Category: Symposium

All Under Heaven – Symposium

Dear SACP Members and Friends,

Here are some details regarding an upcoming hybrid event that may be of interest (and flyer attached).

Join Joseph Harroff (American University), Tao Jiang (Rutgers University), Sarah Flavel (Bath Spa University, UK & SACP President) and Viren Murthy (University Wisconsin-Madison) as they discuss the recent translation of Zhao Tingyang’s creative reconstruction of a Zhou conception of the world political for critically theorizing contemporary global predicaments.

Together they will discuss and respond to All under Heaven: The Tianxia System for a Possible World Order – arguably one of the most highly influential political-theoretical treatises in contemporary China. This work has received significant attention across the Chinese intellectual scene.

Zhao’s work has been criticised both for what might look like an endorsement of a new form of Chinese-led global imperialism (through soft-power) as well as for its arguable lack of realism about whether such coordination between humans at the global level is possible. But read more sympathetically however, some of Zhao’s ideas could provide resources and perhaps new hope for rethinking the fate or our future political and environmental security, not as nations but as humans and even as an earth – as Tianxia: ‘all under the skies/heavens’.

Register here

All under Heaven PDF

Translating Sanskrit Buddhist Philosophy for the Philosophy Curriculum

https://csr.princeton.edu/events/2022/translating-buddhist-philosophy

 

A symposium focused on a new translation of Vasubandhu’s Twenty Verses and Exposition

In North America today, philosophers are aware of and often respectful of non-canonical philosophical traditions, but still, Buddhist philosophical texts are taught almost exclusively in Religion departments. Perhaps the problem is partly one of translation.

The Vasubandhu Translation Group (VTG) has sought to create texts that can be dropped into a non-specialist’s philosophy course: This includes their recently-completed draft translation of the 5th century Indian Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu’s Twenty Verses and Exposition (Viṃśikāvṛtti). So, we’ve provided the draft to ten Philosophy professors and asked them each to provide their thoughts in response to the following question: “Can you imagine a place for a text like this in a philosophy curriculum?”

Has the VTG succeeded in producing a translation that might fit into a philosophy course? If not, why not? What works and what doesn’t? What’s left to do? What kinds of contextualization, justification, translation choices, notes/apparatus, or disciplinary changes would be necessary to grant this text—or other Buddhist philosophical texts—a week in a course? Answers to these questions have ramifications beyond the text in question and beyond Buddhist philosophy. The six members of the VTG will participate in conversation with the presenters.

A keynote by one of the translators, Parimal Patil (Harvard University) will follow the day’s conversations. His talk is entitled “Philosophy, Philosophers, and Buddhist Scholastic Texts (Śāstra).” Another member of the VTG, Trina Janiec Jones, will be discussant after the talk.

Register for the symposium Zoom meeting.

Schedule

9-10:30am Panel 1 Jonathan Gold, moderator
Harvey Lederman
Gabriel Citron
Susanna Siegel

10:30-11:00am break

11am-12:45pm Panel 2 Hagop Sarkissian, moderator
Elliot Paul
Akeel Bilgrami
Dan Garber
Andrew Chignell

12:45-2:00pm Lunch

2:00-3:30pm Panel 3 Jonathan Gold, moderator
Alex Guerrero
Mark Johnston
Allison Aitken

3:30-4:00pm Break

4:00-5:00pm Panel 4: Translators’ panel (general discussion) Nataliya Yanchevskaya, moderator
Jonathan Gold
Parimal Patil
Trina Janiec Jones
Mario D’Amato
Dan Arnold
Richard Nance

5:00-7:00pm Dinner

7:00-8:45pm Keynote
Parimal Patil, “Philosophy, Philosophers and Buddhist Scholastic Texts (Śāstra)” Trina Janiec Jones, respondent