The Text in the Image, The Image in the Text: Texts on Consecrating Images and Texts from Consecrated Images (seminar)

Prof. James Robson (Harvard University)

Abstract:

In the seminar we will look carefully at two different types of primary sources in Chinese. The first texts to be introduced and discussed include those that describe—or provide instructions for—the consecration of Buddhist statues. The second type of materials will be manuscript and print versions of materials from the insides of statues. During the seminar we will assess the format, language, and content of those sources through a close reading and translation of a selection of manuscripts.

Speaker Biography

James Robson 羅柏松 is the James C. Kralik and Yunli Lou Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University, the Victor and William Fung Director of the Harvard University Asia Center, and the Director of the Regional Studies East Asia (RSEA) Program. In 2020, he was named a Harvard College Professor for his contributions to undergraduate teaching. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University, after spending many years doing research in China, Taiwan, and Japan. He previously taught at Williams College and the University of Michigan and was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. He specializes in the history of Chinese Buddhism and Daoism. He is the author of the Power of Place: The Religious Landscape of the Southern Sacred Peak [Nanyue 南嶽] in Medieval China (Harvard University Press, 2009), which was awarded the Stanislas Julien Prize awarded by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres and the Toshihide Numata Prize in Buddhist Studies. He has also published widely on topics ranging from sacred geography and local religious history to the historical development of Chan/Zen Buddhism. His current research includes a long-term project on the history of the confluence of Buddhist monasteries and mental hospitals in Japan. He is the editor of the Norton Anthology of World Religions: Daoism; the co-editor of Images, Relics, and Legends–The Formation and Transformation of Buddhist Sacred Sites and Buddhist Monasticism in East Asia: Places of Practice; and is currently completing the “Sui-Tang Buddhism” chapter for the Cambridge History of China: Volume 4, Sui and T’ang China, 618-907, Part II and a book entitled The Daodejing: A Biography for the Princeton University Press series on the "Lives of Great Religious Books." He is currently the co-editor of T’oung-Pao .

Organiser: SOAS Centre of Buddhist Studies

Contact email: yl33@soas.ac.uk

Sponsor: The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation