The Department of Religious Studies at Duke University is hosting a one-day graduate conference on February 26, 2016. The topic of the conference is “Across Time and Space: Religious Transmission in Cross-Cultural and Cross-Generational Contexts.” Abstract deadline: November 30th.
Keynote speaker: Charles Hallisey, Yehan Numata Senior Lecturer on Buddhist Literatures at Harvard Divinity School, will speak on “Turning Inheritances into Legacies: Understanding Transmission in Religion and Appreciating Transmission in the Study of Religion.” Dr. Hallisey’s research centers on Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, Pali language and literature, Buddhist ethics, and literature in Buddhist culture.
The organizers invite Masters students across disciplines to submit proposals pertaining to transmission within religious contexts. While transmission encompasses such formal and institutional practices as the transmission of lineage, scripture, and authority within a tradition, Across Time and Space will examine this conception alongside less codified forms of transmission, whether in the form of collective memories and identity moving across generations or in the reception of religious stories, practices, or ideas across cultures. How do such processes of transmission renew or create relationships across their transformations, and how is the process itself imagined by those who participate in it? What medias and technologies are used or resisted in such transmissions, and how does the transmission’s form affect its content?
Accepted speakers will be accommodated for two nights at a local hotel and will be reimbursed for flights to the conference (US domestic flights only). Please send abstracts no longer than 300 words, a list of key terms, and a one-page CV to susannah.duerrATduke.edu and aliza.greenbergATduke.edu on or before November 30th. Presentations of papers will be limited to 20 minutes each. Participants will be notified of their acceptance on December 10th, and final papers must be submitted by January 26, 2016.