Symposium: Buddhist Literacy in Early Modern Northern Vietnam

We are happy to announce an upcoming international and interdisciplinary symposium on Buddhist Literacy in Early Modern Northern Vietnam, to be held at Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ) from 23-24 September, 2016.  Catalyzed by the recent digitization of two textual collections held at the Thắng Nghiêm and Phổ Nhân Buddhist Temples in northern Vietnam, we propose to investigate the interaction of textual practices, publishing, and the transmission of literate knowledge as facilitated by the Buddhist institution.  The texts in these collections are written in both Literary Chinese and vernacular Vietnamese, and include both classical sutras with cosmopolitan distribution, as well as region-specific texts, produced and circulated on a restricted, local level.

It has long been recognized that Buddhism played a varying but consistently vital role in the transmission of literate knowledge throughout East and Southeast Asia.  By examining these collections of diverse but otherwise mundane textual artifacts, we seek to understand the kinds of literacy that prevailed in these types of religious and non-courtly settings, as well as to investigate how networks of publishing, text-production, and the bartering of knowledge were constructed and maintained across Buddhist communities.  Although our focus is on the Vietnamese context, our investigation is conducted in explicit comparison with analogous contexts in China, Korea, and Japan; and we invite scholars of all fields and areas of study interested in issues of Buddhism and Literacy, the transmission of literate knowledge, and the interaction of cosmopolitan and vernacular forms of textual culture, to attend our symposium.

For more information, a full schedule with abstracts, and to RSVP, please click on the link below:

https://www.sas.rutgers.edu/cms/asian/events/#sym-buddhist-literacy-vietnam

If you have specific questions, please do not hesitate to email John Phan at [email protected]