[Tlc] February 2007-conferences

[justinm at ucr.edu]

Dear All,

I wanted to call your attention to three important conferences
in February 2007 on the subject of Religion in Southeast Asia.

The first is being run by the Center for Khmer Studies with
Men Chean and John Marston as organizers and consultants. The
second and third will take place at University of California
(Riverside). The former on Religious Fesitvals in Southeast
Asia and the latter on Cartography, Sacred Space, and
Buddhism. Please see the details below (also posted on
tlc.ucr.edu):

1) Local Practice and Transnational Dynamic in Mainland
Southeast Asian Religion: Historical and Contemporary Patterns 
CKS Conference Hall, Siem Reap, February 23-24, 2007

Arising from the Rockefeller Foundation-funded CKS program
Building
Institutional Capacity in Higher Education in Cambodia, where
early
career Cambodian academics studied and researched Comparative
Religion
of Mainland Southeast Asia, this conference will provide a
forum in
which these academics can present their research alongside
international
scholars with related interests.

In Southeast Asia, as in the rest of the world, religion has
become a more and more salient issue as transnational
movements of people, economies and culture break down
traditional assumptions about the modern secular nation state.
 We invite scholars to take a fresh look at
religion in the new social context.  How well have Buddhism,
Islam and Christianity weathered the Communist and
post-Communist eras? How are they affected by religious and
secular influences from abroad? What has been the impact of
evangelical Christianity, and how have Cambodians and other
Southeast Asians reacted to it? How many young persons pursue
a religious vocation, even for a short time? What do young
people in urban areas believe, and what effect, if any, does
religious teaching have on their behavior? What historical
roots do current transnational patterns have? How is religious
"tradition" remembered and reconstructed in the
new social context? And finally, what comparisons can be made
between what is happening in Cambodia and in neighboring
countries (Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, and Burma)? These are only
a few of the questions that could be addressed in what would
ideally lay the foundation for a long-term, multi-disciplinary
study, utilizing a regional approach which identifies and
compares cross-border networks and patterns.  

The emphasis will be on developing comparisons between
Cambodia and other countries in Southeast Asia, presented by
individuals or in panel sessions.   

This two-day conference will involve early career Cambodian
academics from the CKS program, and up to twenty-five other
presenters.   It will be run in collaboration with Cambodian
partner universities.

Scholars based in Southeast Asia are especially encouraged to
participate, and some limited funding may be available to
support their
attendance. 

CKS hopes to disseminate selected papers through its website
or a print
publication.

Please submit titles, short abstracts (300 words maximum) and
contact
details to cheanmen at khmerstudies.org by Friday, November 24, 2006.

Registration fee: US$50 due on first day of conference ($25
for students
with ID and free for scholars and students from mainland Southeast
Asia).


2) Religious Festivals in Southeast Asia (university of
California, Riverside):
Religious Festival in Contemporary Southeast Asia

In celebration of its commencement, the academic program
Southeast Asian Text, Ritual, and Performance (SEATRiP) of the
University of California, Riverside will organize a conference
entitled, “Religious Festival in Contemporary Southeast Asia,”
on February 16-18, 2007 in Riverside. The conference will
explore festivals as embodied narratives in which the
connections between religion and nationalism, globality and
locality, tourism and politics are drawn, urgent issues that
invite careful unfoldings in Southeast Asian Studies today.
Our ideas for this conference are steered by two complementary
assumptions. Firstly, religious festivals are pivotal events
in the life of a local community, no matter how heterogeneous
itself. Secondly, in spite of its differences, Southeast Asia
is tied together by certain commonalities, and a discussion of
religious festivals could make a substantial contribution to
determining these commonalities.

In order to make the conference lively and focused—to be
commemorated by the publication of a volume of interconnected
essays—participants are invited to address some of the
following issues and questions:

    * Religious festivals are concentrated moments of
communality and expressions of a community’s faith. However,
they are also a means of empowering political and economic
networks. What is the nature of the intersection of the sacred
and the secular in religious festivals celebrated in Southeast
Asia today?


    * Increasingly inherent to religious festivals are the
concerns of the tourist industry: religious festivals are
actively employed for tourist consumption. In this process of
touristification, issues of authenticity, locality, and
heritage have become more prominent, but also more problematic.


    * Religious festivals often foreground narratives of
various sorts, which are stories of origins and beginnings.
Performative activities such as dancing, singing, chanting,
procession, and theatrical presentations, i.e the central
elements in every festival, are embodiments of these
narratives, evoking those very beginnings in a continuous
cycle. How do these embodiments occur?


    * Religious festivals are extraordinary occasions in
which, among many other things, gender is played out and
displayed in public. How are festivals gendered in
contemporary Southeast Asia?


    * Festivals are by nature repetitive, and repetitions are
by definition a process of similarities and differentiations.
A discussion of any festival necessarily implies articulation
and a distinct interest in shifts and changes over time.

Kindly email your title and abstract (not to exceed 2 pages,
double spaced), no later than 15 July 2006 to:

Dr. Patrick Alcedo
Program for Southeast Asian Studies
Department of Comparative Literature and Foreign Languages
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
patrickalcedo at gmail.com

If you have additional questions and concerns, please do not
hesitate to contact him.

Patrick Alcedo
Hendrik M.J. Maier
Sally Ann Ness
(Conference Organizers and Editors)

3) The Map and the World: Call for Proposals

Conference:
“The Map and the World”

February 18th, 2007 (with a follow up conference in Bangkok
June 22-23)
University of California (Riverside)

This conference is designed for creative and provocative
papers (we especially encourage graduate students to apply)
crossing several disciplines. The conference is a one day
small workshop which will serve as a prelude to a larger
conference to take place in Bangkok in June 2007. These
conferences are both sponsored by the PACRIM program of the
University of California. 

Papers are invited from those working in religion, history,
art, and cartography that re-examine images of the universe
through the lens of Buddhist cosmology.  These images may
include maps, diagrams, art or artifacts that embody spatial
representations created in Buddhist terms. We are interested
in not only traditional depictions of cosmology, but also
material objects which attempt to re-map and re-center on the
body and in the world. Topics may explore
Buddhist concepts but are also encouraged to seek the changes,
cross-influences, and conflicts arising from Buddhist contact
with non-Buddhist forms and perspectives.  Proposals that
engage questions related to historical or contemporary
technologies of spatial representation will be considered, and
may address a range of forms: printed and painted maps,
architectural forms, monuments, murals, fabrics, steles,
calendars, horoscopes, inscriptions, amulets, tattoo,
astrological and tantric diagrams. Through the varied
responses and examples arising in a range of Buddhist
traditions, participants hope to trace
the shifting negotiation of evolving understandings.

Proposals of up to 300 words, together with CV, email,
address, phone, and fax information, should be sent by email
to Program Co-chairs at the following addresses.  Limited
support may be available for qualified graduate student
participants.

Justin McDaniel, University of California, Riverside
Email: justinm at ucr.edu
and
Pattaratorn Chirapravati, California State University, Sacramento
Email: pchirapravati at csus.edu

Proposals due: November 1, 2006
Acceptance Notification: November 15th, 2006

Thanks,
justin



______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
951-827-4530
justinm at ucr.edu