[INDOLOGY] Call for proposals for AAR Seminar on "Language, Poiesis, and Buddhist Experiments with the Possible" is now open.

[Roy Tzohar]

[with apologies for cross-posting]



Dear friends and colleagues,



We are excited to announce that the 2023 call for proposals for our AAR
Seminar on Language, Poiesis, and Buddhist Experiments with the Possible is
now open.



You can find our seminar CFP here
<https://papers.aarweb.org/pu/language-poiesis-and-buddhist-experiments-possible-seminar>.
All proposals must be submitted through PAPERS <https://papers.aarweb.org/>.
The deadline is *Wednesday, March 1, 2023, 5:00 PM Eastern Standard
Time. *Detailed
instructions are provided in the full call
<https://papers.aarweb.org/sites/default/files/general/2023_Call_for_Papers.pdf>;
please consult it carefully for information about procedures (and please
note the limits on the number of appearances – one can only appear on the
program two times in any capacity). For your convenience, we are also
pasting the call below.



Best wishes,

Nancy Lin and Roy Tzohar (co-chairs)



*Seminar description*

Our seminar investigates, over the course of five years, the poiesis of
language—its capacity to create, bring into existence, and shape worlds,
selves, and our shared sense of reality. To better grasp this potential of
language, we approach Buddhist textual engagement foremost in terms of
experiments with the possibilities of language (rather than under given
textual categories, genre distinctions, tropes, etc.) and examine how these
have contributed to making the form and content of Buddhism itself, along
with adjacent traditions. In doing so we emphasize that both content and
modes of expression should be examined as inextricably involved in the
process by which Buddhism took on its distinctive character as well as its
sense of what is possible. We approach literary forms as an environment
that enables Buddhists to find their voice, subject matter, style, and
self-representation.



*For the 2023 AAR Annual Meeting we invite proposals on the theme*:

*Practices for transforming the real: language, imagination, and scholarly
modes of engagement*

This year, we seek to generate a mutually informing dialogue between
Buddhist linguistic practices for making and transforming self and world,
and scholarly modes of engagement with those practices. What relationships
among language, imagination, and the real do Buddhist texts imply and
enable? And what techniques for making or transforming self and world do
these relationships make conceivable and practicable?

Conversely, how do scholars recognize when and how Buddhist texts are
deployed to shape the real, and how might our answers to such questions
change how we engage with Buddhist texts? As we seek to question the
scholarly assumptions we inherit and inhabit, how might Buddhist practices
involving language expand our imaginative and critical resources? How might
we develop alternative modes of interpretation so as to encounter Buddhist
texts in new ways?

*We invite proposals that aim to address these questions through leading a
close reading of a selection from a Buddhist primary text *(we include both
written and oral forms of language) *or a text from an adjacent tradition* that
offers resources for reconsidering methods and approaches to Buddhist
language.

*In your proposal*, *please identify clearly the textual selection you
propose to read (and submit an excerpt) and demonstrate its relevance to
the theme*.

*Format: *

The format for 2023 will be a close-reading workshop taking place over two
consecutive 90-minute sessions, divided by a half-hour break.

· Presenters will not give a paper; instead, they will introduce and lead a
close reading of their text that addresses the seminar questions and theme
outlined above, engaging in discussion with designated respondents and the
audience along the way. Ample time will be devoted to each text selected to
permit sustained discussion.

· Presenters will be required: 1) to precirculate their text excerpt and
any supporting materials to all formal seminar participants (steering
committee, respondents, and other presenters); 2) to post in advance via
the AAR platform both a brief introduction to their text and their textual
excerpt (in one or more languages, as germane to the text in question) and
an English translation (unless the text was composed in English), which can
be accessed by all AAR 2023 attendees; and 3) to display their text (and
translation, if applicable) via the available AV setup or handouts.

· Collaborative work is encouraged and will be given special consideration.

· We plan to designate at least two respondents for every text. *If you are
interested in responding to a workshop text, please submit a proposal
*specifying
that you are interested in a respondent role, and briefly explaining your
interest in our seminar theme and questions.

· Our seminar is committed to fostering diversity in terms of race,
ethnicity, gender, rank, institutions, etc. and these issues will be given
special consideration.


Deadline:
*All proposals should be submitted via **PAPERS*
<https://papers.aarweb.org/user>* anytime until Wednesday, March 1, 2023,
5:00 PM Eastern Standard Time when the CFP closes. *



--

R O Y   T Z O H A R, Ph.D.
Associate Professor

Department of East Asian Studies

Tel Aviv University

https://en-humanities.tau.ac.il/profile/roytzo
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