Arizona State University

Arizona State University will host a two-day colloquium on the subject of Theravada Buddhism and its encounter with modernity in South and Southeast Asia since the early 19th century. The scholarly event will seek to re-appraise the field of Theravada studies from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, such as religious studies, history and anthropology. It will be held Feb. 13-14 in the Engineering Building A-Wing, Room 385, on ASU’s Tempe campus.

Colloquium organizers are Juliane Schober, associate professor in the ASU Department of Religious Studies, and Steven Collins, professor and chair of the South Asian languages and civilizations department at the University of Chicago. The conference is supported by the ASU Department of Religious Studies and the Institute for Humanities Research.

This state-of-the-field conference brings together leading scholars from institutions worldwide to explore the intersections of Buddhist practices and institutions with colonialism, education and nationalism.

Participants include Stephen Berkwitz, associate professor of religious studies at Missouri State University; Anne Blackburn, associate professor of South Asian studies and Buddhist studies at Cornell University; Kate Crosby, senior lecturer of Buddhist studies at the University of London; Christoph Emmrich, professor of South and Southeast Asian Buddhism at the University of Toronto; Charles Hallisey, senior lecturer of Buddhist literatures at Harvard University; Anne Hansen, associate professor of languages and cultures of Asia at the University of Wisconsin, Madison; Justin McDaniel, associate professor of religious studies at the University of California, Riverside; Patrick Pranke, professor of humanities at the University of Louisville; and Donald Swearer, distinguished visiting professor of Buddhist studies at Harvard University.