Friday
November 30, 2012


CJRC Gender and Ideology in Japanese Religious Life Project presents:

Japanese Buddhist Nuns and Performance: 
Tradition, Change, and Salvation
A Workshop  

Please RSVP to cjrc@dornsife.usc.edu to reserve your spot!

TIME: 2:00pm - 6:00pm
LOCATION: East Asian Seminar Room (110C), Doheny Memorial Library, USC

Conference Convenor: Lori Meeks (USC)
Presenters: Barbara Ambros (UNC-Chapel Hill) and Hank Glassman(Haverford College)

How have Japanese women interpreted and transmitted the teachings of Buddhism, a tradition whose orthodox texts privilege male practitioners? This one-day workshop will use two case studies to consider some of the hermeneutical strategies employed by Buddhist nuns in teaching and ritual. 

Hank Glassman’s paper, ”The Creation of a Children’s Limbo in Late Medieval Kyoto: sai no kawara, the five-element pagoda, and  the collective dead,” will examine the teaching methods of traveling female teachers known as Kumano bikuni. 

Barbara Ambros’ paper, ”Gender Bending and Gender Affirmation: A Performance of the Anan Kōshiki at a Contemporary Sōtō Zen Convent,” will focus on interpretative strategies at work in contemporary Sōtō nuns’ commemorations of Ānanda, the disciple of the Buddha said to have convinced the Buddha to allow women into his order.

(Source: dornsife.usc.edu)