International Conference

Buddhism and Technology: Historical Background and Contemporary Challenges

UBC, September 20-22, 2019

The organizing committee for the international conference on “Buddhism and Technology: Historical Background and Contemporary Challenges” cordially invites the submission of related papers. The conference is sponsored by the Tianzhu Global Network for Buddhism and East Asian Culture, and organized by the project From the Ground Up (www.frogbear.org) based at the University of British Columbia. The conference will be held September 20-22, 2019 at the University of British Columbia.

Science and religion are, by and large, presented to have different missions, and different paths to fulfill them: Science emphasizes rationality and empiricism, whereas religion values emotion and faith. Science is said to be unconcerned about taboos and the sacred, while religion exalts in mystery. The Enlightenment movement in the early modern period is often understood in opposition to the “darkness” of the middle ages when religion was the hegemonial discourse in Europe. In East Asia, a similar view has at times been adopted towards Buddhism: it has been considered as an inhibiting force that forestalled the progress of science. Recent research, however, has highlighted cases where Buddhists played an instrumental role in the evolution of science. It is time to re-evaluate Buddhism’s impact during the pre-modern period. Was Buddhism really the nemesis of science and technology, or did Buddhism and science co-exist in a symbiotic and complementary relationship?

The conference proposes the following (but not exclusive) topics:

  • Buddhism and technology: Distinctions, commonalities and interactions, in the past, present and future;
  • Synchronization or desynchronization: The diffusion of science and Buddhism in Asia;
  • Change in the medium and religious change, with a focus on the evolution of Buddhism in Asia;
  • Buddhism and Technological Innovation: Historical Case Studies;
  • Between Faith and Rationality: Monk Scientists;
  • Buddhism and Technological Innovation: Ideas and Philosophy;
  • Opportunities and Threats of Artificial Intelligence, from the Perspective of Buddhist Thought.
  • Uses of Computational Methods for the Study of East Asian Buddhism.

Local transportation, meals and accommodation during the conference period, will be covered by the conference organizers, who—depending on availability of funding—may also provide a travel subsidy to selected panelists. Please email proposals and CVs to frogbear.project@ubc.ca by April 15, 2019. English and Chinese volumes with the conference proceedings will be published speedily after the conference. Only scholars who are confident in finishing their draft papers by early September and publishable papers by the end of 2019 are encouraged to apply. This announcement can also be viewed in your browser: http://frogbear.org/buddhism-and-technology-historical-background-and-contemporary-challenges/