CEIB 2023 Spring Conferences, May 9-19

Event organized by the Centre d'études interdisciplinaires sur le Bouddhisme (CEIB), the Institut français de recherche sur l'Asie de l'Est - IFRAE (Inalco-Université Paris Cité-CNRS) and the Conseil scientifique de l'Inalco and supported by the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation.

Tuesday 9, Wednesday 10, Thursday 11 and Friday 19 May 2023 at Inalco
Pôle des langues et civilisations (PLC) - 65, rue des Grands Moulins - 75013 Paris
Maison de la recherche- 2, rue de Lille - 75007 Paris

PROGRAMME:
Tuesday, May 9, 2023 - 09:30-12:30 - Auditorium Dumézil
Maison de la recherche - 2, rue de Lille - 75007 Paris
Required registration via this form.

Conferences

Conferences organized as part of the cycle Mapping Networks of Modern Chinese Buddhism: Emerging Patterns and Centralities - 圖繪近現代漢傳佛教網絡：多模式與多中心的興起" thanks to support from the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation.

9:30am - 10:45am: Opening Lecture

• On the Use of Formal Network Analysis for the Study of Chinese Buddhism

by Marcus Bingenheimer (Temple University)
Associate Professor of Religion at Temple University. He taught Buddhism and Digital Humanities in Taiwan, and held visiting positions at Dongguk University (Seoul), Nagoya University, Chulalongkorn University (Bangkok), the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris), Thammasat University (Bangkok), and the National University of Singapore. Since 2001, he has supervised numerous projects concerning the digitization of Buddhist culture. His main research interests are Buddhist history and historiography, early sutra literature, and how to apply computational approaches to research in the Humanities. He has written and edited a handful of books and some sixty articles.

11:00 - 12:30: Yin-Cheng Distinguished Lecture Series on Buddhism

• Studying the Buddha Abroad: Overseas Chinese Students and Buddhist Networks in the United States

by Gareth Fisher (Syracuse University)

Gareth Fisher received his PhD in socio-cultural anthropology from the University of Virginia in 2006. He is currently Associate Professor of Religion and Anthropology at Syracuse University. His research concerns the revival of Buddhism in 21 st century China, focusing on two main projects. The first of these explores how laid-off workers in China's capital Beijing during the early 2000s converted to Buddhism to gain new moral purpose in urban Chinese society following its abrupt economic transition from a planned socialist to a market-based economy. The second focuses on how urban-based lay practitioners and monastics construct new temples throughout mainland China as places to enact their moral visions for social reform. It explores how this new temple construction aims at creatively redrawing the lines between religion and secularity in China today. He is the recipient of two Fulbright fellowships as well as research fellowships at Yale University and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity.

Conference moderated by Pan Junliang (Université Paris Cité)

Pan Juliang received his PhD in Religious Science from École Pratique des Hautes Études in 2013. He is currently an associate professor of history at the Université Paris Cité. His research focuses on Chinese popular religion, Daoism and Religions of overseas Chinese. His recent publications include Wenzhou daojiao shi 溫州道教史 (2022) and Le médiumnisme wenzhou en contexte diasporique: continuité et adaptation (2023).

Workshop

2:00 pm - 5:30 pm: Using the Historical Social Network of Chinese Buddhism in Gephi

by Marcus Bingenheimer (Temple University)

The first half of the workshop will introduce Gephi (gephi.org), which is a popular open source network analysis tool widely used in the Digital Humanities. ln the second half of the workshop we will explore the Historical Network of Chinese Buddhism with the help of Gephi. The data for the Historical Network of Chinese Buddhism, which is available online, contains more than 18K people that appear in Chinese Buddhist sources and their relationships, spanning the time from c.150 to c.1900 CE. With it it is now possible to visualize and analyze social relationships in Chinese Buddhism from the ego-network level of an individual, to larger dynamics across generations.

After the workshop attendees will know how to find their way around Gephi and use the Historical Network of Chinese Buddhism for their research. They will be able to identify persons in the network, understand how to trace connections back to primary sources, visualize ego-networks, and enrich the dataset with their own data.

Wednesday, May 10, 2023 - 2:00-4:00 pm - Auditorium Dumézil
Maison de la recherche - 2, rue de Lille - 75007 Paris

Closing lecture: Double Secularization: Toward a Theory of Space, Discourse, and Sociality in Contemporary Chinese Buddhism

by Gareth Fisher (Syracuse University)

Conferences as part of IFRAE's Axis 3 "Histoire et sociologie du fait religieux en Asie de l'Est"

"Histoire et sociologie du fait religieux en Asie de l'Est"

Thursday, May 11, 2023 - 6:30pm-7:30pm - PLC - room 3.03
Inalco - 65, rue des Grands Moulins - 75013 Paris

• The Cultural Practice of Educated Youths in Chinese Buddhism

by Chi Shuai 迟帅 (Nankai University)

Conference in English

This case study of a Chan community in China aims at the exposition of the complicated relationship between the religious and cultural orientation of the Buddhist community, and situates it in a larger context of religious change in China. I specify the tension between the community and its surroundings, describe the internal structure of the community, and analyze how the educated youths involved regulate the boundaries between cultural knowledge and religious faith and practice. This article finds that in addition to the external display of the religious symbols, it is more essential to ascertain the integration between the cultural absorption and religious practice in the analysis of the religious change.

Friday, May 19, 2023 - 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm - Salon Borel
Maison de la recherche - 2, rue de Lille - 75007 Paris

• 由寂而照：社会变迁中的大理寂照庵 / From Tranquility (ji 寂) to Illumination (zhao 照): Jizhao Temple in the Context of Social Changes

by Xuan Fang 宣方 (Renmin University of China)

Conference in Chinese with English presentation

Jizhao Temple, which name means tranquility and illumination, is located in Cangshan Mountain of Dali Prefecture, Yunnan Province. It was established in the early years of Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and was rebuilt in 1919 by Yunnan Governor Tang Jiyao. Its status as a Buddhist temple resumed in the early 1980s when it changed from a monastery into a nunnery. Since then, it remains in tranquility and silence as its name implies. Meanwhile, with the vigorous growth of mobile internet and we-media, it has suddenly become an internet sensation almost overnight and was titled "the most beautiful nunnery", and "the best temple of petty bourgeoisie taste". Based on interviews with the abbot of Jizhao temple, Ven. Miaohui, and from speaking with lay Buddhists and some other local senior monks, this article tries to sketch out the process of its transformation, sociocultural contexts， and subsequent effects as well.

The speech looks back to four related sociocultural factors in historical order: firstly, the common cultural memory of local people who cherish Cangshan mountain and the temples around it as the soul of local culture. Secondly, the romantic imagination constructed by popular novels and mass media about Dali Buddhism, which in turn reshaped the recovery process of local temples. Thirdly, the utopic fantasy of reclusive hermits beyond the state control, held by immigratory artists and dissidents. Fourthly, the changed religious ecologic pattern with the large influx of new Buddhist residents, driven by the apocalyptic prophecy of a famous monk. Although all the above factors contribute to the sudden fame of Jizhao Temple, two key events should be emphasized: the temple's elaborate reconstruction in 2012 and the subsequent voluntary advertisement through we-media, which exposed this small nunnery to the whole country in an explosive style. This sudden exposure to mobile internet changed Jizhao Temple in many ways and subsequently brought out many unexpected effects.

This presentation ends with a reflective discussion on the tension between the multiplicity of objectification and subjectivity of Jizhao Temple as well as the self-identity of the nuns who reside there.