Content or Discontent? Dealing with Your Academic Ancestors First annual LIAS PhD & Postdoc Conference Leiden University, 29 May 2012 At LIAS, we celebrate the multiplicity and diversity of knowledge and approaches to knowledge that scholars bring to the table. This happens with reference to a wide range of academic traditions, each of which contributes to the theoretical and methodological landscape of Area Studies. While our respective academic traditions doubtless enrich us, do they not also hold us back? Isn t tradition the driving force behind replicating what our academic ancestors did and how they did it, stuck inside decades- if not centuries-old debates, conducted in books that seem no longer relevant? How do past traditions affect our research in the present? It is up to us to find the balance between standards set by tradition and our own resourcefulness, and to do battle with its ethnocentric heritage if necessary. Who knows, we may even need to develop new traditions and what will our students have to say about that when it s their turn? This conference will explore how PhD and Postdoc researchers negotiate academic tradition individually and in networks, how this affects their work, and what are the pros and cons of working under the umbrella of Area Studies. We hope the results will benefit individual researchers and the LIAS at large alike. The PhD Council 1
Conference programme 9.30 9.35 Welcome 9.35 10.35 Surprise lecture 10.35 11.05 Rients de Boer Doing Research on the Ancient Near East 11.05 11.15 Discussion 11.15 11.35 Tea break 11.35 12.05 Idris Kanth Writing Histories as Histories 12.05 12.15 Discussion 12.15 12.45 Wenxin Wang A Divisive Tradition: Rethinking of How to Deal with Chinese Painting and Inscription 12.45 12.55 Discussion 12.55 14.00 Free lunch for all participants 14.00 14.30 Berthe Jansen Translationese: the Pretense of Sense in Buddhist Studies 14.30 14.40 Discussion 14.40 15.10 Sung-Eun Thomas Kim Some Thoughts on Studying Joseon Dynasty Buddhism 15.10 15.20 Discussion 15.20 15.40 Tea break 15.40 16.10 Jochem van den Boogert Javanese Islam and the tradition of Javanese Studies 16.10 16.20 Discussion 16.20 16.50 Mari Nakamura Utopia and Political Thoughts in Japanese Sci-Fi Animation 16.50 17.00 Discussion 17.15 18.30 Drinks at De Grote Beer, Rembrandtstraat 27, 2311 VV Leiden 2
10.35 11.05 Rients de Boer Doing Research on the Ancient Near East The field of Assyriology is still young with its 150 years of history. Nevertheless, it studies more than 3000 year of ancient mesopotamian history. Because Assyriology has always been a small discipline, we can attribute some of the major breakthroughs to a handful of people. These people have shaped and still shape the field. In my talk I will tell something about the history of Assyriology and the influence some of its scholars have on current views and the ways assyriologists do research. 11.35 12.05 Idris Kanth Writing Histories as Histories Through a focus on modern Kashmir, this paper addresses two related concerns in South Asian historiography: academic methodologies and archival research. An increasing number of historians writing in the post colonial tradition have sought to contest colonial/western representations of India and South Asia. While their critique of the colonial narrative is quite justifiable, in their attempts to challenge these representations they end up valorising and privileging the local as authentic. In the process, history writing often turns out to be a political project that is itself ahistorical. An example is Partha Chatterjee s term: Our Modernity. Secondly, while many of these historians claim to be writing alternative histories outside the framework of the nation, nation invariably seems to make a backdoor entry in their writings. Thus while the pitfalls of employing the colonial archive are obvious, one should be equally critical of the post colonial methods of history writing. Weaving a narrative around a couple of significant events in the history of modern Kashmir, the paper seeks to reconsider how else we historicise the archive than imposing categories like alternative modernity on it? The post colonial focus on how colonialism shaped national histories and identities may also discourage engagement with histories of smaller regions like Kashmir. Despite its increasing visibility and the magnitude of the Kashmir issue, very little scholarship has appeared on the history of the region. Finally, how does one write histories of regions like Kashmir which are witnessing conflict and where the State allows restricted access to records and sources? 12.15 12.45 Wenxin Wang A Divisive Tradition: Rethinking of How to Deal with Chinese Painting and Inscription It is long for painting inscription being regarded as a component element of Chinese painting in the art theory and practice of ancient China. However, with the establishing and institutionalizing of modern discipline system basically on the basis of western knowledge pattern, picture, the visual part of a painting, and inscription, the verbal one, seems to be more often distributed into different catalogs, i.e. art history and literature, and then to be studied separately. This leads to such a division that most literary researchers only pay attention to the text and art historians to the image, the so-called research objects of their own subjects, which dissevers the original Chinese painting and isolates the image from the text. Many recent publications also follow this trend, meanwhile, reinforce it. This paper aims to make a critical rethinking and introspection on the divisive modern tradition mainly from three aspects: the nature of Chinese painting, the reason why 3
ancient people making inscription on painting, and the actual function of painting inscription, which all point to a conception that Chinese painting, integrated with image and text, should be considered as a whole, an object both of material from and symbolic representation, instead of two or even more fragments. In addition, the way to update the tradition would also be proposed at the end of the paper. 14.00 14.30 Berthe Jansen Translationese: the Pretense of Sense in Buddhist Studies For those who work with language, and that is all of us, it is indispensible to give thought to language. Translation, and here we are not talking about cultural translation, is something most of deal with: we either translate ourselves or read translations by others. In my academic tradition, if there is one at all, it is not unusual to use translationese a word that, as is clearly traditional in my field I have made up. Often the English of translations does not have make sense, as long as it accounts for all the words in the original. This, in my view, is dispossessing the other culture of sense. Things, reasoning, philosophy, thus do not need to be logical in Buddhist Studies, the implication being that those people were not rational beings like us. Even though this might be overstating it slightly, it is a matter that is in dire need of addressing, not just in the field of Buddhist Studies but across Area Studies. In this paper, I will speak of the history and the future of translationese. 14.40 15.10 Seung-Eun Thomas Kim Some Thoughts on Studying Joseon Dynasty Buddhism The current study of Korean Buddhism of the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910) has categorized Buddhism of that time into broad categories using mostly pejorative and inaccurate labels. They include Buddhism of the masses (( 민간불교 ), Buddhism for seeking fortune ( 기복불교 ), lay woman Buddhism ( 치마불교 ), and Buddhism for the protection of the state ( 호국불교 ). In other words, it was generally considered that Buddhism as a religious tradition has fallen into superstitious practices and degeneration as reflected in the above categories. Subsequently, it was deemed that there was little, if any, philosophical and cultural development within Buddhism during this period. Thus, until recently, mainstream academia of Korean Buddhism has considered Buddhism of the Joseon period not worthy of a serious academic consideration and was mostly put aside and ignored. Buddhist studies in Korea has since moved away from the disparaging traditional discourse but to further the current developments I suggest adding other alternative approaches by using sources that have traditionally been ignored. I suggest that such materials are needed in order to broaden our understanding of Buddhism beyond our understanding of Buddhism mainly as a system of philosophical thought and religious dogmas. With this in mind I argue the value of using, among other materials, 1) the collected works of literary monks including literary works and correspondences, and 2) Buddhist steles. Through this paper I also suggest that when using such materials we must be reflective of the various layers of discourse. These include the layer of the sources, namely the nature of the medium, and secondly, the layer of intentions of the writers and their social setting. Furthermore, in our study, we ourselves must be aware of our own layer of academic tendencies and its limitation. 4
15.40 16.10 Jochem van den Boogert Javanese Islam and the tradition of Javanese Studies One of the central concepts in Javanese Studies is Javanese religion: the religion that is indigenous to Java, that is part and parcel of its culture and constitutive of Javanese identity. The textbook story tells us that the Javanese are Muslim. However, they are Muslim in a Javanese way. What makes Javanese Islam Javanese (and not for instance Turkish or Tunisian Islam) is that it mixes beliefs and practices from Islam with beliefs and practices from Hinduism, Buddhism, Animism and ancestor worship - that is from the religions that preceded Islam in Java. In this presentation we will have a closer look at the concept of Javanese Islam and try to pinpoint the problems involved. I will argue that the concept of Javanese Islam is not fit for the analysis of the Javanese religious condition. If this analysis holds water, then an obvious question ensues: why is it still so widely used? A part of that answer lies in the tradition of Javanese studies itself. By means of a very brief overview, I will try to show how the concepts of Javanese Islam and Javanism are Western ways of making sense of a Javanese cultural reality. 16.20 16.50 Mari Nakamura Utopia and Political Thoughts in Japanese Sci-Fi Animation It has been a long affinity between literature and politics. Indeed, Terry Eagleton (1996) notes that the history of modern literary theory is part of the political history of our time. Another affinity between film and politics has been explored much more recently. As Douglas Kellner demonstrates, Hollywood film can be seen as a contested terrain within the broader socio-political contexts (Kellner 1995). Yet, is there a similar affinity in animation? While animation shares common elements with both literature and film, its relation with politics is much less explored. This paper aims to engage in politics, more specifically traditional themes and questions central to political thoughts through animation. As such, the paper analyses a Japanese science fictional animation, Ivu no jikan: Gekijō-ban (Time of Eve, 2010), and investigates what alternative politics this animation represents and how. I argue that this animation represents a Utopian space, or what Fredric Jameson (2005) calls Utopian enclave, in which particular political ideas i.e. domination, resistance and emancipation are imagined and represented. The first part of the paper introduces Jameson s notion of the Utopian enclave and locates it in Time of Eve. Then, by adopting three methodological approaches: namely narrative analysis, film analysis, and social semiotic analysis, I explore how this Utopian enclave and its related political ideas are represented in the animation. In conclusion, my research suggests that the Japanese animation Time of Eve provides a lively example of thinking political thoughts in new modes. 5