered throughout far-western China in Xinjiang and Gansu. (UC Berkeley photo by Brittany Hosea-Small)

By Anne Brice, Berkeley News | MAY 3, 2017

The Silk Road is an evocative name that, to many, conjures up images of camel caravans and bustling bazaars — an international highway of commerce where people and cultures from the East and West intermingled and traded goods.

But scholars say that this romantic image is only a sliver of what life might have been like on the ancient Eurasian trade routes. UC Berkeley is opening the P.Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for Silk Road Studies, the first institutionalized center in the U.S. dedicated to the study of the historical trading networks serially known as the Silk Road, thanks to a $5 million gift by two branches of the Tang family — Oscar Tang and his wife, Dr. Agnes Hsu-Tang, who are based in New York City, and Bay Area Berkeley alumni Nadine Tang and Leslie Tang Schilling, with their brother Martin Tang in Hong Kong.

Chinese American philanthropist Oscar Tang founded the first Tang center for excellence in Chinese Humanities, the P.Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art at Princeton University in 2003. In 2015, he and his archaeologist wife founded the Tang Center for Early China at Columbia University. The new Tang Center at UC Berkeley is the latest addition for the advancement of the interdisciplinary study of the historical Silk Road.

Oscar Tang believes that the new Tang Center at Berkeley is “part of my family’s ongoing effort to enhance knowledge and understanding of the great Chinese civilization and its relationship to the rest of the world.”

The center, which launched April 29, will promote the research and teaching of the material and visual cultures that flourished along the Silk Road and formed a bridge between the many economic epicenters of Eurasia and China. A better understanding of the Silk Road’s history will also help contextualize its emergent geopolitical significance in the present time.

Zara Fleming will host a lecture at UTas about Tibet

EXPLORED: Zara Fleming will hold a guest lecture about the history of Tibet and its art and culture at UTas. Picture: Supplied.

@tarliaj14

The Examiner (Tasmania), Tarlia Jordan
28 Apr 2017, 3 p.m.

An international specialist in Buddhist art and culture will host a lecture in Launceston.

Zara Fleming, from the UK, will discuss the development of Tibet from the 6th century right through to the present day.

Fleming has had an interest in Tibet since her seventh birthday.

“My teacher told our class about the Chinese invasion of Tibet and the flight of the Dalai Lama into exile. Our school then raised funds for Tibetan refugee children. From then on I became fascinated by Tibet,” she said.

Fleming went on to study European art history and Museum’s

“At this time I knew nothing about Asian art and worked in antiques. Aged 21, my grandmother died and left me 200 pounds for travel, so I went overland to Nepal and worked in a school there,” she said.

“I learnt about Tibetan culture, met Tibetans escaping, met the Dalai Lama and when I returned to the UK got a job in the Victoria and Albert Museum, transferring to the Indian department.”

Fleming said Tibet was the biggest change.

“When I first went there it was the Tibet of my dreams, but today Chinese presence is everywhere,” she said.

Locals have been allowed to rebuild some of their monasteries and attend some religious ceremonies, Fleming said.

Australian Decorative and Fine Arts Society, Launceston hosts Tibetan expert Zara Fleming Lucy Stone

Lucy Stone
18 Apr 2017, 5 p.m.

One of the world’s most senior specialists in Buddhist art and Central Asian history will be speaking in Launceston in May.

Zara Fleming, from the United Kingdom, is an art historian, curator and lecturer on the art and culture of Tibet, Mongolia and the Himalayas. Speaking as a guest of the Australian Decorative and Fine Arts Society, Launceston branch, Ms Fleming will give an overview of Tibetan history from the foundation of the Tibetan Empire in the sixth century to the present day.

She will also explore the art and culture inspired by Buddhism, introduced from India in the seventh century, and provide insight into the political reality of life in Tibet now.

Ms Fleming will speak at an upcoming lecture at the Sir Raymond Ferrall Centre at the University of Tasmania’s Newnham campus on Tuesday, May 9, starting at 6pm.

Tickets to the lecture are $30 including refreshments. For more details visit www.adfas.org.au/societies/tasmania/launceston/ or email launceston@adfas.org.au.

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Goldberg Lecturer to examine duplication in Chinese sculpture

Buddha, gilt bronze, dated 537, Eastern Wei Dynasty, h. 22 cm, Berenson Art Collection, Villa I Tatti – The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies.

Vanderbilt News, by Ann Marie Deer Owens | Mar. 20, 2017, 9:45 AM

Duke University’s Stanley Abe will discuss duplication in Chinese sculpture March 23 at Cohen Hall

The study of duplication in Chinese sculpture from ancient times to the present is the focus of a lecture by Stanley Abe at Vanderbilt’s Cohen Hall March 23.

Abe, associate professor of art and art history at Duke University, will deliver the Norman L. and Roselea J. Goldberg Lecture in Art History at 4:10 p.m. in Room 203. A reception in the Cohen atrium will follow Abe’s talk.

“In China, identical sets of figures, serial images, replications in archaic styles, and later copies were produced over a long period of time,” Abe said. “New works were provided with ancient inscriptions; old objects could be inscribed anew. In modern times, forgeries meant to deceive collectors proliferated.”

Abe has published on Chinese Buddhist art, contemporary Chinese art, Asian American art, abstract expressionism and the collecting of Chinese sculpture. He is now writing a narrative account of how Chinese sculpture came into existence as a category of “fine art” during the late-19th and early-20th centuries.

“The study of duplication suggests a way to understand the history of Chinese sculpture as more than a series of unique masterpieces,” Abe said. “However, attention to duplication raises many questions and issues for further study.”

Abe received the Shimada Prize for Ordinary Images (University of Chicago Press, 2002), a richly illustrated book that explores the large body of sculpture, paintings and other religious imagery produced for China’s common classes from the third to the sixth centuries CE. The Shimada Prize is awarded for distinguished scholarship in the history of East Asian art by the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and by The Metropolitan Center for Far Eastern Art Studies in Kyoto, Japan.

Sponsored by the Department of History of Art, the Goldberg Lecture is free and open to the public. Parking is available in Lot 95 outside of Cohen Hall. For more information, call the department at 615-322-2831.

Fay Renardson contributed to this story.

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Faculty Voices: Where India and China Meet

Where India and China Meet: Buddhist Art Exhibition in Palace Museum, Beijing

By Jinah Kim, Gardner Cowles Associate Professor of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University

Kim received a SAI Faculty Grant for her research on Indian painting.

A first major loan exhibition of Indian art in Beijing, China is currently held in the majestic Meridian gate tower of the Palace Museum (September 28, 2016- January 3 2017) of the Forbidden City (see a virtual tour of the exhibition here.) “Across the Silk Road: Gupta Sculptures and their Chinese Counterparts during 400 to 700CE” is an ambitious exhibition conceived by the senior curatorial fellow of the Palace Museum, Dr. Lou Wenhua, after his visit to India over 3 years ago. Fifty-six sculptures from nine Indian Museums are on display against a red backdrop in one gallery, while two adjacent galleries are filled with over one hundred Chinese Buddhist sculptures against blue backdrop. Bringing this exhibition together is an impressive feat by the organizers in Beijing, which, of course, was not possible without collaborative efforts from many museum personnel and officers in India.

When the China-India bilateral relationship is not as rosy and warm as anticipated (i.e. India’s failed entry into the NSG at the Seoul plenary, CPEC [China Pakistan Economic Corridor] developments—part of President Xie Jinping’s Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Maritime Silk Road projects), the exhibition reminds us of the age old connections between the two countries, notably activated and solidified through the transmission of Buddhism. It also opens up new possibilities of trans-regional connections for the future that may benefit tremendously from mutual understanding of each other’s culture and history.

The time frame of the exhibition, from 400 to 700CE, is the period in which three Chinese monk-pilgrims to India, Faxian (337-c.422CE), Xuanzang (602-664CE) and Yijing (635-713CE), visited India. Their travelogues are enthusiastically mined as indispensable records for understanding the history of Indian Buddhism and the history of early medieval India, at times unfortunately without any critical consideration of the Chinese monks’ own cultural prejudices and political motivations. The exhibition heralds “Gupta sculptures” as its main anchor perhaps unwittingly perpetuating a notion of the Gupta period (Gupta dynasty: c. 320-550) as the “classical” or “golden” age of Indian Art, formulated during the early twentieth century. However, the selection is commendably wider in scope in terms of the range of dates and the variety of iconography (from a circa third century Buddhist sculpture, to a circa fifth century Jaina stele, to circa seventh century Hindu sculptures).

4th International conference and dhamma yatra : *Ancient Buddhism * April 8-9, 2017 Lalitpur & Devgarah, India