LECTURER:
Jack Meng-Tat Chia (National University of Singapore)
DATE:
November 12, 2021 (Friday)
16:30-18:00 (JST)
Please register below for the Zoom link:
https://bit.ly/chia-lecture
(deadline: Nov. 12, 10 AM, JST)
※ The Lecture will be in English
ABSTRACT:
Chinese Buddhists have never remained stationary. They have always been on the move. Why did Buddhist monks migrate from China to Southeast Asia? How did they participate in transregional Buddhist networks across the South China Sea? In this talk, Chia will tell us the story of “South China Sea Buddhism,” referring to a Buddhism that emerged from a swirl of correspondence networks, forced exiles, voluntary visits, evangelizing missions, institution-building campaigns, and organizational efforts of countless Chinese and Chinese diasporic Buddhist monks. Drawing on multilingual research conducted in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, Chia challenges the conventional categories of “Chinese Buddhism” and “Southeast Asian Buddhism” by focusing on the lesser-known—yet no less significant—Chinese Buddhist communities of maritime Southeast Asia. By crossing the artificial spatial frontier between China and Southeast Asia, this talk brings Southeast Asia into the study of Chinese Buddhism and Chinese Buddhism into the study of Southeast Asia.
ABOUT THE LECTURER:
Jack Meng-Tat Chia is Assistant Professor of History and Religious Studies at the National University of Singapore. His research focuses on Buddhism and Chinese popular religion in Southeast Asia, transnational Buddhism, and Sino-Southeast Asian interactions. His first book, Monks in Motion: Buddhism and Modernity Across the South China Sea (Oxford, 2020), won the 2021 EuroSEAS Humanities Book Prize. He has also published articles in journals such as Archipel, Asian Ethnology, China Quarterly, Contemporary Buddhism, History of Religions, and the Journal of Chinese Religions. He is currently working on two book projects: Beyond the Borobudur: Buddhism in Postcolonial Indonesia and Diplomatic Dharma: Buddhist Diplomacy in Modern Asia.
For more information, please contact klautau@tohoku.ac.jp
