A group of high-level academics gathered at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver from 7–9 July for a symposium entitled “Buddhist Studies Today.” Fourteen PhD students, all first dissertation fellows of The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studies, joined several prominent Buddhist scholars to discuss their research and the development of Buddhist Studies around the world.
Arvind Gupta, president, University of BC. From news.ubc.ca
Arvind Gupta, president of the University of British Columbia, and Ted Lipman, chief executive officer of The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation, gave a welcoming address and introductory remarks. These were followed by a keynote speech, “Prospects for an International Network of Buddhist Studies,” by Prof. Donald Lopez, Arthur E. Link distinguished university professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at the University of Michigan.
Mr. Lipman noted the significance of this first meeting of all fellows and praised the choice of Vancouver for the city’s conducive natural environment and demographic profile.
“I would think that the percentage of Buddhists here, versus what’s there in other North American cities, would probably be quite high,” he said. “I think that the people here would be interested in something that’s very important to the development of the study of Buddhism, and that Vancouver has a part to play in that process.” (The Vancouver Sun)
He added that Buddhist teachings could provide valuable “insights on contemporary issues such as environmental protection and regional conflict resolution.”
Arvind Gupta, president, University of BC. From news.ubc.ca
The event was organized by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), a New York-based non-profit organization, and sponsored by The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation. The symposium follows the launch last year of The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Buddhist philosophy grants for scholars, including those working on PhD dissertations. The ACLS, a private federation of several scholarly organizations mostly based in the United States, handles the recipient selection process for the foundation.
Dr. Pauline Yu, president of the ACLS, who was also a speaker, said of the symposium and the grantees: “These are people who are just finishing an entire year immersed in their studies, and this [symposium] gives them a chance to get out of the library and talk about their work, where others can provide comments and suggestions. It helps them sharpen their focus [on their research topics], and that is extremely valuable.” (The Vancouver Sun)
The attending panelists included Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation 2015 fellows Douglas Gildow and Jin Kyoung Choi.
Mr. Gildow, a fellow from the Department of Religion at Princeton University, discussed his dissertation “Educating Chinese Buddhist Monastics in the People’s Republic of China: Seminaries, Academia, and the State,” in which he studies the development and influence of modern seminary education on Buddhist monasticism in China.
From the Ludwig Maximilians Universität München, Ms. Choi spoke on her dissertation project to transliterate from Sanskrit three sutras of the Dirghagama (a collection of long discourses of the Buddha), transmitted by the (Mula-) Sarvastivadins, a powerful Buddhist school in ancient India.
The three-day symposium concluded with a roundtable discussion during which senior scholars assessed the future of the field of Buddhist Studies and offered new perspectives.
One of the prominent academics attending the event, Guang Xing, associate professor at the University of Hong Kong’s Centre of Buddhist Studies, noted that interest in Buddhism in Hong Kong was high, with about 90 master’s students enrolling in the school annually, and he pointed to similar potential for Buddhist Studies in Vancouver’s universities.