[Announcement] University of British Columbia: World Sanskrit Conference 2018 (July 9-13, 2018)

ACADEMIC PROGRAMME

The 17th World Sanskrit Conference will feature a full schedule of five days of scholarly papers, plenary speakers, keynotes, special panels, and workshops, in addition to numerous evening events open to the general public (For more information about these, please see HERE).

We have invited more than 600 of the foremost Sanskrit scholars from around the world to present their research findings on a wide array of topics within the discipline of Sanskrit studies. These presentations have been organized into 24 distinct Conference Sections ranging from the Vedas to Computational Sanskrit and the Digital Humanities. A full listing of the Sections and their Convenors, who are responsible for the academic quality and orderliness of each section, are listed below.

The scholarly presentations will be delivered in concurrent panels, and will be 20 minutes in length, with a 10-minute discussion/changeover, and will be delivered in Sanskrit, or in English or French, the national languages of Canada.

We are happy to be able to release the finalized Programme for the 17th WSC, which you may download using the links below:

• COMPLETE 100-page Programme (25mb download)
• ONLY the Schedule of Papers (46 pages) (6mb download)

NOTE to presenters: Classroom facilities at UBC are equipped with built-in data projectors with PC computers, as well as HDMI & VGA ports that you may use for your presentation. Participants will have access to free Guest WiFi on the UBC Campus throughout the duration of the conference.

	विभागस्य नामधेयम्	Section Name	संयोजकाः – Convenors
1.	वेदः	Veda	Shrikant Bahulkar, Joanna Jurewicz
2.	भाषाशास्त्रम्	Linguistics	Madhav Deshpande, Jan Houben
3.	व्याकरणम्	Vyākaraṇa	Malhar Kulkarni, Hideyo Ogawa, Peter Scharf
4.	रामायणं महाभारतं च	Epics	Robert Goldman, James Hegarty
5.	पुराणानि	Purāṇas	Raj Balkaran, McComas Taylor
6.	तंत्रविमर्शः	Tantra Studies	Diwakar Acharya, Michael Slouber, Judit Törzsök
7.	विध्यनुष्ठानविमर्शः	Ritual Studies	Marko Geslani, Libbie Mills
8.	काव्यमलङ्कारश्च	Poetry, Drama and Aesthetics	Lyne Bansat-Boudon, Daniele Cuneo, Elisa Ganser, C. Rajendran
9.	वैज्ञानिकं वाङ्मयम्	Scientific Literature	Bill Mak, Dominik Wujastyk
10.	बौद्धविद्या	Buddhist Studies	Stefan Baums, Mahesh & Lata Deokar, Jason Neelis
11.	जैनविद्या	Jaina Studies	Nalini Balbir, Eva de Clerq
12.	वैष्णवमतं शैवमतं च	Vaiṣṇavism and Śaivism	David Buchta, Elaine Fisher, Ajay Rao
13.	धर्मविमर्शः	Religious Studies	Christopher Austin, Travis Smith
14.	दर्शनानि, तत्त्वशास्त्रम्	Philosophy	Kengo Harimoto, Lawrence McCrea
15.	इतिहासः कलाः स्थापत्यमभिलेखशास्त्रं च	History, Art & Architecture, Epigraphy	Arlo Griffiths, Anna Slaczka
16.	संस्कृतं प्रदेशभाषाश्च	Sanskrit & Regional Languages, (& Southeast Asia)	Andrea Acri, Whitney Cox
17.	संस्कृतशिक्षाशास्त्रम्	Sanskrit Pedagogy	Sadananda Das, Guy Leavitt
18.	आधुनिकं संस्कृतसाहित्यम्	Modern Sanskrit Writings	Hari Dutt Sharma, Deven Patel
19.	संस्कृतं विज्ञानतान्त्रिकी च	Computational Sanskrit & Digital Humanities	Gérard Huet, Amba Kulkarni
20.	हस्तलेखविज्ञानम्	Manuscriptology	Nirmala Kulkarni, Saraju Rath
21.	धर्मशास्त्रमर्थशास्त्रं च	Law and Society	Donald Davis, Timothy Lubin
22.	योगायुर्वेदौ	Yoga and Āyurveda	Philipp Maas, Dagmar Wujastyk
23.	संस्कृतं पञ्जाबप्रदेशश्च	Sanskrit and the Pañjab	Adheesh Sathaye
24.	संस्कृतं पारसीवाङ्मयं च	Sanskrit and Indo-Persian Culture	Luther Obrock

FEATURED SPEAKERS

PLENARY SPEAKERS

We are especially pleased to announce three eminent international Sanskrit scholars who will inaugurate WSC 2018 as plenary speakers. Each has had a long and distinguished career of scholarship, erudition, and service to the international study of Sanskrit, and will help us establish a firm academic foundation for the conference.

George Cardona, Emeritus Professor of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA, USA)

Saroja Bhate, Emerita Professor of Sanskrit, Savitribai Phule Pune University (Pune, India)

Arvind Sharma, Birks Professor of Comparative Religion, McGill University (Montreal, QC, Canada)

KEYNOTE LECTURES

We have arranged for several notable Sanskrit scholars  to deliver keynote lectures at the World Sanskrit Conference. Precise details of lectures, timings, and venues are forthcoming.

 

SPECIAL PANELS

WSC2018 Special Panels

During the lead-up to the 17th World Sanskrit Conference, we held a call for SPECIAL PANELS on specific themes, topics, and issues of a pathbreaking or interdisciplinary nature. We are delighted to announce that the following special panels have been approved for inclusion into the WSC2018 Academic Programme. Further details and background information on each panel will be announced in the coming months!

• Ādikāvyāni: Regional Kāvya Rāmāyaṇas in Early Medieval South and Southeast Asia — Jesse Ross Knutson (University of Hawaii), Robert Goldman (UC Berkeley), Sally Sutherland-Goldman (UC Berkeley), Thomas Hunter (UBC, Vancouver)
• After the Critical Edition: What Next For Mahābhārata Studies? — Vishva Adluri (Hunter College), Joydeep Bagchee (LMU, Munich), Jahnavi Bidnur (Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute)
• Binding Liberation: A Roundtable around the idea of Liberation in Sanskrit Culture — Harunaga Isaacson (Universität Hamburg), Daniele Cuneo (Leiden University) , Kengo Harimoto (Mahidol University, Thailand), Kei Kataoka (Kyushu University), Alex Watson (Ashoka University), Yuko Yokochi (Kyoto University)
• Introducing Bhāgavata Purāṇa Commentaries: Vaiṣṇava and Advaita Perspectives on the Opening Verse from the 13th to 19th Centuries — Arun Brahmbhatt (Kenyon College); David Buchta (Brown University); Jonathan Edelmann (University of Florida); Tomohiro Manabe (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science); Kiyokazu Okita (Sophia University)
• Key Debates about Theology and Society in later Viśiṣṭādvaita-Vedānta and Madhva Vedānta — Ajay Rao (Toronto), Marcus Schmücker (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna), Valerie Stoker (Wright State University), Michael Williams (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna)
• Literary Commentaries and the Intellectual Life of South Asia — Andrey Klebanov (Kyoto University), Chiara Livio (La Sapienza, Rome), Csaba Desző (Eötvös Loránd University), Brocquet Sylvain (Université d’Aix-Marseille), Daniele Cuneo (University of Leiden), Elisa Ganser (University of Zurich), Margi Madhu Chakyar (Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kalady)
• Mīmāṃsā Beyond the Yāgaśālā — Andrew Ollett (Harvard), Patrick Cummins (Cornell), Manasicha Akepiyapornchai (Cornell), Lawrence McCrea (Cornell)
• Research on the Gārgīyajyotiṣa – Composition and Transmission — Bill Mak (Kyoto University, Japan), Kenneth Zysk (Copenhagen University), Marko Geslani (Emory University), Koji Kumagai (Int’l. College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies, Japan)
• Śaiva Philosophy — Lyne Reine Bansat-Boudon (Ecole pratique des hautes études, Paris), Isabelle Ratié (Paris III, Paris), John Nemec (Virginia), Raffaele Torella (La Sapienza, Rome), Gavin Flood (Oxford, NUS Singapore), Alex Watson (Ashoka University, India), Bettina Baumer (Abhinavagupta Research Center, Benares)
• Sanskrit and Tamil Maṇipravāḷa – CANCELLED Suganya Anandakichenin (Ecole Francaise d’Extreme Orient), Erin McCann (University of Hamburg), Marcus Schmücker (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna)
• Sanskrit Buddhist Manuscripts: Texts, Techniques, and Traditions — Charles DiSimone (LMU, Munich), Kazunobu Matsuda (Bukkyo University, Japan), Gergely Hidas (British Museum), David V. Fiordalis (Linfield College), Jinkyoung Choi (LMU, Munich), Kazuo Kano (Komazawa University, Japan), Jowita Kramer (LMU, Munich)
• The History and Education of the Female in the Ancient Sanskrit Literature: A Feminist Deconstructive Study — Debasree Sadhu, Arghadip Paul, Ashis Biswas (West Bengal State Univ.)
• The Vedas Out Loud: New Approaches to Vedic Recitation — Finnian Gerety (Yale), Michael Witzel (Harvard), Thennilapuram Mahadevan (Howard University), Cezary Galewicz (Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland)
• The Viṣṇu- and Śivadharma: Early Medieval Lay Religion in a Socio-religious and Historical Perspective — Florinda De Simini (University L’Orientale, Naples), Yuko Yokochi (Kyoto University), Marion Rastelli (Austrian Academy of Sciences), Tim Lubin (Washington & Lee University), Nirajan Kafle (Leiden University), Peter Bisschop (University of Leiden), Nina Mirnig (Austrian Academy of Sciences)
• The Yuktidīpikā Forging a Place for Sāṅkhya in Indian Intellectual History — Hyoung Seok Ham (Kyushu University, Japan), Edeltraud Harzer (University of Texas, Austin), Ołena Łucyszyna (University of Humanities and Economics in Lodz, Poland), Noemie Verdon (Nalanda University, India)
• vāg evedaṃ sarvam — Caley Smith (Harvard), Lauren Bausch (Dharma Realm Buddhist Univ.), Stephanie Majcher (Univ. of Sydney, Australia), Steven Lindquist (Southern Methodist Univ.)
• Vedānta’s Polyglot Lives: Querying Vedānta in the Vernacular, 1650-1900 — Jonathan Peterson (Toronto), Puninder Singh (Michigan), Michael Allen (Virginia), Anand Venkatkrishnan (Harvard)

 

For more information of the conference, please go to their main website here.

Featured image credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art [1st Gen. after Nainsukh, 1780]