Events in Religion at Otago

Hope, Happenstance, and the Making of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan's Landmark Transgender Rights Judgments

Prof Jeff Redding

Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne

Between 2009 and 2012, the Supreme Court of Pakistan issued so-called 'landmark' transgender rights judgments. These allegedly momentous judgments were, however, incredibly opaque in meaning. Given the extraordinary significance attached to Pakistan's judgments, and also odd ones I discuss in this talk from other jurisdictions, the question emerges: Why do some judgments get designated as 'landmark'? I conclude that the designation represents a hope that a previous 'bad' era in sexuality or gender rights has finally been surpassed.

Burns Building 5C13 (Humanities Seminar Room)

Narada Maha Thera's dhammaduta in Indochina - 1932-1940

Dr Elizabeth Guthrie

Religion Programme, University of Otago

Today, the Sinhalese monk Narada Maha Thera (1898-1983) is remembered for his missionary activities in Europe and North America and publications in English, such as Buddhism in a Nutshell (1933); and students still study his primer, An Elementary Pali Course (1952). But his dhammaduta activities in Indochina are less well-known. In my presentation I will look at archival evidence for Narada's role in promoting Pali language and Buddhist relic cults in French Indochina between 1932-1940.

St David's Seminar Room C (G.03)

New Buddhist trends in Sri Lanka: Umaṁdāva Universal Buddhist Village

Anushka Kahandagama

Religion Programme, University of Otago

I explore a variety of different Buddhist groups that gained popularity in Sri Lanka over the past few decades, each with a cyber presence where they (de)value based on views and subscribers. The pandemic has intensified the virtual presence of the groups. E-monasteries have become a phenomenon in intangible realms, reminding us of the ethereal Buddhist cosmos of heavens and mind statuses. The last four decades, notably the post-war era from 2009 onwards, have witnessed the rise of diverse Buddhist groups in the country, with Umaṁdāva being a prominent one. Samantabhadra, the chief incumbent, has named Umaṁdāva a Universal Buddhist village. This village-temple hosts various programs, including agricultural workshops, food-related training, retreats, bio-gas production training, dairy farming, English and computer classes for school children, and dhamma discussions. Umaṁdāva Buddhist group displays behaviors and beliefs diverging from traditional Buddhist expectations, particularly in terms of authority, space, and the monk-laity relationship. Despite categorizing these diverging factors under distinct themes, in practice, they are overlapping and interconnected.

St David's Seminar Room C (G.03)

Threads of Faith: Finding Meaning in the Art of Ecclesiastical Embroidery

Donna Roy

Religion Programme, University of Otago

What does the practice of ecclesiastical embroidery mean to those who create it? I interviewed women who stitch for Anglican and Catholic churches in New Zealand and present their stories and the key themes that emerged.
Belonging to a community is vital for women who stitch ecclesiastical embroidery as is their connection to each other and to their church. To honour the history of ecclesiastical embroidery, maintain this tradition and leave a legacy of themselves for future generations was also a predominant theme. Symbols play a vital role in religious experience and are a language of their own, communicating ideas and feelings between like-minded people. Respondents talked about how they chose the symbols they stitched to tell the story of the recipient or to reflect their personality. Through the stories of two nuns, I visit the spiritual connection between ecclesiastical embroidery and prayer. Two controversies arose during the interviews. One is a story about a textile artist and an altar cloth and the other relates to a trend among clergy to no longer wear vestments.

St David's Seminar Room C (G.03)

Buddhism Beyond the Human: Chinese Buddhism Beyond the Humanistic Turn

Dr Lina Verchery
Lecturer in Religious Studies, School of Social and Cultural Studies, Victoria University of Wellington / Te Herenga Waka

This talk will present portions of Lina Verchery's current book project, Buddhism for the More-than-Human Realm: Chinese Buddhism Beyond the Humanistic Turn.

For several decades, scholarship on modern Buddhism has focussed almost exclusively on Humanistic Buddhism: a modernist movement spearheaded by several twentieth-century reformers who promoted "Buddhism for the human realm" (renjian fojiao). Against this movement's this-worldly, presentist, and humanistic focus, traditional Buddhist communities - especially those espousing literalist understandings of karma and rebirth - have been dismissed as superstitious, un-scientific, and un-modern. Buddhism for the More-than-Human Realm draws on over twelve years of multi-sited ethnographic research with one such traditionalist Buddhist organization: the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, a monastic order active in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Australia, the United States, and Canada. It argues that their literalist, non-modernist, and decidedly non-humanistic cosmology opens alternative horizons of moral engagement with the more-than-human world, while challenging how we think about "modern" Buddhism itself.

Taking up Fajie's own critique of Humanistic Buddhism - specifically that its anthropocentric focus erases the multi-species fungibility at the heart of the Buddha's teachings on karma and rebirth - the book argues for the renewed salience of Fajie's literalist cosmology in light of the current environmental crisis. Scholars have begun to note that many of the cutting-edge ideas animating influential innovations in the Environmental Humanities - such as the "ontological turn," the new materialism, indigenous epistemologies, actor-network theory, and agential realism - often recapitulate premodern epistemes. Using Fajie as a case study, the book challenges the normative ways we periodise Buddhism in general, thus troubling the very notions of "traditional," "premodern," "modern," and "postmodern." I also show that contemporary Chinese Buddhism is more than just Humanistic Buddhism, thereby correcting a major lacuna in the dominant scholarly picture of the global Buddhist landscape.

St David's Seminar Room C (G.03)

Jesuit Knowledge Production and Exchange Between Asia and Europe in the 17th Century

Marita Suresh
Goa University, India

I examine the overland survey project undertaken by the Society of Jesus between 1656 and 1664. Although the notion of an overland link between Jesuit headquarters in Rome and overseas missions in Asia had existed in the Jesuit imagination long before this expedition was conducted, sociopolitical events in this century were particularly conducive to such an undertaking. An overland survey expedition was first proposed by two Jesuits: Martino Martini S.J., a Jesuit affiliated to the Jesuit Vice-Province of China when (he) was on a diplomatic mission to Rome, and Aimé Chézaud S.J., both of whom recommended such an undertaking to the General of the Society, Goswin Nickel S.J., in early 1655.

Nickel initiated the survey ten months after the two proposals were first made, with a small survey team departing Rome in 1656. Initially instructed to explore routes between Isfahan and Suzhou by way of Samarkand, political upheaval across Asia forced the expedition team to travel via a complex route between Beijing, northern India and Persia. After several years of extensive travel, the survey mission was concluded at Rome in 1664.

My research draws on archival material and documents from archives and libraries in Goa and Mumbai, such as the Xavier Centre of Historical Research, Goa, the Heras Institute of Indian History and Culture in Mumbai, and online databases such as the Historical Archives of the Gregorian University (or APUG.) My work on the subject of the overland survey looks closely at knowledge production arising from the overland survey, including its socio-cultural and political impact, and contribution to the shaping of European intellectual engagement with Asia.

Richardson 7N10 Seminar Room

Title tba

Shayne Clarke
McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada

St David Complex Seminar Room A G.02