Zoom Link: https://scrippscollege.zoom.us/j/95229622532

Please join us for a conversation with Professor Matthew King (University of California at Riverside) about his new book about the many lives of Faxian’s Foguo ji. The talk will focus on the possibilities for thinking about more global histories for the humanities. Professor King draws on indigenous methods, the critical Asian humanities, feminist critiques, and also deorientalising and deimperializing scholarship in Islamic Studies.

In the Forest of the Blind is a rather experimental history of the connected discovery and interpretation of Faxian’s Foguo ji by Orientalists in Paris and Siberia, and by Buddhist monk historians in Mongolia and Tibet. I am trying to write an anti-field history, which foregoes the linearity of intellectual history (especially field history) for a model of centerless exchange in which the humanities were made and unmade in circulation. Specifically, I am exploring the debts of Europe’s first monograph on “Buddhist Asia” (Abel-Rémusat’s 1836 translation and study of Faxian’s Foguo ji) to 18th century Qing encyclopedia and language ideologies (including those produced by Mongols like Gombojab). And then the circulation of Abel-Rémusat’s translation into Inner Asia, where between the 1840s-1960s it was translated into entirely new frames in monastic history and the like that undid the Orientalist scaffolding of Abel-Rémusat’s study and reimagined Faxian’s ancient walking instead as an extension of Qing world historical order, an emergent nationalism, and the Tibetan refugee experience.

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Lisa Reihana (Ngāpuhi, Ngātihine, Ngāi Tu) is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice spans film, sculpture, costume and body adornment, text and photography. Since the 1990s Reihana has significantly influenced the development of contemporary art and contemporary Māori art in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Matua Rereata Makiha (Te Mahurehure, Ngati Pakau, Ngai Tuteauru, Te Arawa, Rangitane) is a renowned Māori astrologer and a leading authority on the Maramataka (Māori lunar calendar). Rereata shares his extensive knowledge as a cultural adviser, having held roles at the Auckland Council as a kaiārahi tikanga Māori and Kaumātua at the University of Auckland Business School.

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A Lecture on Indian Thought
The Foundations of Buddhist Teaching and their Philosophical Implications

Dr Miri Albahari is a Philosophy Lecturer at the University of Western Australia and is the author of Analytical Buddhism: The Two-Tiered Illusion of Self. The book was converted from a Ph.D thesis that was supervised by John A. Baker at the University of Calgary. Miri teaches comparative philosophy and is building a novel consciousness-based metaphysical system for what Aldous Huxley referred to as ‘the Perennial Philosophy’. Albahari’s ideas on this theme have been published in journals such as Philosophers’ Imprint and Journal of Consciousness Studies and in The Routledge Handbook of Panpsychism. She is married to David Godman, a leading author on the renowned South Indian sage Ramana Maharshi whose teachings exemplify the Perennial Philosophy.

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Thursday, February 11, 2021 4:00-5:30 PM
Via Zoom
https://scrippscollege.zoom.us/j/93278166996

In the Shade of Power: The Power to the Powerless

A general political problem is how to balance the need for concentrated power in the hand of the state — needed for effective governance — against the egalitarian desire to equalize power. Post-colonial African politics has generally regarded those aims as excluding each other. Professor Ajume Wingo argues that there is an august tradition in Africa of seeing political power otherwise. Drawing on the political traditions established by Ngonnso, a Princess who founded the state of Nso in Cameroon in the 14th century, Professor Wingo distinguishes between “positive” political power appropriately wielded by the state, and “negative” power that individuals may use to protect their own activities and interests. He argues that by distinguishing between these two types of political power, and by examining how Ngonnso’s constitutional principles help to develop and channel those types of power, we can see how Ngonnso laid the groundwork for an effective state responsive to the needs and demands of its least powerful citizens. According to Ngonnso we should not destroy our royalty rather we should make every woman into a queen and every man into a prince. This is a new outlook to political power that also suggests how existing non-democratic political traditions could help in democratization.

Dr. AJUME H. WINGO is an Associate Professor of Political Philosophy; Associate Director of the Center for Values and Social Policies; and the Director of the Law and Philosophy Program at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He hails from Cameroon. He attended the Cameroon College of Arts, Science and Technology where he studied Economics, Geography and History. He also attended the University of Yaounde, Cameroon where he studied law at the Faculty of Law and Economics. He obtained his BA from the University of California Berkeley and an MA and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He did his Postdoctoral Research at Harvard and Boston Universities. He is the author of Veil Politics in Liberal Democratic States published by Cambridge University Press. He is currently working on two book manuscripts entitled In the Shade of Power and The Path for the Perplexed: The Peril of Leadercentrism in African Politics.

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Thursday, November 12 | 4:00PM
Sebastian Purcell (SUNY Cortland) presents
The Aztec’s ‘Tri-Partite Soul’ and It’s Ethical Implications

Sebastian Purcell’s research recovers the ancient wisdom of Greek and Aztec philosophy to help us lead better, happier lives. Venues as diverse as the BBC, Business Insider, and Aeon have featured or covered his work. He lives in upstate New York, where he directs the Honors Program at SUNY Cortland.

Link to join Webinar:

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Thursday, November 5  |  4:00PM
Sin yee Chan (University of Vermont) presents
Self Realization in Confucianism and Daoism

Sin yee Chan’s research interests are in the areas of Chinese philosophy, ethics, and the emotions. She employs the tools of analytical philosophy to analyze, criticize and develop Chinese ethical ideas, especially those of ancient Confucian philosophers such as Mencius and Confucius himself. She is especially interested in the relationship between the emotions and morality, for instance, in the motivational role of the emotions in moral action.

Link to join Webinar:

https://scrippscollege.zoom.us/j/98080147334