“Buddhism and the Arts” Lecture Series 2024
Launched in 2024 at the CEIB, Inalco, this lecture series explores the rich tapestry of Buddhist artistic and cultural expressions across different regions of Asia, from Central Asia to Japan, by way of China and Nepal. The lectures delve into material remnants and visual representations that reveal both the influence of Indian Buddhism and the distinctive local identities within Buddhist communities.
Speaker: Monika Zin (Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Leipzig)
Date and time: Friday, June 14, 2024, 3 PM (Paris)
Location: Salle de Sacy, Maison de la Recherche, Inalco, 2 rue de Lille, 75007 Paris
Funding: Glorisun Charitable Foundation
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About the Speaker: Monika Zin studied dramatics, literature and art history at Jagiellonian University, Krakow Indology and Indian art history at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich. She taught Indian and Central Asian art history in Munich, at the Universität Leipzig and the Freie Universität Berlin. Since 2016 she is heads the research team “Buddhist Murals of Kucha Region on the Northern Silk Road” hosted by the Saxon Academy of Science and Humanities in Leipzig. Monika Zin has published widely on numerous aspects of Buddhist art on the techniques of South and Central Asian Buddhist narrative paintings.
Speaker: Michelle C. Wang (Georgetown University)
Date and time: Friday, June 14, 2024, 4:15 PM (Paris)
Location: Salle de Sacy, Maison de la Recherche, Inalco, 2 rue de Lille, 75007 Paris
Funding: Glorisun Charitable Foundation
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Abstract: My paper explores renovations to the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang carried out during the Guiyijun Period (848–1036), in particular, the construction of wooden structures attached to certain cave façades. In doing so, my aims are twofold: first, I will argue for evidence of premodern conservation practice that coincided with the aspirations of the Cao clan, who ruled Dunhuang in 914–1036, for the longevity of their rule. Second, I develop ways of thinking about the Mogao Caves from a transhistorical perspective that considers the lives and afterlives of Buddhist sites.
About the Speaker: Michelle C. Wang is a specialist in the Buddhist and silk road art of northwestern China, primarily of the 6th-10th centuries. Her first book Maṇḍalas in the Making: The Visual Culture of Esoteric Buddhism at Dunhuang (Brill, 2018) examines Buddhist mandalas of the 8th-10th centuries at the Mogao and Yulin Buddhist cave shrines in northwestern China. She has also written about art and ritual, miracle tales of animated statues, Buddhist materiality, the transcultural reception of Buddhist motifs, and text and image. Her current research examines th reception of medieval silk road sites during the Victorian era and premodern conservation practice.
Speaker: Alexander Von Rospatt (University of California, Berkeley)
Date and time: December 17th, 2024, 3 PM (Paris)
Location: Auditorium Dumézil, Maison de la Recherche, Inalco, 2 rue de Lille, 75007 Paris
Funding: Glorisun Charitable Foundation
Link: https://zoom.us/j/98982818888
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Abstract: Nepalese painted scrolls (paubhā) often serve to commemorate the performance of particular rituals. Apart from their aesthetic value, these paintings deserve close study as important witnesses for the history of Nepalese Buddhism. To substantiate this point, the talk will focus on scroll paintings (from the 15th to the 18th cent.) commemorating the donation of a new honorific parasol (chattra) to the Svayambhū caitya of Kathmandu. The paintings to be examined depict not only the stūpa itself but also the surrounding shrines, which arguably reflect the autochthonous origins of the site of Svayambhū.
About the Speaker: Alexander von Rospatt is Professor for Buddhist and South Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He specializes in the doctrinal history of Indian Buddhism, and in the indigenous Buddhist tradition of the Kathmandu Valley. His forthcoming book « The Svayambhu Caitya and its Renovations » complements numerous essays he has authored on various aspects of the Nepalese tradition, including its narrative and ritual literature, its art historical heritage, and its rituals and their origins and evolution.