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Previous guest lectures and seminars

2022

The impact of the covid-19 pandemic on Buddhist social welfare activities

Welcome to a guest lecture by Erica Baffelli, Professor of  Japanese Studies at The University of Manchester. 

Time and place: Apr. 4, 2022 2:15 PM – 4:00 PM, Georg Sverdrups hus, Auditorium 2

Professor Baffelli will give a talk on social welfare activities by Buddhist organizations in Japan, and discuss the ways in which the covid-19 pandemic has impacted their situation.

A connection to support each other
By focusing in particular on the Buddhist organization Hitosaji no Kai (One Spoonful Association) the talk will discuss what happens when the needs of vulnerable populations increase but, at the same time, volunteers find themselves in a vulnerable and precarious position.

The aim of Hitosaji no Kai, and other organizations they are collaborating with, is to provide support to people who are socially excluded and live at the margins of society but also to create a connection and a sense of belonging for those who have cut their connections with their past and their families. Volunteers in Hitosaji no Kai include immigrant workers and student members of the Vietnamese community thanks to the long term collaboration between Hitosaji no Sai and the Vietnamese Buddhist Association in Japan.

The impact of the pandemic
In 2020, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, volunteer activities had to be discontinued and several volunteers (irregular workers, international students) were themselves placed in a precarious situation. Yet the organization continues its support work and its community connections enabled it to promptly respond to new challenges.

This talk reflects on the impact of crisis and precarity on religious organizations from two main angles.

First, it analyzes the role that an organization’s flexibility of structure and grassroots connections can play in its responses to crisis.
Second, it investigates how new conditions of precarity can result in both the adaptation of organizational activities and the creation of new support routes in order to deal with emerging vulnerabilities.   

About the lecturer
Erica Baffelli is Professor of  Japanese Studies at The University of Manchester (UK). Her research interests lie in religion in contemporary Japan with a focus on religious minorities/marginalities, media, violence, emotions and temporalities.

Her publications include:  Baffelli, Castiglioni and Rambelli eds. "The Bloomsbury Handbook of Japanese Religions" (2021); Baffelli, Caple, McLaughlin, Schröer eds. “The Aesthetics and Emotions of Religious Belonging: Examples from the Buddhist World”, Special Issue of Numen (2021);  (with Ian Reader) "Dynamism and the Ageing of a Japanese 'New' Religion" (2019); "Media and New Religions in Japan" (2016).

2021

Witchcraft and Magic in the Medieval Nordic World

Open guest lecture by professor Stephen Mitchell from Harvard University. 

Time and place: Mar. 8, 2021 10:15 AM–12:00 PM, ZOOM

Stephen Mitchell is Robert S. and Ilse Friend Professor of Scandinavian and Folklore at Harvard University and the leading expert on Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages.

SEZ@40: Shenzhen as a New Global Development Model?


Shenzhen was declared China’s first special economic zone 40 years ago. Which path does the city take? What is its role as a development model today?

Time and place: Feb. 3, 2021 3:00 PM–4:30 PM, Zoom 

International time: 22:00 Beijing, 15:00 Oslo, 09:00 Washington DC.

The anniversary celebration of the Special Economic Zone lauded Shenzhen’s achievements and staked out new policies. Shenzhen, with its proximity to Hong Kong and reputation as a global tech hub, spearheads the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area.

Book coversJuan Du will comment on the role of architecture and urban planning under the heading: The Critical Experiment of Shenzhen‒Demystifying China's "Instant City".

Kean Fan Lim will speak about economic and social policies in the city-region of Shenzhen under the heading: Becoming more 'special' than special: Policy experimentation in and through Shenzhen.

About the presenters and organizers

Juan Du

Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture, Associate Dean (International and Mainland China Affairs), and Director of the Urban Ecologies Design Lab (UEDL) of the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Hong Kong. She holds a Doctorate of Science in Architecture from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich), a degree of Master of Architecture from Princeton University and is the recipient of a US Fulbright Scholarship for her research on the transformations of the contemporary Chinese cities. Juan has previously taught architectural and urban design at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Peking University.

Kean Fan Lim

Senior Lecturer in Economic Geography at Newcastle University. His work on economic restructuring in East Asia examines how the economic and social policies of city-regions affect national developmental paths. Lim has published several journal articles on economic policy and regional development in China. He is the author of two monographs: An East Asian Challenge to Western Neoliberalism Critical Perspectives on the ‘China Model’ (Routledge, 2017, co-authored with economic historian Niv Horesh) and On Shifting Foundations: State Rescaling, Policy Experimentation and Economic Restructuring in Post-1949 China (John Wiley & Sons 2019).

Siv H. Oftedal

Dr Oftedal is a researcher at the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo, and will chair the seminar.

Heidi Østbø Haugen

Haugen, professor of China Studies at the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, hosts the seminar series. She heads the ERC-funded project Brokering China’s Extraversion: An Ethnographic Analysis of Transnational Arbitration (Brokex).

Other events in the Brokex Spring 2021 Seminar Series

New Type of Great Power Relations: Global Power and Chinese National Identity

新型大国关系

Date and time: 3 March 2021. 22:00 (Beijing), 15:00 (Oslo), 09:00 (EST). Sign-up.

Manjari Chatterjee Miller: Why Nations Rise: Narratives and the Path to Great Power

国何以兴？

Lina Benabdallah: Shaping the future of power.Knowledge Production and Network. Building in China-Africa Relations.

塑造明日力量

Discussant: Ilaria Carrozza

Assembling the New China: Labor Brokerage

跟着工头去打工

Date and time: 7 April 2021. 22:00 (Beijing), 15:00 (Oslo), 09:00 (EST). Sign-up.

Julia Chuang: Beneath the China Boom: Labor, Citizenship, and the Making of a Rural Land Market

大潮之下：劳工、公民与农村土地市场

Xinrong Ma: "Entrapment by Consent": The Co-ethnic Brokerage System among Ethnic Yi Labor


“出走的娜拉”：彝族打工者的劳务中介

Discussant: Yunyun Zhou

Brokers of Aspirations: Education and Cosmopolitanism

从中国精英到世界公民
Date and time: 5 May 2021. 22:00 (Beijing), 15:00 (Oslo), 09:00 (EST). Sign-up.

Shuning Liu: Neoliberalism, Globalization, and "Elite" Education in China: Becoming International

走向国际化：中国的新自由主义、全球化与精英教育

Bingyu Wang: New Chinese Migrants in New Zealand: Becoming Cosmopolitan? Roots, Emotions, and Everyday Diversity

新西兰的中国新移民：四海为家？根源，情感与日常多样性

Discussant: Yi’En Cheng

Contact

Heidi Østbø Haugen

Organizer

Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages

The seminar is organized as part of the project Brokering China’s Extraversion: An Ethnographic Analysis of Transnational Arbitration (Brokex). The project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 802070).

Organizer

Heidi Østbø Haugen

2019

Processing of irregularities in morphology and the rules of the brain

2019

Processing of irregularities in morphology and the rules of the brain

Associate Professor Mine Nakipoğlu of Boğaziçi University, Istanbul holds a guest lecture on what the acquisition and processing of irregularities in morphology reveal about rules in the brain.

Time and place: Nov. 12, 2019 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, P.A. Munch, seminar room 7

One of the most thought-provoking questions posed in cognitive science and linguistic research over the past 40 years has been whether the human brain implements abstractions in the form of symbolic rules in the acquisition and processing of language.

Linguistic research owes a great deal to the presence of irregularity in inflectional morphology in accounting for whether a rule-based, analogy-free or a rule-free, but analogy-based path is followed in the representation of linguistic knowledge. The present study, bringing in evidence from children’s acquisition and adults’ processing of an irregular pattern in Turkish, namely the aorist, shows how an abstraction/rule regarding the aorist is in the making in child Turkish and how to converge on adult representation, in other words, to master the irregular and the regular forms, the child brain has to develop insensitivity to the analogous forms, in other words, to the phonological properties of the roots.

The findings obtained, complemented with a thorough type/token frequency analysis of the aorist suggest that a rule-based generalization on the basis of the type count of the regular affix is at work and the role of analogy is scarce.  

New Sources of Early Confucian Thought

 Confucian Dialogue Texts among the Shanghai Museum Manuscripts

Time and place: May 15, 2019 2:15 PM–4:15 PM, P.A. Munch, room 12

In this talk, Scott Cook will discuss what some recently excavated manuscripts from early China tell us about the lively debates among Confucius’s followers in the 4th century BC.

New insights

Among recently excavated Warring States (475-221 BC) bamboo manuscripts—in particular the grave-looted manuscripts of Chu purchased by the Shanghai Museum 上博楚簡—there are a number of texts in which we find Kong Zi (Confucius) portrayed in dialogue with important ministers and disciples, each offering, in contrast to what we find in the Lunyu 論語 (Analects of Confucius), relatively sustained discourse on some aspect of ethical governance.

While not necessarily revealing anything about the historical Kong Zi himself, these texts nonetheless give us interesting glimpses into what was likely being debated by his followers in the 4th Century BC. This talk will focus on three of those manuscript texts—“Kong Zi Had Audience with Ji Huanzi” 孔子見季桓子, “Ji Kangzi Asked Kong Zi” 季康子問於孔子, and “Zigao” 子羔—presenting a new reading of each text and a discussion of what each may have to offer in terms of better understanding the evolving debates in which the followers of Confucius were involved over the course of the Warring States period.              

About the speaker

Scott Cook is one of the world’s foremost scholars of early Chinese excavated texts. His two-volume translation and study of The Bamboo Texts of Guodian is a milestone in Western scholarship within the field. He is Tan Chin Tuan Professor of Chinese Studies at Yale NUS College, where he teaches courses on the Chinese philosophical and literary tradition, including prose, poetry, historiography, and tales of the strange.

Organizer

Halvor Eifring

Jinn and Torture in Guantanamo

Time and place: 29. April 2019 15:00–16:00, PAM425

The presentation discusses the role of jinn among Muslim captives in the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility in Cuba and introduces Annabelle Böttcher and Birgit Krawietz' book project on Jinn, Health and Migration. At Guantanamo, a number of captives had health-hazardous encounters with jinn after they were arrested or kidnapped and underwent prolonged periods of torture in various locations and Black Sites during President Bush’s “Global War on Terrorism”. Some of them even thought that US (contracted) personnel manipulated jinn during interrogation and torture sessions with the support of medical staff.

Annabelle Böttcher, Professor, Center for Contemporary Middle East Studies, Syddansk Universitet, Odense, Denmark.

Organizer

The Rel-Pol Network

2018

International Symposium “Corporate Religion in Asia”

In this symposium, we discuss several aspects of corporate religion in Asia, and offer some theoretical and methodological suggestions for studying this underexplored topic.

Time and place: June 19, 2018 9:00 AM–5:30 PM, Seminar room 10, P. A. Munchs hus, University of Oslo

In most academic discourse, ‘religion’ is discursively differentiated from other, ‘secular’ realms of society, such as public administration, corporate culture, and market economies. Studies of (Asian) religion usually focus on doctrine/philosophy, sacred texts, ritual practices, or political ideology. Only rarely do they analyse institutional or economic structures. Accordingly, religious institutions are commonly perceived and analysed in very different terms from, say, private enterprises, state-owned corporations, or NGOs.

Although numerous scholars have studied the ambivalent relations between religion and state politics in Asia, few have paid attention to the central role played by religious institutions as semi-corporate actors in modern Asian market economies. As a result, most studies that focus on ideological, doctrinal or ritual aspects overlook the significance of corporate sponsorship, economic agendas, and institutional capital (real estate and financial capital) for understanding contemporary Asian religions.

In this symposium, we discuss several aspects of corporate religion in Asia, and offer some theoretical and methodological suggestions for studying this underexplored topic. We argue that it is necessary to get a better understanding of the involvement of religious actors in the market economy, and of the structural similarities between religious and corporate institutions, in order to achieve a better understanding of contemporary Asian market economies and the socio-political systems by which they are shaped. Although there are notable differences between various Asian societies, we believe “corporate religions” play a central role in many of them. At this symposium, we will explore several cases of religious organisations in contemporary Asia, and compare some of the ways in which they operate as (semi-)corporate actors in the modern market economy.

Program

  • Religion, Corporation, or Nation-State? What Soka Gakkai in Japan Reveals about Corporate Religion, Levi McLaughlin, North Carolina State University
  • Secular Buddhism and Religious Conglomerate: Taiwan Tzu-chi and Its Recycling Engagements, Olivia Yun-An Dung, Leiden University
  • Mammoth Churches and Well-being Buddhism: Religious Markets in Contemporary South Korea, Vladimir Tikhonov, University of Oslo
  • Inaccurate Numbers: The Arrival of the Corporate Form in a Religiously-derived NGO, Chika Watanabe, University of Manchester
  • Competing Values: Religion, Economics, and World Heritage in Nagasaki, Morgaine Wood, University of Oslo
  • Inculcating Corporate Morality in Public Schools, Jolyon Thomas, University of Pennsylvania
  • Connections and Corporations of Buddhist Lineages, Monasteries and Masters in Ladakh, India, Elizabeth Williams-Ørberg, University of Copenhagen
  • The Problem of “Green Religion”: Corporatism, Conservatism, and Capitalism, Aike P. Rots, University of Oslo

Organizer

Oslo Buddhist Studies Forum and Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages.

Tachibanaya Bunzo Solo Show - Live in Oslo

Rakugo - the ultimate one-man comedy. A rakugo performer kneels down during the entire length of the show impersonating various characters.

Time and place: June 7, 2018 4:30 PM–6:00 PM, Auditorium 2, Sophus Bugges hus

Since rakugo stories are quite old and their language is antiquated, even Japanese native speakers have trouble understanding rakugo. But don't worry - no matter how much Japanese you understand, language won't be a problem! This show is completely subtitled in English!

The politics of time and fire

Talk by Christine Hansen from Gothenburg University. 

Time and place: Apr. 26, 2018 9:00 AM–10:30 AM, P.A. Munchs Hus, room 489

In this talk Christine Hansen will introduce her research on the role colonial history plays in contemporary Australian environmentalunderstandings, using the cyclonic wildfire storm of 2009 as a case study.

Christine Hansen is an historian with cross-disciplinary interests in critical heritage studies and the environmental humanities.

Desire, Consent, Truthfulness, and Translation in The Tale of Genji (11th Century) by Murasaki Shikibu

In this talk, Prof. J. Keith Vincent, Boston University, introduces the Tale, and discusses why it is worth reading today especially, when the nexus of power, sex, truth, and lies in private acts and public discourse seems more fraught than ever.

Time and place: Mar. 5, 2018 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, Georg Sverdrups Hus

Like all books deemed “classics,” Murasaki Shikibu’s great eleventh-century novel The Tale of Genji has been read in all sorts of ways. Traditionally, many readers found in it a chrestomathy of aristocratic codes of conduct and courtly poetics, while others appreciated how it models empathic sensitivity to others. 

For more recent readers, The Tale is about the pleasures and challenges of a polyamorous ethics, while for another group it is a subtle but searing feminist indictment of male hypocrisy, sexual coercion, and the homosocial "traffic in women."

In this talk, I introduce the Tale, and say why it is worth reading today especially, when the nexus of power, sex, truth, and lies in private acts and public discourse seems more fraught than ever.

I address these questions through the lens of translation, to propose that these divergent reader responses to Murasaki’s masterpiece are in part the result of her complex narration and the wide room for interpretation that this style affords to the translator.

A close look at translations of specific passages into English and modern Japanese (sorry no Norwegian!) will show how powerfully the translator’s choices affect our experience of the text, while reflecting the historical, political, and cultural worldview of the translators.

As for Murasaki's original, I will suggest that it is the ability of her words to generate so many different, even opposing, readings and translations that makes this thousand-year-old novel a work of World Literature of the first order: what the gay critic Raymond Mortimer called, in the first review of Murasaki's work to be published in English, "A New Planet."

Vincent’s research

J. Keith Vincent’s research focuses on modern Japanese literature, queer theory, translation, and the novel. 

Richard Irvine – The Problem with Presentism

In Orkney, the sea is gradually reshaping the islands through erosion. Richard Irvine (Open University, Orkney) considers erosion as revelation and destruction, and explores how the arrival of Uranium on Orkney’s shores around 400 million years ago seeps into everyday life and reshapes identity.

Time and place: Feb. 16, 2018 1:00 PM–3:00 PM, P.A. Munchs house, room 425

Due to a storm around Orkney, Richard Irvine was not able to come to Oslo and give this lecture last year, but now we have the pleasure of welcoming him back to the University of Oslo.

Calling into question the validity or desirability of an "anthropology of the contemporary", Richard Irvine's lecture reflects on the inflated significance of the present and its relationship to deep time.

Geological Explorations and Time

Starting with an account of the geological explorations of Adam Sedgwick in the early 19th century and their entanglement with Britain's carbon history, Irvine argues that the expansion of deep time and the closure of our time horizons go hand in hand.

The challenge, then, is to relentlessly historicize this reduction to the present. A present is never readable on its own: it exists in relationship with other biographies, ecological and geological, and in an active, constitutive relationship to the resources upon which we depend – resources whose formation occurs over time-spans that dwarf human life but which are nonetheless present, recognized or unrecognized, in our own economic and social activities.

Erosion and Uranium in Orkney

Richard Irvine reflects on these arguments using material drawn from his current fieldsite in Orkney, where the sea is gradually reshaping the islands in a continuous gnawing, but with moments of drama where deep time thrusts into the full glare of consciousness.

In particular, Irvine considers erosion as revelation and destruction, and explores how the arrival of uranium on Orkney’s shores around 400 million years ago has become a live issue, protruding into everyday life and reshaping identity.

About the Lecturer

Richard D.G. Irvine is a research fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at The Open University, having recently completed work on the project “Pathways to understanding the changing climate” at the Division of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge.

He is interested in the moral and temporal dimensions of human relationships with their environment, and carries out fieldwork across three sites: Orkney and East Anglia in the UK, and Tuv aimag, Mongolia.

Organizer

Geological Times: Geology and New Regimes of Historicity and Synchronizing the World. Globalization and Multiple Times.

The Discovery of Greenlandic Rubies

Nathalia Sofie Brichet (Aarhus) will give a talk titled "The Discovery of Greenlandic Rubies".

Time and place: Jan. 30, 2018 2:00 PM–4:00 PM, Niels Treschow building, room 1224

In this talk, Nathalia Sofie Brichet will discuss the different ideas about the discovery of Greenlandic rubies and thus the dating of them in order to address how the science of geology plays a part in the incipient Greenlandic mining adventure.

Brichet will to discuss what the contested moment of discovery made visible and eclipsed as a way to qualify the political aspects of both natural resources and a science with a self-understanding as apolitical, objective and neutral.

Abstract from the lecturer

Local treasure hunters claim that local people have always known about the ruby deposits at Aappaluttoq. Illustration photo: pixabay.com (CC0 1.0)

As part of my on-going fieldwork on the mining industry in Greenland I am interested in the production of geological knowledge as performed by Danish and Greenlandic scientists.

This particular and highly specialized knowledge production seems vital in figuring natural resources in a country with vast expanse and a heterogeneous ground. In my fieldwork material, geological knowledge production materializes as surveys, collections, pulverizations, separations, identifications, calculations, illustrations, presentations and not least through dates – a practice that will be key to this talk about Greenlandic rubies.

My own as well as my interlocutors’ interest was ignited by the establishment of a high tech ruby mine in the southwestern part of Greenland called the Aappaluttoq mine – the first mine to open after a gold mine closed down in 2013 and a decade of high expectations to the mining sector. Soon ‘the ruby project’ as it was called also became an important asset in showing the richness of Greenland’s underground to international exploration and mining companies, not to mention the necessary investors on the lookout for new mining projects.

From the viewpoint of the Greenlandic government, the ruby project became a site to showcase the rich potential of mining in Greenland.

In this environment, the government needs support and collaboration from the local population in order to convey a mining-friendly attitude towards international interest groups. Such support, however, is not a given, nor is geological knowledge a trump that settles the ground.

During my fieldwork, this became clear when a disagreement about the discovery of rubies momentarily threatened the smooth path of ruby production that both business and government had planned and hoped for. Local treasure hunters claim that local people have always known about the ruby deposits at Aappaluttoq, while the Danish Geological Survey dates the find to the 1960s and credits a named geologist for identifying the resource.

About the lecturer

Nathalia Brichet is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. Her research centers on extractive industries in Greenland and Denmark, focusing mainly on gold, rubies and brown coal.

Organizer

Geological Times: Geology and New Regimes of Historicity

Buddhism in Japanese History: New Perspectives

An international workshop on Buddhism in Japanese history, organised by the Oslo Buddhist Studies Forum and the Tohoku University Global Japanese Studies Initiative.

Time and place: Jan. 26, 2018 1:00 PM–5:30 PM, P.A. Munchs hus, seminar room 6

Program

  • SATŌ Hiroo, Tohoku University A Buddhaless Pure Land: The Secularization of the Afterlife in Japan
  • Mark Teeuwen, University of Oslo Buddhism and the Administration of Faith in Edo Japan
  • Orion Klautau, Tohoku University Buddhism in Modern Japan: Networks and Scholarship
  • Morgaine Wood, University of Oslo Buddhism First, Heritage Second: Cultural Heritage On and Off Display at Nishi Honganji
  • General discussion, chair: Aike P. Rots, University of Oslo.

Organizers

Co-hosted by the Oslo Buddhist Studies Forum and the Tohoku University Global Japanese Studies Initiative.

Islamic Art Reinterpreted

Seminar presentation by Dr Melissa Forstrom from the Purchase College - State University of New York. Coffee and tea will be served. This event is open for all.

Time and place: Jan. 17, 2018 12:15 PM–1:30 PM, P.A.Munchs hus, room 425

After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Islam and Muslim peoples have been politicized and represented as closely associated (if not inextricable) with religious fundamentalism and Islamic terrorism in many Western mass media representations.

Contemporaneously, there has been an increase in Islamic art exhibition, both temporary exhibitions and reinstallations of permanent collections in the USA and Europe.

Telling “Another Story”

These ​Islamic art exhibitions​ ​are often discussed ​in the media ​as telling “another story” of Islam, “bridging cultural divides” and “combating” negative media narratives.

This illustrated presentation investigates the relationships between contemporary mass media representations and the written interpretation in the following Islamic art exhibitions:

  • New Galleries for the Art of Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and Later South Asia at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
  • Arts of Islam at the Louvre, Paris.
  • Pearls on String: Artists, Poets, and Patrons at the Great Islamic Courts at the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

This paper explores oversimplified binaries between the media and museums and exposes the dialogical and sometimes reflective relationship between media representations of Islam and the exhibitions of Islamic art.

About the speaker

Dr. Melissa Forstrom is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Purchase College- State University of New York,​ where she teaches courses in Visual Arts Management.

2017

Exploring Sámi Indigeneity

We welcome Associate Professor Sanna Valkonen from the University of Lapland and curator and PhD candidate Áile Aikio from SIIDA Museum and the University of Lapland.

Time and place: Nov. 29, 2017 2:15 PM–4:30 PM, P.A. Munchs hus, room 489

This is a special joint seminar between the Museological Lunch seminar series and the Indigeneity and Cultural Heritage seminar series.

Environmental Humanities on the New Pangaea: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Ecological Globalization

Dr Heather Swanson (Aarhus) will give a talk on accelerated biological exchange and ecological globalization.

Time and place: Nov. 17, 2017 1:00 PM–3:00 PM, P.A. Munchs hus, room 425

Dr Heather Swanson's presentation will explore methods for probing how practices of trade and management connect geographically distant places in ways that profoundly shape landscape ecologies. Illustration photo: pixabay.com

For millennia, humans have moved animals and plants during their long-distance travels. But today, plants and animals are traveling at unprecedented rates – with new and sometimes unexpected effects.

New Pangaea’s Emergence

As ships and planes move growing quantities of goods, they connect ecological regions that have had little biological exchange between them. Supply chains typically transport more than they intend: jellyfish travel in ballast water, grass species in packing crates, and insects on nursery plants. Some scientists have referred to such events collectively as the emergence of a “New Pangaea.”

Yet in contrast to the crustal plate movements that formed the super-continent Pangaea on a scale of millions of years, the New Pangaea’s emergence has been distinctly sudden, with its patterns of species dispersal following paths of colonial settlement and industrial development.

How can interdisciplinary and multiscalar approaches to the environmental humanities help scholars to better probe these processes of ecological globalization?

By exploring empirical cases of introduced trout and wood-boring insects, this presentation will explore methods for probing how practices of trade and management connect geographically distant places in ways that profoundly shape landscape ecologies.

About the Lecturer

Heather Anne Swanson is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Aarhus University, as well as the co-director of the Aarhus University Centre for Environmental Humanities.

Weathering the City: The Poetics and Politics of Meteorological Infrastructure

Dr Jennifer Hamilton's paper offers a sketch of preliminary findings from an ongoing research project, based on textual and field explorations in New York and Sydney.

Dr Jennifer Hamilton (Sydney) will give a talk on her ongoing research into urban storm infrastructures.

Time and place: Nov. 6, 2017 1:00 PM–3:00 PM, P.A. Munchs hus, room 425

Maintaining the particular standard of shelter certain people enjoy in the Global North is energy intensive. Conventional technological and infrastructural strategies to sustain this standard involve greening the grid, developing electric cars and making stormwater drains more capable of mopping up toxins before they enter the rivers and oceans.

Behemoths of Modern Urbanization

Against this backdrop, Dr Jennifer Hamilton's own work examines how the human-weather relation under fossil fuel capitalism is mediated by infrastructure that is literally fixed in bitumen, concrete and steel — like snow salt sheds, stormwater drains and heat-sensitive roads.

The urgent need to relate differently to the more-than-human is therefore troubled by seemingly immutable structures, behemoths of modern urbanization.

Given this problem, what are the avenues for transformation? How can we critically understand the bodily habits produced by such infrastructure in order to change them? This paper offers a sketch of preliminary findings from an ongoing research project, based on textual and field explorations in New York and Sydney.

About the Lecturer

Jennifer Mae Hamilton is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney, and the Institute for Culture and Society, University of Western Sydney.

Exploring Environmental Humanities

This seminar explores the possibilities of building research in the field of Environmental Humanities at HF. Professor Karen Thornber from Harvard University and Professor Bryan Tilt from Oregon State University will present their experiences from organizing research in this field.

Time and place: May 23, 2017 10:00 AM–2:00 PM, P. A. Munchs building, sem. room 360 (3rd floor)

Scholars from HF will give brief presentations of ongoing research related to environmental and climate change at HF.

Programme

  • Welcome: Mette Halskov Hansen, IKOS
  • Short (8-10 min.) presentations of EH research at the Faculty of Humanities (UiO)
    • Ina Blom, Professor of art history: Environmental media and media ecologies - some key perspectives.
    • Kjetil Fallan, Professor of art history: Back to Sustainable Future.
    • Aike Rots, Associate Professor of Japan studies: Whale worship and environmental change in Japan and Vietnam: some preliminary considerations.
    • Hanna Havnevik, Professor of history of religions: Himalayan Connections: Melting glaciers, sacred landscapes and mobile technologies in a changing climate.
    • Per Ditlef Frederiksen, Associate Professor of archeology: Historical ecology and state formations in southern Africa.
    • Rune Svarverud, Professor of China studies: Air as environment in China - some historical and conceptual challenges.
    • Alejandra Mancilla, Associate Professor of philosophy: Melting grounds: The moral limits of territorial claims in Antarctica.
    • Brynjar Lia, Professor of Middle East studies: Climate change and energy transition in the Middle East.
  • Experiences with Environmental Humanities Initiatives at Harvard University and Oregon State University
    • Karen Thornber, Professor of Comparative Literature and of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University: New Directions in the Environmental Humanities: Harvard's Global Institute Environmental Humanities and Social Sciences Initiative.
    • Bryan Tilt, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Oregon State University: Experiences with the Environmental Arts and Humanities Initiative at Oregon State University

Guest lecture: Popular demand for income equality and state welfare provision in China and Russia

Neil Munro presents quantitative results on drivers of Chinese and Russian people's demands for income equality and state welfare provision. Based on qualitative analysis, he discusses their potential impact on social welfare politics in the two countries.

Time and place: May 15, 2017 2:30 PM–4:00 PM, Aud.2 Sophus Bugges House

This lecture builds on a previous quantitative study (Munro 2017) which uses  a recursive regression model to show that a combination of subjective economic dissatisfaction, left-leaning political ideology and shock events help explain demand for both income equality and state welfare provision in Russia and China. Munro's aim in the present lecture is to develop some ideas about how much these factors matter. On the basis of a qualitative analysis of focus group discussions, he argues that the potential impact of these factors on social welfare politics is limited for three reasons. First, citizens in both countries are cynical: they make a sharp distinction between the ideal and real world economies, and do not seriously expect the real world economy to conform to their ideals. Second, Chinese and Russians live in nationally specific “moral economies,” to use E.P. Thompson’s (1991) phrase, with particular reference to corruption, and this makes them ambivalent towards state-directed attempts to regulate inequality and redistribute wealth. Finally, because stable authoritarian regimes offer a paucity of political opportunities, Chinese and Russian populations tend to underestimate their own ability to enact political change and as a result much of their support for income equality and welfare lacks real conviction.

Neil Munro is Senior Lecturer in Chinese Politics at University of Glasgow. 

2016

Guest lecture and film screening: Us & Them: Korean Indie Rock in a K-Pop World

Professor Stephen Epstein, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand has co-produced this documentary about the Korean indie and punk scene. He visits to show and talk about the film. Open for all.

Time and place: Aug. 23, 2016 4:15 PM–5:30 PM, P. A. Munchs hus, seminarrom 10

The spread of South Korean popular music, or K-pop, has been a striking global phenomenon. In 2012 PSY’s viral sensation “Gangnam Style” became the most viewed video on YouTube ever, generating over a billion hits and scores of imitations. But Korean music is not only idol groups and viral videos. There is also a vibrant indie and punk scene that has been active for the past two decades

A lot of the energy driving the scene has come in opposition to mainstream Korean music. Yet, just as K-pop is becoming more well-known internationally, bands from the Korean underground are now become more professional in their own pursuit of global connections. The documentary's compelling portrait of the challenges and opportunities of the Korean indie scene offers sharp insights into a society that is in the midst of frequently dizzying change.

About Stephen Epstein

Prof. Stephen Epstein is the Director of the Asian Studies Programme at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, and served as the 2013-14 President of the New Zealand Asian Studies Society.

Tell Me Why My Children Died: Rabies, Indigenous Knowledge, and Communicative Justice

Guest lecture by Charles L. Briggs and Clara Mantini-Briggs. Open for all.

Time and place: June 7, 2016 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Georg Sverdrups hus, room 4

When a mysterious epidemic in a Venezuelan rainforest killed 38 children and young adults, indigenous residents launched their own investigation. Recruiting anthropologist Briggs and physician Mantini-Briggs, they juxtaposed parents' narratives, vernacular healing, epidemiology, and clinical medicine in generating a diagnosis—bat transmitted rabies—and forging a new model of global health.

Briggs was asked to photograph the epidemic, the communities’ responses, and the team’s efforts. Photographer Miguel Gandert selected and printed these photographs and curated this exhibition. Charles L. Briggs wrote the text. The photographs can be seen at the University of Oslo Library June 7-9. : http://www.uio.no/om/finn-fram/omrader/blindern/bl27/

The event is supported by The Peder Sather Centre, Berkeley og The Body in Translation.

North Korean State Ideology - Chuch'e Idea

The basic problem this lecture will deal with is the nature of the contemporary North Korean state.

Time and place: Apr. 19, 2016 12:15 PM–2:00 PM, Georg Sverdrups building, room 3, Blindern.

Open lecture by Prof. Sergei Kurbanov (St.Petersburg State University, Russia),

The basic problem this lecture will deal with is the nature of the contemporary North Korean state. Is it communism, socialism, or something else? The answer to the question is in understanding of the main ideological doctrine of the DPRK – Chuch’e ideas. The lecture will begin with the history of Chuch’e ideas formation: official mythological and real historical. Then, it will proceed to the structure of the Chuch’e ideas: from simple philosophical constructs of the beginning of 1960s to a complex system of subordinated doctrines. It will deal with the complex combination of the externally borrowed and national components in Chuch’e. It will also attempt a comparison of Chuch’e with traditional East Asian ideologies and Korean “new religions.” Finally, it will make some assumptions about the prospects for the development of the Chuch’e ideas based on the new slogans of 2016.

About Prof. Sergei Kurbanov

Prof. Sergei O. Kurbanov is a full-time professor of the Faculty of Asian and African Studies of the St.-Petersburg State University, Director of the Institute of Interdisciplinary Study of Korea.

China's indigenous psychology and popular mental and physical health practices

This Erasmus lecture will deal with aspects of indigenous Chinese psychology, and some of the mental and physical health practices popular in contemporary China. Open for all.

Time and place: Apr. 4, 2016 10:15 AM–12:00 PM, P.A. Munchs building, room 6.

Lecture by Dr. Mieke Matthyssen (Ghent University, Belgium). As the science of indigenous psychology is fairly unknown, and a relatively new field of research, I will first explain the nature of indigenous psychology,  its strengths and limitations, and how it is different from the study of the 'psyche' as it is traditionally assumed. Then, the focus will turn to Chinese indigenous psychology, and its roots in ancient philosophy and medicine.

I will briefly address the most important concepts related to Chinese psychology, and will discuss a few theoretical models developed up till today. Following this theoretical part, we will have a look at some practical examples of Chinese psychology in contemporary China: some therapeutic interventions as well as popular practices of mental and physical self-health (e.g. self-cultivation and yangsheng).

Modernity in Common Japan and World History

This lecture is based on the dual assumption that just as one cannot tell the modern history of any society in isolation from the world, the history of the modern world can in fact be grasped from the vantage point of any place on the globe. 

Time and place: Mar. 8, 2016 4:15 PM–5:45 PM, Rom 360. P. A. Munchs hus

Professor Carol Gluck, George Sansom Professor of History at Columbia University, specializing in history of modern Japan from the mid-nineteenth century to the present.

In this instance, the place is Japan. One of a 'globeful of modernities', Japan shares commonalities and connections with other modern societies. At the same time it offers the opportunity to develop ideas about the 'modern' based on empirical evidence different from the European experiences that underlay earlier theories of modernity.

Here I examine four questions frequently asked about modern Japanese history, from the nineteenth century until the present, in order to see how they appear when viewed in a global context -- in the context of 'modernity in common'.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Pakistan and Islam

Lecture by Mr Khalid Rahman, Director General Institute of Policy Studies, Islamabad. 

Time and place: Jan. 13, 2016 12:15 PM–1:00 PM, Seminar room 7, P.A. Munchs hus

In September 2015, the UN General Assembly adopted, the future global development agenda entitled Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The new goals and targets under the agenda are supposed to guide the decisions that the member countries would take over the next 15 years.

Pakistan's performance in the past, in terms of achieving MDG's (Millennium Development Goals) targeted earlier, does not seem very encouraging. The situation demands for devising a strategy that is able to involve and actively engage different social groups of Pakistani society towards attaining the SDGs.

One important aspect in this regard relates to the trends prevailing in Pakistani society. In spite of diversities, Islamic beliefs and inclinations have remained an existing reality in Pakistan. The question arises whether these Islamic trends existing in Pakistan can prove any help while devising strategies for achieving SDGs and targets? Though the talk/presentation would be in reference to Pakistan, its application, while taking into account local factors, would equally be valid for other Muslim societies.

2015

Arabic and Semitic Linguistics Contextualized: A workshop in honor of Jan Retsö

Open for all.

Time and place: Nov. 6, 2015 2:00 PM–6:00 PM, P.A. Munch hus, room 489

Program

  • Lutz Edzard: Welcome and introduction
  • Jan Retsö: Hva tilba Dronningen av Saba?
  • Stephan Guth: The importance of being earnest about Russian fairytales
  • Silje S. Alvestad: Aspect use in the Slavic infinitive (and subjunctive)
  • Lutz Edzard: Experiencer verbs and impersonal Constructions in Semitic
  • Gunvor Mejdell: Luġat al-ʾumm som språkideologisk konsept
  • Olav G. Ørum: Middle Arabic features in Late Judaeo-Arabic texts
  • Kjell Magne Yri: An Open Access Sidaama Dictionary
  • Maurice Ravel: Pièce en forme de Habanera
  • Jacques Ibert: Entr’acte

(Kjell Magne Yri, g & Lutz Edzard, fl)  

The Science of Mind-Wandering

Welcome to an open seminar with Jessica Andrews-Hanna on how "self-generated thoughts” are associated with a wide variety of benefits.

Time and place: Oct. 1, 2015 12:15 PM–2:00 PM, Auditorium 2, Georg Sverderups Hus (UB)

One of the defining characteristics of the human mind is its capacity to wander away from the here-and-now. Whether commuting to work or attempting to work, we often find ourselves simulating past experiences, planning upcoming activities, and reflecting on the lives of other people.

Supporting its frequent occurrence, these “self-generated thoughts” are associated with a wide variety of benefits, enabling us to confront future challenges, solve problems, and navigate our social world. At the same time, the experience can be associated with significant costs, impairing learning and psychological well-being.

Understanding the factors that give rise to this variability could help individuals harness the beneficial aspects of self-generated cognition and, in doing so, lead more productive and happier lives. In this talk, I will approach this objective by drawing on multi-disciplinary research spanning cognitive science, neuroscience, and psychopathology.

About Jessica Andrews-Hanna

Jessica Andrews-Hanna received her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2009 and is currently a Research Associate with the Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Xinran: The Hidden Voices of China’s Women

Open guest lecture by Xue Xinran. Xinran is a British-Chinese journalist, author, speaker, and advocate for women's issues.

Time and place: June 1, 2015 1:15 PM–3:00 PM, Sophus Bugges Hus, Auditorium 3

Xinran was a popular radio personality in China from 1989 to 1997, with a program that focused on women's issues and life stories, and she was well known for travelling extensively in China to interview women for her work.

In 1997, she moved to London and began writing stories of the people she met along her journeys. Her first book, The Good Women of China, was published in 2002, becoming an international bestseller.

She frequently contributes to The Guardian and the BBC, and many of her works have also been translated into Norwegian, such as her well-received second novel, Sky Burial.

Early and Medieval Tamil Society and the Continuity

Talk by Dr. Sankaran Radhakrishnan that will focus on caste situation in early and medieval periods and their development. Open for all.

Time and place: May 20, 2015 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, Seminarrom 10, P. A. Munchs hus

The talk will concern a few related social settings of the two periods, and related issues. Dr. Rahdakrishnan's talk will focus on caste situation in early and medieval periods and their developments, Aryanization and Sanskritization, education, devadasis, status of women, marriage etc.

Dr. Sankaran Radhakrishnan, South Asia Insitute, University of Texas at Austin.

Nationalism in two Koreas: A comparison

In this guest lecture, professor Sergei O. Kurbanov will give vivid examples of Korean nationalism followed by explanations. Open for all.

Time and place: May 6, 2015 8:15 AM–10:00 AM, Georg Morgenstiernes hus, Arne Næss auditorium, 103

Nationalism is produced when the following basic conditions are met:

  1. stable formation of an ethnos;
  2. creation of its own resilient statehood by this ethnos (or ethnic historical memory about existence of a robust statehood before);
  3. collision with neighboring countries or necessity of reestablishing a system of international relations with the nation playing a more prominent role in it.

Modern South and North Korea both give examples of strong nationalism originating from common historical roots.

Students will learn how modern Korean nationalists regard Korea as the oldest culture which “gave impetus to the development of all other cultures of the world.”

About Prof. Sergei O. Kurbanov

Prof. Sergei O. Kurbanov is a full-time professor of the Faculty of Asian and African Studies of the St.-Petersburg State University, Director of the Institute of Interdisciplinary Study of Korea.

Global Religion in a Time of Transformation: Holy Wars, States, and Spirituality

Guest lecture by Peter Beyer. He is currently working on issues of religious change and the diverse forms of religious communities in global society.

Time and place: Apr. 23, 2015 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Auditorium 5, Eilert Sundts Hus

Peter Beyer is professor of Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He is the current president of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion.

His research focusses on the aspect of religion in a globalized world. Since his first book, Religion and Globalization (Sage 1994), a land mark publication, Peter Beyer has continuously expanded his theoretical perspectives, as presented in Religion in the Context of Globalization: Essays on Concept, Form, and Political Implication (Routledge 2013).

A Political Culture Approach to the Study of Chinese Politics and History

Open lunch talk about the relation between politics and culture in Chinese politics and history.

Time and place: Mar. 19, 2015 12:15 PM–1:15 PM, Niels Treschows Hus, 12th floor

The concept of political culture evolved among Western political scientists in the 1960s. It was primarily applied to the study of contemporary Western societies, and its main methodology quantitative surveys.

By historical coincidence, it was also applied to the study of China early on. Understanding the relation between politics and culture in Chinese politics and history is a challenging endeavour, because one frequently ends up with lauding or defaming one or the other.

This lunch talk with Harald Bøckman is intended as an attempt of a balancing act, but may end up topsy-turvy.

Harald Bøckman is a former researcher at the Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM) at the University of Oslo. He also coordinated the Network for Asian Studies from its inception in 1996 and until 2015.

Drawing Personality Out of the Void

Prof. David L. Haberman will talk about ritual strategies employed in the worship of trees and mountain stones in northern India.

Time and place: Jan. 14, 2015 12:15 PM–2:00 PM, P.A. Munchs hus: Seminarrom 12

Why do people in Northern India worship trees and attribute a human form to them?

Guest lecture by David L. Haberman, Professor in Religious Studies, Indiana University.

Although ultimate reality is conceptualized within Hinduism as being both with and without form, the bhakti traditions tend to focus on manifest forms of divinity. These typically include the anthropomorphic murtis found within most Hindu temples.

Hindu religious practice

The worship of aniconic natural forms such as rivers, trees and mountains, however, is also a common feature of Hindu religious practice.

This presentation will examine ritual strategies employed in the worship of trees and mountain stones in northern India that involve appending faces and ornate clothing to these natural entities. Why is this done and what is the aim of this anthropomorphizing strategy? 

When Organized Crime Takes Office in North India

How do the local mafia systems fuse with elected political posts in North India? And how do the systems of organized crime work?

Guest lecture by Dr Lucia Michelutti, University College of London.

Time and place: Jan. 14, 2015 10:15 AM–12:00 PM, Room 15. P.A.Munchs hus

In this lecture, Dr. Michelutti will contribute to debates on the relationship between states and mafias in South Asia and beyond. Control over the means of violence and protection emerges as crucial in much research on corruption in non-South Asian contexts. In India, however, we still know precious little about the systems of organized crime which sustain the political rise of ‘criminal politicians’.

Using ethnographic material on illegal mining ('the sand mafia') she will explore local ‘mafia systems’ and their fusion with elected political posts in a provincial town in Uttar Pradesh.

About Dr. Michelutti

Dr. Michelutti is leader of the EU financied project Democratic Cultures with a focus on South Asia and India. She is also currently completing a monograph on political hope and the Venezuelan Bolivarian socialist revolution.

2014

Official Apology and Forgiveness: from an international communication perspective

In this guest lecture, Momoyo K. Shibuya deals with the issue of the Japanese apologies for the atrocities during the WWII - one of the most important issues for the contemporary international relations inside the East Asian region.

Time and place: Nov. 25, 2014 12:15 PM–2:00 PM, Group room 7, Georg Sverdrup's building

When considering the relationship between Japan and the Asia and Pacific region, we will find out that, even in the 69 years since the end of WWII, how Japanese perceive the war history has no small effect on it. Although an official apology may not be necessarily required for restoring relations between victim and victimiser, it has been observed to work effectively in a certain interactional situation. Reviewing Japan-Asia post-war relations from the perspective of international communication will guide us to think about the meaning of apology and forgiveness in international relations.

Momoyo K. Shibuya is an Associate Professor in International Communication at the Faculty of Economics, Saitama University. 

Museological seminar: Reconnections in the museum space

Laura Peers, professor of museum anthropology at University of Oxford, holds the lecture "The joining of worlds: Indigenous/ancestral reconnections in the museum space".

Time and place: Oct. 29, 2014 3:00 PM–4:30 PM, P. A. Munchs hus, room 425

One of the key shifts in recent museum praxis has been the facilitation of reconnections between Indigenous peoples and their material heritage.

Whether such processes produce museum exhibitions, or the reincorporation of cultural knowledge within Indigenous communities, reconnection projects involve an initial moment when researchers and objects come together in the museum research space.

These are emotionally and politically fraught and spiritually powerful events in which the meanings, categorizations, and expected treatment of museum objects suddenly shift: objects become persons, performative handling of fragile objects is demanded, and past and present fuse.

Drawing on long-term relationships between the Haida Nation, Canada, and the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, this talk explores these epitomizing moments in museum anthropology and begins to theorize the nature of the power of historic objects in such contexts.

About Laura Peers

Professor of museum anthropology and curator (Americas Collections, Pitt Rivers Museum) at the University of Oxford.

Organizer

Brita Brenna and Marzia Varutti, seminar series 'Museums and Indigenous Peoples'.

Gari Khana Deu - Let us Live! How transnational youth navigate a provisional Nepal

Guest lecture with Heather Hindman about the recently emergent social movements in Katmandu. Open for all.

Time and place: Oct. 29, 2014 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, P.A. Munchs house. Auditorium 11.

The lecture will explore several recently emergent social movements in Kathmandu; these movements draw most of their membership from an elite group of internationally experienced young people.

“Bipals” or Bideshi Nepalis (Foreign Nepalis) return from study or work abroad with high expectations, both their own and their communities’, of success and contributions to building a better country. Yet, most quickly find barriers to their progress, whether in the form of entrenched bureaucracies and hierarchies or physical infrastructure limitations.

New narrative of success

Whereas overseas experience once guaranteed a high-paying and secure job, this is no longer the case in contemporary Kathmandu, and many returnees must forge a new narrative of success.

For some, this has taken the form of involvement in entrepreneurship organizations that encourage the creation of independent businesses and advocate for a more productive climate for entrepreneurship.

Others seek to disrupt the status quo through music and radical activism. In the end, Hindman suggest that these disparate organizations share some ideas about the appropriate role for the state in Nepal, ideas that run contrary to many assumptions about neoliberalism and failed states.

About Heather Hindman

Heather Hindman is an Associate Professor at University of Texas, Austin.

Smartphones and the digital gap in rural West Bengal

The lecture explores how mobile telephony mediates social interaction, communication and intersecting hierarchies in rural India. Open for all.

Time and place: Oct. 20, 2014 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 360. P.A. Munchs Hus, Blindern

Guest lecture by Sirpa Tenhunen, professor, Department of Ethnology and History, University of Jyvaskyla.

Tenhunen examine differences in phone use and especially in the way people use smart phones and the internet.

  • Is the ideology about the need to bridge the digital divide in internet access simply an extremely powerful utopia or does internet access empower people in some ways?
  • Does people’s use of the internet and smart phones differ according to their social position?

Theoretically, Tenhunen aim at developing a research strategy to understand new media and social change through exploring how different forms of mediations interact as part of local hierarchies when a powerful new medium is appropriated.

The Politics of Place in Museums: Identities, antagonisms and ideals

The presentation appeals for a new attention to the significance of place within the organisation of museum representations, within identity politics and within the institutional ordering (in different senses) of situated social relations. Open for all.

Time and place: Oct. 8, 2014 3:30 PM, P.A Munchs Hus, room 489

This presentation focuses on some of Christopher Whitehead´s recent work on museums, place and migration undertaken as part of the EC-funded MeLa* project (European Museums in an Age of Migrations).

Whitehead examines museum representations of the places outside their own walls (on different scales – global, national, continental, regional, civic local etc.), where these relate to identity contests, different ideas of belonging and multicultural social relations, in particular in contexts affected by immigration.

He uses recently developed theoretical frameworks relating to place identity to account for representational politics in the museum, looking at how identities are conferred upon places and their inhabitants, what the role of collected material and immaterial objects is, and what places, experiences of place and which inhabitant communities are included or ignored respectively.

The talk focuses particularly on how certain kinds of social relations (e.g. tolerant ones) are willed into being through museum representations, especially in cases where historical and ongoing intercultural contacts are the basis for current antagonisms.

  • How do museums ‘make’ place, and can they (or should they try to) make it ‘better’?
  • On whose terms and with whose objects and histories?

About Christopher Whitehead

Christopher Whitehead is Professor of Museology at Newcastle University, where he has taught since 2002.

Women's Roles in the Indian Nationalist Movement and Post-Colonial Women's Movement

Women played an active role in the Indian nationalist movement, especially after Mahatma Gandhi brought non-violent protest into the movement for Indian freedom. Open lecture with Gail Minault.

Time and place: Sep. 18, 2014 12:15 PM–2:00 PM, Room 152, Georg Morgenstiernes building

In the post-independence period, women’s legal and economic rights have improved, but many problems remain.

Women's Education and Social Reform among Indian Muslims by Gail Minault

While movements for social and religious reform among Hindus are relatively well-known in historical studies, reform among Indian Muslims has received relatively less coverage. Minault has tried to fill that gap in her research. Open for all.

Time and place: Sep. 17, 2014 12:15 PM–2:00 PM, Room 111 Georg Morgenstiernes building

Indian Social and Religious Reform Movements and the Status of Women

In this open lecture Gail Minault will discuss important reform movements in India, and leading reformers, in the 19th century and their importance for the status of women and emerging political issues.

Time and place: Sep. 11, 2014 12:15 PM–2:00 PM, Room 152, Georg Morgenstiernes buliding

Indian Women: Women Paradox by Gail Minault

Open lecture about women’s roles in modern India.

Time and place: Sep. 10, 2014 12:15 PM–2:00 PM, Room 111 Georg Morgenstiernes house

This lecture is an overview of women’s roles in modern India from the emergence of social reform movements in the 19th century, through the independence movement, to the post-colonial era that brought greater legal and political rights to women, but also severe social problems.

It will point out some themes that will be covered in subsequent lectures.

Rivers as Women: The Femininity of Rivers in Maharashtra

Professor Anne Feldhaus, Arizona State University, USA

Time and place: 12. June 2014 16:15–18:00, PAM room 10

In the Marathi-language region of India, Maharashtra, rivers’ names are grammatically feminine; stories show many of them to be liquefied women; offerings made to them are those most appropriately made to a woman; when they are dressed, it is in women’s clothes.

In addition, there are a number of different kinds of goddesses in Maharashtra that live in or embody rivers.

Why are rivers represented in female form? And what does the femininity of rivers mean to the people who see them this way?

The talk will approach an answer to these questions by analyzing the feminine roles that rivers and river divinities are seen as filling and the values they are seen to promote.

Guest Lecture: Higuchi Ichiyô and Takekurabe

Professor John Treat gives a public lecture on Higuchi Ichiyô and Takekurabe (The Coming of Age).

Time and place: May 7, 2014 5:15 PM–6:30 PM, Georg Sverdrups hus, Aud. 2

Higuchi Ichiyô (1872-96) has been fetishized as Japan's last "Edo" writer, in large part to the influence of Ihara Saikaku (1642-93) on her style. But she was also very much a product of her time, and it is possible to read her most famous novella, "Takekurabe" (1895-96),  as an account of the dislocations Japan was experiencing as it was entering modern capitalism. I will focus on the themes of labor and marriage in my analysis in this, one of Meiji Japan's most canonical works of fiction.

John Whittier Treat is a Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale University, and is the author of Writing Ground Zero: Japanese Literature and the Atomic Bomb (Chicago University Press, 1995).

Seduced by Manu, Bollywood invokes the Devi to Tame the Shrew

Gautami Shah, Senior lecturer, University of Texas at Austin

Time and place: 13. May 2014 14:15–16:00, PAM seminar room 5

2013 celebrated a 100 years of  Bollywood. The last decade has seen a number of women centric films in Bollywood and there has been much excitement about the changing face of women in Bollywood. Nonetheless, on closer examination it seems that  gender roles and expectations are actually frozen in time, with only their  packaging being that of the 21st century. This talk critically examines male and female gender representations in Bollywood films and contextualizes the gender politics of constructs of femininity and female sexuality found therein.

Organizer

Ute Huesken

Guest Lecture: Hannah Arendt in Asia

Professor John Treat gives a public lecture on Hannah Arendt in Asia: Responsibility and Judgment in Nanking and Hiroshima.

Time and place: Apr. 29, 2014 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, P. A. Munchs hus, seminar room 14

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) had virtually nothing to say about twentieth-century East Asian history, but her political philosophy provides us with clues to what she might have had to say about both the postwar International Military Tribunal for the Far East ("Tokyo War Crimes Trial") and a trial of the United States for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, had one taken place. This lecture will examine both the IMTFE court records concerning the Rape of Nanking and Hotta Yoshie's 1963 novel JUDGMENT (Shinpan) in an Arendtian frame of responsibility and judgment without mitigation for intentionality.

John Whittier Treat is a Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale University.

Guest Lecture: China and Japan in the East China Sea

Professor Paul Midford holds an open lecture on the Sino-Japanese Conflict and Reconciliation in the East China Sea.

Time and place: Apr. 28, 2014 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, P. A. Munchs hus, 360

This presentation considers the rise of tensions between China and Japan in the East China Sea, especially over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, tensions that have come to predominate in this vitally important bilateral relationship since 2010.

It explores how these tensions arose in 2010, and how they have transformed both public and elite Japanese perceptions of China.

Models for a solution

To resolve the longer term conflict over these islands and the demarcation of these two countries’ respective Exclusive Economic Zones, the presentation proposes that the Svalbard model for dividing sovereignty and resource exploitation between contenting parties and the Norwegian-Russian 2010 agreement on delimiting their respective Exclusive Economic Zone borders in the Barents Sea can serve as useful models.

Paul Midford is Professor, and Director of the Japan Program, at the Norwegian University for Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim.

Organizer

NTNU and Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages

The Problems of Doing Research on the South Korean Political Elite

In this public lecture Dr. Marie-Orange Rivé-Lasan will talk about how doing research on contemporary Korean social history presents various problems. The lecture is open to the general public.

Time and place: Apr. 8, 2014 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, PAM Seminar Room 1

First of all, ‘Korea’ needs to be understood as containing several diverse elements such as the two antagonist states of North and South Korea, apart from which there is the important element of the Korean diaspora.

Moreover, ideological cleavages within these three elements run deep, and this is directly reflected in the Korean language sources for research. Moreover, how should one do academic research on current South Korean political actors who simultaneously are the focus of research by journalists, NGO activists, and lobbyists?

In this lecture Dr. Marie-Orange Rivé-Lasan will reflect upon her research methods, for instance biographical data and public opinion analysis, and discuss case-studies of various types of political actors, such as the South Korean elite minority originating from the northern part of the peninsula, and members of Parliament.

About Dr. Marie-Orange Rivé-Lasan

Marie-Orange Rivé-Lasan is an associate professor in the Korean studies section and Vice-Director of the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilisation of Paris Diderot University.

Tibetan Medicine and the Representation of Traditions and Modernities: Shrine Rooms and Museum Exhibits in Lhasa

By Theresia Hofer, Postdoctoral Researcher, Section for Medical Anthropology, University of Oslo. The seminar is open for everybody.

Time and place: Feb. 19, 2014 12:15 PM–1:15 PM, 12. etasje Niels Treschows hus

At present, Tibetan medicine is one of the liveliest forums for the expression of Tibetan culture, identity and language in Tibetan areas of China, where it is particularly popular in urban areas. Building on theories about museums and national identity formation as well as  “civilizing projects”, “ethnic medicine” and modernity in the context of China and Tibet, this seminar explores why exhibitions and displays on Tibetan medicine are relevant sites to understand broader issues of transformation and modernisation in Tibet.

The presentation will describe various displays of material aspects of Tibetan medicine, such as instruments, books, thangkas, photographs and saintly figures, as found in hospitals, colleges and pharmacies in the contemporary Tibet Autonomous Region. It analyses these within two kinds of spheres of representation. One provides a contemplative experience for medical professionals, who seek to revere Buddhist ways of knowing and saintly figures of the past, especially the Medicine Buddha. The other sphere uses the techniques and didactic means of modern museums and is accessible to the wider public. While the first contemplates a relationship with the deep past of the medical and Buddhist tradition, the latter’s salient features are the promotion of “progress” of Tibetan medicine in tandem with communist reforms, the “scientific” character of traditional medicine, and, in some cases commercial interests.

This presentation reveals representations of Tibetan medicine in Lhasa as a dynamic arena where Tibetans make active choices about their relationship to Tibet’s past and Tibetan medicine’s emerging futures, yet acknowledges the limitations in such Expressions.

2013

Why history? On the relevance of cultural history for the study of contemporary South Asia

The workshop is open, but registration is necessary.

Time and place: Dec. 10, 2013 4:00 PM–Dec. 12, 2013 12:00 PM, Niels Treschow Bldg 12th floor

Programme

Session 1: Ritual, Religion, Politics 

  • Aya Ikegame, Research Associate, The Open University UK: Segmentary State and Shared Sovereignty: Guru’s informal court in contemporary Karnataka

  • Norbert Peabody, Senior Research Fellow, Wolfson College Cambridge: Contemporary History in an Antique Land
  • Jonathan Spencer, Professor, University of Edinburgh: ‘You can do anything with a Temple’: Philanthropy, Politics and Styles of Leadership in South London and Sri Lanka
  • Uwe Skoda, Associate Professor, University of Aarhus: Dosshera and Durga Puja
Session 2: Social and Political Values
  • Hilde Sandvik, Professor, University of Oslo: The Political Activist Sarojini Naidu
  • Pamela Price, Professor Emerita, University of Oslo: Prolegomenon to a Study of Social Value among Urban Middle Class Groups in Modern South India
  • David Gilmartin, Professor, North Carolina State University: The People’s Sovereignty: Cultural History and Political Theology in 20th Century India
  • Arild Engelsen Ruud, Professor, University of Oslo: The Provider of Sustenance in the 21st Century
Session 3: Thinking about the Contemporary
  • Erling Sandmo, Professor, University of Oslo: On the Contemporary: a Reflection on Convergence of Historical Times
  • Ute Hüsken, Professor, University of Oslo: Sanskrit Rituals Today: Echoes from an Imagined Past
  • Manuela Ciotti, Associate Professor, University of Aarhus: North India 1950s—2000s: Two (Conceptual) Villages, its (Chamar) Inhabitants and the Question of ‘the New’
Session 4: Structures in Materiality
  • Gunnel Cederlöf, Professor, University of Uppsala: Negotiating Boundaries in South Asia’s Mobile Landscapes
  • David Ludden, Professor, New York University: Global Commodity Chains and Local Power Relations
Session 5: The Uses of History
  • Lars Tore Flåten, Senior Lecturer, University of Oslo: The Purpose of History: Educational Reforms during the Rule of the BJP
  • Claus Peter Zoller, Professor, University of Oslo: Relativism and the Decline of South Asia Historical Linguistic Studies
  • Paul R. Brass, Professor Emeritus, University of Washington: The Rise and Fall of Indira Gandhi

Organizer

Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages (IKOS) and Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History (IAKH)

Holders of the Lotus: Revelation, Landscape and Identity among Buddhist Visionaries in Contemporary Tibet

Open guest lecture by Dr. Antonio Terrone, Northwestern University

Time and place: Dec. 5, 2013 10:15 AM–12:00 PM, Seminar room 1, PAM

This talk explores the developments of Tantric Buddhist visionary activities in Eastern Tibetan areas of present-day People’s Republic of China (PRC). It focuses on the factors underlying the resurgence of Buddhist charismatic leaders and their ongoing practices of Treasure (terma) revelation. It argues that despite the weakening of Tibetan monastic leadership and power under Chinese political control, other forms of religious authority based on nonmonastic charismatic leadership have thrived. Special attention is devoted to the rise of Buddhist encampments (chögar) led by Treasure revealers and the role of Han Chinese Buddhist devotees interested in Tibetan Buddhism.

This analysis of visionary movements in Eastern Tibet suggests that Treasure revealers operating outside monastic institutions are at the forefront of a movement of preserving traditional forms of Buddhist training and practice in Tibet, responding to the pressures of modernity, and upholding a specifically Tibetan religious vision against the secularizing forces of the PRC.

Organizer

PluRel and Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages

Household encyclopedias and everyday knowledge in early modern Japan

Steffen Remvik, IKOS

Time and place: Nov. 27, 2013 12:15 PM–1:15 PM, 12th floor, Niels Treschows hus

A certain type of household encyclopedias, collectively referred to as setsuyōshū, were incredibly popular in early modern Japan. The first setsuyōshū emerged late in the fifteenth century and was a kind of dictionary used for looking up Chinese characters through their Japanese readings.

In the early modern period, along with the commercialization of print, the setsuyōshū genre went through some significant changes. Apart from being dictionaries, as they still continued to be, many editions started to also include encyclopedic information on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from astrology to etiquette and from maps to poetry. Alongside this expansion in content, the genre also expands in distribution, both geographically and socially. The genre was in fact aimed specifically at a popular audience, not just the elite.

Considering this, is it reasonable to see the information contained within the setsuyōshū as a representation of contemporary common knowledge? What does the various kinds of information in the setsuyōshū tell us about early modern Japan? These are some of the questions that will be adressed in this presentation.

Steffen Remvik is a PhD candidate at IKOS, where he works on a project called "A history of setsuyōshū: the development of popular knowledge and the new social imaginary in early modern Japan".

Mobilizing Artists: Art in the Vanguard of the North Korean Revolution

Open seminar with Koen De Ceuster, Leiden University Institute for Area Studies

Time and place: Nov. 12, 2013 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, Auditorium 2, Georg Sverdrups hus

Culture in North Korea is a matter of state interest. Small wonder then that Kim Jong Il built his political credentials through a lifelong involvement with the arts. Despite this close scrutiny by the leadership, North Korean art is about more than crude propaganda. Rather than a mere close reading of North Korean art, this lecture focuses on the social dynamics of the North Korea art world and in particular the public role of the artist.

Koen De Ceuster is a historian of modern Korea at Leiden University, Netherlands. His work deals with historiography, public history and the politics of memory. He has been studying North Korean art theory and practice for the last decade.

Narrative, Public Health and Law: Making Vernacular Scapegoats Official

Open guest lecture by Professor Diane Goldstein, Indiana University, Bloomington

Time and place: Nov. 5, 2013 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Undervisningsrom 1 GS

Told cross-culturally, AIDS legends recount HIV-filled needles in movie theatre seats, pinpricks in drugstore shelf condoms, semen in fast food, and HIV-positive sexual predators. Though fascinating, intriguing, and often frightening, these narratives do more than merely entertain. They warn and inform, articulate notions of risk, provide political commentary on public health actions, and offer insight into the relationship between cultural and health truths. As part of community discourse about the nature of disease, legends provide powerful information about cultural understandings of the virus.

When taken seriously, with respect for the narratives and their tellers, AIDS legends enable understandings of perceptions of risk, reveal local views of public health efforts, and highlight areas of health care and education that need to be improved. AIDS narratives, however, do not simply articulate perceptions of disease realities; they also create those realities. Told within scientific and official sectors as well as lay communities, legends play a significant role in medical, legal, and educational responses to the disease and its management. Here and in her book, Once Upon A Virus, Goldstein explores how narrative constructs the way we interact with disease, creating cultural scripts for both personal and scientific decision-making. This talk explores the narrative construction of a legal case of deliberate infection in one small town in Newfoundland, Canada.

Diane Goldstein is Professor and Chair of the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University.  She is also adjunct professor of Folklore and Community Health at Memorial University of Newfoundland. 

Resettling the herders to towns: Development, culture and conflict in Tibet

Tashi Nyima, IKOS

Time and place: Oct. 30, 2013 12:15 PM–1:15 PM, 12th floor, Niels Treschows hus

Development is a complex and contested concept, especially in politically charged contexts such as Tibet. In this talk, I will first provide a brief history of the narratives of development in Tibet before and after the Chinese takeover. I will then outline the case of Sanjiangyuan as an instance of Chinese state development interventions in Tibet, and its subsequent implications for local herders and their environment.

I argue that Chinese development in Tibet, although top-down and authoritarian, is multidimensional in the sense that diverse actors invoke the concept differently based on their own interests and value. Some local elites operating within the party-state system play a signficant role in counteracting and negotiating the dominant state development discourse.

Finally, I discuss the intended effects and unintended side effects of state development intervention on local pastoral communities, and conclude with a few thoughts on the overall development situation in Tibet.

Tashi Nyima is a PhD candidate at IKOS and has recently handed in his dissertation on the resettling of herders in contemporary Tibet.

Sacred forests in Japan today: Shinto and nature conservation

 Aike P. Rots, IKOS

Time and place: Oct. 2, 2013 12:15 PM–1:15 PM, 12th floor, Niels Treschows hus

What is this religious tradition called 'Shinto'? When did it emerge, and what is its main focus? The answers to these questions are by no means clear-cut, but subject to ongoing debate and negotiations, both academic and religious-institutional. In recent decades, the notion that Shinto is an ancient tradition of nature worship, said to contain relevant ecological knowledge that can help us overcome the current environmental crisis, has gradually gained popularity, to the point that it has now achieved paradigmatic status. Central to this discourse is the concept of 'chinju no mori', or sacred shrine forests; i.e., the small urban groves and forested mountains often associated with Shinto shrines.

In this presentation, I will discuss discursive, spatial and institutional practices associated with these 'chinju no mori': how are they conceptualised in contemporary academic and religious discourse; how are they given shape (through landscape design, forest maintenance and so on); and how do contemporary Shinto institutions relate to them. Forest- and biodiversity conservation appear to be a core concern of at least some shrine actors today, but the significance of these 'chinju no mori' arguably goes beyond nature conservation: representing continuity between the present and the (ancient) past, they have become a symbol of the preservation and even resurrection of 'traditional' Japanese culture and morality.

Aike P. Rots is a PhD candidate at IKOS and has recently handed in his dissertation, where he discusses recent ideological and institutional developments in Shinto, and critically examines related notions of 'nature', 'animism' and 'sacred space'. Previously, he has done research on the topic of Japanese adaptations of Christianity.

Biocultural Expeditions: Genetics, Reproductive Histories, and Social Transformations in Nepal

Guest Lecture by Prof. Sienna Craig, Department of Anthropology, Dartmouth College, in International Community Health & Tibetan and Himalayan Studies.

Time and place: 16. September 2013 15:00–16:30

Writing China's trauma: Coming to terms with a painful past?

Open guest lecture by Irmy Schweiger, Institutionen för orientaliska språk, Stockholms universitet

Time and place: Sep. 18, 2013 12:15 PM–1:15 PM, 425, P. A. Munchs hus

Since the 1990s a multitude of memoirs, documentations, narratives, reports, images, fiction and voices of a traumatic Chinese history (almost exclusively of the Cultural Revolution) has flooded the market. During the 1980s the Chinese government had an iron grip on the interpretation of Chinese history, while the 1990s not only saw a rise of mnemonic texts but also a variety of stories offering multiple counter-narratives to the official master-narrative. History turned into Histories. This lecture will deal with the question how China’s traumatic history of the 20th century is dealt with in fictional and semi-fictional texts from different origins. What is the role and function of these texts? Whom are they addressing? In how far do they serve as working-through of a traumatic past? Redefining a post-traumatic collective identity? Teaching people of lesson of history? Adding to the industry “writing Red China”? Clearly a memory boom has not only a political but also a commercial aspect.

Irmy Schweiger is Assistant Professor of Chinese Studies at the Department of Oriental Studies, Stockholm University. She is currently working on history and memory in a contemporary Chinese context.

Caste Today

The University of Oslo’s 5th Annual Contemporary India Seminar - open to all!

Time and place: Sep. 12, 2013 9:30 AM–5:00 PM, 12th floor Niels Treschow

Once a staple of Indian sociological and political analysis, caste has been curiously marginal in recent academic discourses on India. The contemporary marginality of caste owes undoubtedly to the opening up of new areas of study concerning gender, neoliberalism, conflict, development and more. Yet caste continues to be a significant force in Indian society and politics, taking on new guises even as older pervasive hierarchies continue to seep into the present.

To interrogate caste in contemporary India in its many forms and aspects, this seminar invites papers from scholars working on this subject across disciplines. We encourage our participants to address the contemporary workings of caste, and the practices and ideas associated with it, from an empirical point of departure. Representations of caste as ‘a system’, we believe, are partial and subjected to the positioned gaze of the beholder, and as such grounded in time and space. Moving beyond holistic theory, we invite participants to interrogate the specificities of caste empirically and as embedded in particular local and / or regional contexts.

Chinese as a post-Soviet minority language: The Muslim Dungans of Central Asia

Ivo Spira, IKOS

Time and place: Sep. 4, 2013 12:15 PM–2:00 PM, 425, P. A. Munchs hus

The Dungans (as their neighbours call them) speak a form of Chinese which is written in Cyrillic letters and peppered with Turkic, Arabic, Persian and Russian borrowings.

  • How did this situation come about?
  • What happens to Chinese when it is written in an alphabetic script rather than Chinese characters?
  • How are Islamic concepts expressed in Dungan?

Ivo Spira is a postdoctoral fellow in Chinese at IKOS, with main research interests in the fields of linguistics and conceptual history. He has written on Chinese translations of the Qur'an, and his dissertation explores the linguistic and conceptual history of Chinese "‑isms". He is currently working on Dungan.

New discoveries in inscriptions in alphabetic script (Wadi el-Hol, Qeiyafa)

Three open guest lectures by professor Jo-Ann Hackett, University of Texas, Austin.

  • Samaria ostraca, the new Qeiyafa ostracon, and the Wadi el-Hol inscriptions, May 15, 2013 

  • Phoenician Karatepe inscription and the Eshmunazor inscription; Aramaic Tel Dan inscription, May 21

  • Ugaritic texts, May 22, 2013

Survey of Akkadian Dialects

Three open guest lectures by professor John Huehnergard, University of Texas, Austin.

  • Old Assyrian, May 15, 2013

  • Middle Assyrian, May 21, 2013

  • Middle Babylonian, May 22, 2013

Writing Hindi Poetry while living in England

Open Lecture on modern Hindi Poetry by Mohan Rana - a Hindi Poet from Bath, England

Time and place: Apr. 24, 2013 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 5 PAM

Mohan Rana will present a brief introduction to contemporary Hindi poetry – practice, trends and subjects. He will talk about his beginning as a writer in India and his later practice of writing in Hindi in England over two decades, and about the challenges of being seen as a representative of so-called pravāsī sāhitya (diaspora literature).

He will read two of his poems ‘The colour of Water’ and ‘After Midnight’ which will be followed by Norwegian and German translations done by Hindi students from IKOS. In the end follows an example of his collaboration with practitioners of different arts, illustrated with the music track ‘The colour of water’ from the CD ‘From the sea’ by Jo Quail, an electric cellist and composer.

Political system and media in North Korea

Open guest lecture by prof. Sergei O. Kurbanov, St.Petersburg University, Russia

Time and place: Apr. 8, 2013 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, Undervisningsrom 1, Georg Sverdrups Hus

The political system of North Korea consists of two basic components: 1) original political framework formed according to the 1972 (corrected in 1992 and 1998) Constitution and Juche ideology and 2) new political trends initiated by the “party” of young North Korean leader Kim Jeong-un, whose coming to power has also resulted in transformation of the political framework itself and practical methods of governance.

State-controlled mass media in North Korea are one of the principal means of governing North Korean population. The new administration of Kim Jeong-un has also changed some methods of the media propaganda work.

The lecture will systematically explore the principal changes which took place in North Korean political system and media during 2012 – 2013 and attempts to predict perspectives for the future developments in North Korea and the Korean Peninsula in general.

Prof. Sergei O. Kurbanov

Full-time professor of the Faculty of Asian and African Studies of St.Petersburg State University, Director of the Center for Korean Language and Culture. 

Japan at the Crossroads. Changes in Tokyo’s Security Policy.

Open lecture by professor Hiroshi Nakanishi, Kyoto University.

Time and place: Mar. 21, 2013 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, Auditorium 3, Helga Engs hus

The Japanese nation has undergone a series of serious, almost existential experiences in the last few years. In the field of diplomacy, Japan’s relations with important countries generally declined for various reasons. In response there has been more attention for and emphasis on the country’s security policy, a field that has been relatively neglected until recently both by the Japanese government and the people. This new development partially explains why the current prime minister Abe Shinzo was able to return to office despite his sudden resignation in 2007.

From a Japanese Perspective

This lecture will present the situation in East Asia from a Japanese perspective and will analyze how Japan is trying to cope with the changing international environment. It will address Japan’s relations with the United States, China, South Korea, North Korea, and other Asia-Pacific countries. The changing context of domestic politics and its impact on foreign and security policy will also be discussed. Although it is very difficult to predict Japanese politics, an assessment of the future of the country’s foreign policy and security policy is in order.

Professor Hiroshi Nakanishi (Faculty of Law, Kyoto University) is an authority on Japan’s international relations and security policy of the 20th and 21st centuries. One of his major interests is the historical development of theories on international order. Professor Nakanishi is guest professor at The Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages during March 2013.

Haru's Journey

Screening of the Japanese film Haru's Journey (2010) and meeting with the director KOBAYASHI Masahiro.

Time and place: Feb. 4, 2013 3:15 PM–6:00 PM, Ullevål kino

The Japanese film director Kobayashi Masahiro will visit UiO within the framework of a retrospective of his work which is touring Norway in February. Mr. Kobayashi stands out for his meticulous depiction of people from the less bestowed strata of Japanese society, in works such as Bashing, The Rebirth, and Japan's Tragedy. His films are often set on the outskirts of 'Japanese civilisation', far away from Tokyo and Kyoto. Accordingly they provide an insight into 'the other Japan', less exotic but with a strong universal message.

IKOS will screen his 2010 film Haru's Journey in which we accompany the girl and her stubborn grumpy grandfather on their travels through the northern part of Japan in search for a new home for the old man. The leading role is played by senior actor Nakadai Tatsuya, famous from classics such as The Human Condition, Harakiri and Kagemusha.

The director will be present after the screening to answer questions.

2012

The Aghor Tradition of Ascetics in India

Open guest lecture by Jishnu Shankar, Senior Lecturer, Department of Asian Studies, University of Texas at Austin.

Time and place: Dec. 12, 2012 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Sem.rom 10, PAM

Baba Kinaram

Aughaṛs have historically been regarded as a set of transgressive ascetics in India who dwell in cremation grounds, away from attractions of a domestic life, and have practices that are looked at fearfully by the general milieu of lay Hindu practitioners, especially those who belong to the Brahmanical orthodoxy.  Such a view can be traced in the classical Sanskrit literature, as well as in the colonial accounts of them.  However, in recent times a more benign social face of “Aghor” has emerged starting with Baba Kinaram, founder of the Kinaram Sthal in Varanasi in the 17th century, but specifically with reference to the work of Baba Bhagawan Ram Ji.

Aghoreshwar Mahaprabhu Baba Bhagawan Ram Ji, a well-established saint of the holy city of Varanasi in north India belonging to Baba Kinaram’s lineage, initiated many changes into the Aghor tradition.  As a result of his efforts this tradition has not only become accepted in the city of Banaras, but it has also become respected, largely because of its contribution towards the treatment of leprosy patients, simplification of marriage and death rituals, the education of children, and many other kinds of social work.  In my talk I discuss both these views about the Aughaṛs, and the implications it has for the future development of the tradition.

Jishnu Shankar will be in Oslo in week 50 within the frame of the Oslo - Austin exchange program.

Community rituals in Bhutan

Open guest lecture by Dr. Françoise Pommaret, Director of research at CNRS in Paris and Research Advisor at ILCS, Royal University of Bhutan.

Time and place: Sep. 6, 2012 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, Seminar room 7, P.A. Munch’s house

Bhutan has an amazing array of festivals, with a wide range of features, performers and beliefs. Rituals performed for the community well-being can be found in most villages of Bhutan. Attached to a local identity marker, they present a certain number of parameters which give them cohesion in spite of their apparent polymorphism. They contain strong non- or pre-Buddhist features called Bon chos in Bhutan and almost always include a phallic or "obscene" element. However some of these features have also often been included in festivals which are considered Buddhist, hence an interesting syncretism between different sets of beliefs which have cohabited in a harmonious way till now. These festivals, which have survived because of the relative isolation of Bhutan, are in danger of disappearing due to the influence of "mainstream Buddhism" and rural-urban migration. The presentation will be accompanied by a documentary (26 minutes) about one of these festivals, the Tsangkha lha bon (lha 'bod) in Central Bhutan near Trongsa. 

Dr. Françoise Pommaret is Director of research at CNRS Paris and Research Advisor at ILCS, Royal University of Bhutan.

The Politics of Environmental Challenges in India

Welcome to the Fourth Annual Contemporary India Seminar!

Time and place: Sep. 6, 2012 9:30 AM–5:00 PM, 12th floor canteen in Niels Treschow's House

This year's Contemporary India Seminar seeks to explore how various environmental challenges are politicised in India. We wish to examine how enviromental issues have entered the realm of political discussions as a result of intentional actions by individuals or groups, who have sought to mobilise people around environmental agendas.

Organizer

Department of Cultural Studies and Oriental Languages, NIBR, Nordic Forum for South Asia (NoFSA) and Asianettverket

Religious aspects of the North Indian classical dance Kathak

A seminar with Anne Keßler-Persaud, Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen. Open for everyone!

Time and place: 5. September 2012 12:15–7. sep. 2012 12:00, seminar room 12, P.A. Munchs Building

The North Indian dance Kathak originated in Hindu traditions but is also influenced by Muslim culture. Today, it is one of the ‘classical’ performance traditions of South Asia.
The lyrics of the songs are mostly taken from texts such as the Bhāgavatapurāṇa or poems of Surdās and Mīrabāī. Particularly close is the historic connection of Kathak and the Vaiṣṇava traditions of North India. This close relation is noticeable in the intersection of Kathak and Rāslīlā, a traditional dance drama enacting Kṛṣṇa’s life story which is performed every year in Braj/Mathurā. Particularly its ‘circle dance’ comprises of elements also seen in classical Kathak.

In the seminar, an overview of sources, traditions and religious affiliations of the schools of Kathak will be presented. We will also look at the position of Kathak among the other classical Indian dances. The main part of the course will focus the religious aspects of Kathak. On the basis of video recordings and the translation of the correspondent lyrics we will analyze some choreographies by Guru Pt. Rajendra Gaṅgāṇi-jī presented by his disciple Deodatt Persaud. In order to fully understand these choreographies, we will gather the depicted mythologies of the different Hindu gods and epic heroes represented in the dance performances.

There will be a life performance by Deodatt Persaud on the last day.

Korean Exceptionalism: Political Cleavages in South Korea

Guest lecture by Prof. Sonn Hochul, Sogang University, South Korea

Time and place: Aug. 24, 2012 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, Seminarrom 1, PAM

In many ways, the socio-political make-up of contemporary South Korea might be considered somewhat exceptional. Located on the Cold War frontline, it was distinguished by the viciousness of the prevailing anti-Communist political regime; at the same time, however, its strategic position gave it certain leverage vis-à-vis the USA, which had to acquiesce to its neo-mercantilist politico-economical regime. This regime, in turn, guaranteed breakneck tempos of the economic growth, a degree of upward mobility opportunities for the members of the subaltern groups and general prevalence of the state-corporatist mode of organization. Such a socio-political make-up prevented any independent political organization of the working class, which began to take shape only in the late 1990s-early 2000s. Even then, however, it was weakened by the regionalist divisions prevailing in the politics of post-authoritarian South Korea.  

In this presentation it will be argued, however, that South Korea’s exceptionalism may be on wane in the future. As neo-mercantilism was substituted by neo-liberalism, social polarisation grows and upward social mobility is blocked, class voting by the workers may be more likely in the perspective, in case South Korea’s progressives will be able to resolve their internal problems, partly related to the domination of certain sectors of progressive politics by the left-nationalist fractions sympathetic to North Korea and low levels of the political class consciousness in the mainstream labour movement.

Three guest lectures in Tibetan and Himalayan Studies

Prof. Charles Ramble, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Sorbonne

Thursday, May 31, Auditorium 2, Georg Sverdrups hus

  • Vampire Subjugation Rituals in the Tibet-Himalaya Interface.
  • Buddhism, Blood-sacrifice and Law: the Ingredients of Tibetan Civil Religion in Mustang (Nepal).

Friday, June 1, Seminar room 152, Georg Morgenstiernes hus

  • Understanding Verticality and Mirror-Imagery in Tibetan Myth and Royal Etiology: How Useful is Perspectivist Theory?

Organizer

Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, PluRel and Tibetnettverket

Guest Lectures in Tibetan and Himalayan Studies

Four open guest lectures by scholars from Humboldt University and Northwestern University

Time and place: May 11, 2012 10:15 AM–4:30 PM, Undervisningsrom 3, Georg Sverdrups hus

Program

  • Prof. Toni Huber, Humboldt University: Gods of Life: Documenting a previously unknown form of Tibetan religion in the eastern Himalayas
  • Dr. Mona Schrempf, Humboldt University: Spirit Matters in East Bhutan — Jomo Drolma, a female ritual healer
  • Dr. Sarah Jacoby, Northwestern University: Ḍākinī Dialogues in the Autobiography of a Female Tibetan Buddhist Visionary
  • Dr. Barbara Gerke, Humboldt University: The Poison of Touch: Tracing Mercurial Treatments of Syphilis in Tibet

Organizer

Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, Religion in Pluralist Societies (PluRel), Section for Medical Anthropology and Medical History (UiO) and Oslo Buddhist Studies Forum (IKOS)

King, Governance, and Law in Ancient India: The Origin of Kauṭilya's Arthaśāstra

Open guest lecture by Professor Patrick Olivelle, University of Texas at Austin

Time and place: May 10, 2012 1:15 PM–3:00 PM, Room 454 PAM

Professor Olivelle works in ancient to medieval Indian cultural history, focusing especially on religious history. He has translated many important ancient Indian texts, including the Upanishads, ancient codes of law, and books of folktale, and he is especially interested in the connections between social, political, economic and religious dimensons of Indian history. The different types of literature Dr. Olivelle works on, supplemented by art historical and epigraphical sources, provide insights into these areas and their interactions.

Zen as a Cult of Death in the W.W. II Writings of D.T. Suzuki

Open guest lecture by Prof. Brian Daizen Victoria, Antioch University, Ohio, USA

Time and place: May 8, 2012 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, PAM 454

In June 1941, the Imperial Japanese Army’s premier journal for its officer corps published an article written by D.T. Suzuki. Suzuki used a well-known Zen phrase, i.e., “Makujiki Kōzen” (Rush Forward Without Hesitation) as the title for his article, an article that has heretofore been unknown in the West.

The publication date, no less than its intended audience, is significant in that it was slightly less than six months before Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. At that point Japan was in the fourth year of its full-scale invasion of China. While Japanese forces held most major Chinese cities, they were unable, to their great frustration, to either pacify the countryside or defeat the Nationalist and Communist forces deployed against them. The war was therefore effectively at a stalemate though the death toll, both Chinese and Japanese, continued to rise relentlessly from ongoing Japanese attacks.

What did Suzuki want his officer readers to understand about Zen’s relevance to the war they were fighting? Why did he inform his readers that “Zen was the shortcut to being prepared to die”? These and many other questions will be explored in this lecture.

Brian Daizen Victoria

Brian is professor of Japanese Studies and director of the AEA Japan and Its Buddhist Traditions Program at Antioch University in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

Zen Terrorism in 1930s Japan: Lessons for Today

Open guest lecture by Prof. Brian Daizen Victoria, Antioch University, Ohio, USA

Time and place: May 8, 2012 4:15 PM–5:30 PM, PAM 454

In theory, Buddhism should be the last place to look for doctrines justifying terrorism, defined here as the killing of unarmed non-combatants in pursuit of broader political goals. Yet, the historical reality is that in 1930s Japan at least three terrorist incidents were directly influenced by Zen doctrine and practice, not to mention additional terrorist acts attributed to other Japanese Buddhist schools, such as Nichiren-affiliated General Ishiwara Kanji.  The incidents with a clear Zen influence are: 1) the Blood Oath Corps Incident of Spring 1932; 2) the assassination of Major General Nagata Tetsuzan on August 12, 1935; and 3) the Military Uprising of February 26, 1936. Specifically, does Zen’s emphasis on acting intuitively, i.e. “mindlessly”, not only short-circuit the need for closely reasoned, analytical thought but ethical conduct as well?
Inoue Nisshō (1886-1967), one of the terrorist leaders, testified during his court case in 1934 that he had chosen Zen because “Zen dislikes talking theory” and “I have no systematized ideas. I transcend reason and act completely upon intuition.”

Due to space limitations, only one of the three Zen-inspired incidents, i.e. the Blood Oath Corps Incident, will be examined. However, this illustrated lecture will demonstrate that decades before the current religious fanaticism of Muslim extremists (and anti-Muslim extremists), the ‘mindless’ fanaticism of Zen played a major role in the destroying the last bastion of domestic resistance to Japanese militarism.  It is exactly because Buddhism is such an unlikely candidate to give rise to religiously inspired terrorism that a close study of the Blood Oath Corps Incident may aid in the larger task of understanding religiously inspired terrorism as a whole.

Religious Art of South India – consecration and installation ceremonies

Open guest lecture by Professor Marzenna Czerniak-Drozdzowicz, Department of Indology, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland

Time and place: May 2, 2012 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, Seminar room 1 PAM

Instructions concerning creation of the idols of gods and their installation in the temple are an integral portion of the canonical religious literature of the South Indian Hindu traditions. The meaning of the cult of the idols, ideas behind it and its descriptions in the texts will be the main subject of the proposed lecture. Through the installation ceremony - pratiùñhà, the qualified and entitled practitioners were able to invoke god`s potencies into a receptacle duly prepared and installed in the properly constructed place of worship.

The description of the ceremonies connected with the installation of an idol in the temple, its worship and restoration in the case of damage is based on the relevant passages from Tantric textual sources, mainly belonging to the Vaishnava Pancaratra. This particular tradition provided a very particular scheme of the five modes of god’s existence, one of them being arcàvatàra – god present in his representations, which has a crucial impact on the cult of the idols.

The lecture will be accompanied by some visual materials.

Religious Art of South India – temples and temple cult

Open guest lecture by Professor Marzenna Czerniak-Drozdzowicz, Department of Indology, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland

Time and place: Apr. 30, 2012 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, Seminar room 1 PAM

Religious art is a subject treated not only in the technical manuals (vastu- and śilpaśàstras) dedicated to the descriptions of the construction of temples, creation of god’s representations etc., but  it is, to a large extent, a subject of a religious literature of India, especially connected with Tantric Hindu traditions (Jean Filliozat, great Indologist, pointed out that: “Un traité d’architecture religieuse est nécessairrement tantrique). For Tantric traditions the process of creating the place of worship and the object, an idol, which will be hosting god’s potencies are very important issues and the texts of these traditions constitute a necessary supplementation to the vastu- and śilpaśàstra texts.

The lecture is meant to present the main ideas behind the temple cult, which are articulated also by religious literature, for example, early Vaishnava sources connected with the Pancaratra tradition. It also concerns the main religious spots of South India and the most precious and interesting examples of temple architecture created there.

The lecture will be accompanied by some audio-visual presentations.

Irrigation and Water Management in the Eastern Hindu Kush, Chitral, Pakistan

Guest lecture by Arnd Holdschlag, University of Hamburg

Time and place: 30. April 2012 14:15–16:00, Seminar room 10 PA Munchs hus

The huge ice masses above the snowlines of the world’s mountains are often regarded as “water towers of humankind”. However, shrinking glaciers mean that rivers tapping them carry less water into the settlement areas of both mountain regions and their forelands, making conflicts about water distribution more likely. In the high mountain area of Chitral (Eastern Hindu Kush, Pakistan), an arid zone “between glaciers and desert”, water is one of the key resources, not only for drinking and agricultural purposes but also for the conversion of potential and kinetic energy into hydroelectric power. Irrigation systems, their organization and management, form the basis of communal life. Right from the construction of a channel to the regular conveyance of water to fields, mountain dwellers undergo many painstaking organisational processes. Sophisticated techniques and institutional patterns are often an integral part of the local culture and reflect social structures and power asymmetries. An integrative approach for the analysis of water management practices is suggested to understand better their relevance for sustainable development.

Dr. Arnd Holdschlag’s lecture is the first one of the newly created Morgenstierne Lectures series. This and the following lectures concentrate on the theme of Water, Culture and Power. Arnd Holdschlag is scientific assistant at the Institute of Geography, University of Hamburg. He has worked extensively in the Northern Areas of Pakistan, among others on the complex water management systems of Chitral and Hunza. Some additional research interests of his are human/nature interaction, natural hazards, and complexity theory.

Hurdles to Equity in Rural Water Supply: Karnataka State, India

Open guest lecture by Professor Gopal K. Karanth, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore

Time and place: Apr. 27, 2012 10:15 AM–12:00 PM, Seminarrom 144, Georg Morgenstiernes hus

Located at the Centre for the Study of Social Change and Development at ISEC, his main areas of research have been in rural sociology.  This academic year Professor Karanth has been an India Chair Professor at Lund University, sponsored by the Swedish South Asian Studies Network (SASNET) and the Indian Council of Cultural Relations.

Organizer

This lecture is part of the Georg Morgenstierne Series of lectures on South Asia, funded by IAKH and IKOS.

Semitic in a Global Setting

Open joint IKOS-ILOS-ILN Workshop

Time and place: Apr. 20, 2012 2:00 PM–6:00 PM, 389 PAM

The Semitic languages (Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Amharic, etc.) are not only important by themselves, but also play a significant role in cultural contact with other areas, such as the Graeco-Roman, the Germanic, and the Slavic areas. In this workshop we shall explore these connections. The keynote speaker will be Prof. Theo Vennemann from the University of Munich, who will dwell on early connections between Semitic and Germanic. 

Program

  • Theo Vennemann, University of Munich: "Prestratal Phoenician influence in Proto-Germanic: Arguments and evidence"
  • Kjell Magne Yri, University of Oslo, ILN: "Finiteness and deixis in Amharic and Sidaama (Semitic and Cushitic)"
  • Silje Alvestad, University of Oslo, ILOS: "Makbul-i Arif: The Bosnian language in the 17th century based on Muhamed Hevai Uskufi's Bosnian-Turkish dictionary from 1631"
  • Lutz Edzard, University of Oslo, IKOS: “Hebrew and Yiddish elements in contemporary German”

The Monastery at the Centre of the Cosmos: Sacred Landscape and Monasticism in Reting, Tibet

Open guest lecture by Dr. Ulrike Roesler, University of Oxford

Time and place: Apr. 19, 2012 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 219, Georg Morgenstiernes hus

The foundation of Reting monastery in 1056/57 marks the beginning of the Kadampa school of Tibetan Buddhism. This was the first case ever in which a new distinct tradition or "school" of Tibetan Buddhism originated based on a new monastic institution. Thus, Reting and its founder Dromtönpa are of vital significance for the Kadampa tradition, and the narrative about Reting's foundation became more and more elaborate during subsequent centuries.

The Reting valley is described as a sacred landscape whose geometrical pattern corresponds to the structure of the cosmos. The mountains surrounding the monastery represent the symbols of kingship, protecting the place and securing the success of the monastic tradition. The monastery became also part of the narrative of the salvation of Tibet: In a "pure vision" account, the monastery is envisaged as the pure crystal palace of Avalokiteshvara, who manifested as Dromtönpa in order to continue Songtsengampo's activities for the spread of Buddhism.

As a field trip has shown, the traditional narratives about Reting monastery are now activily revived, but they are not frozen in their traditional form: Recent historical events have led to new interpretations of the sacred landscape of Reting, reaffirming the sacredness of the place in times of hardship.

Ulrike Roesler is University Lecturer in Tibetan and Himalayan Studies at the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford.

A Case of Cultural Hybridity: The European Renaissance

Open guest lecture by Professor Peter Burke, Cambridge University. Professor Thomas Hylland Eriksen will make an introduction to the discussion afterwards.

Time and place: Apr. 18, 2012 12:15 PM–2:00 PM, Auditorim 2, Georg Sverdrups hus

In an age of the more and more frequent migration of people, things and ideas between countries and continents, and the consequent interaction between them, an interest in cultural hybridity has been growing in a cluster of disciplines.

As a historian I am particularly interested in the process of hybridization, including under this umbrella both conscious syncretism and cultural translation, and in the way in which awareness of hybridization may help us understand cultural change.  The process is far from being a new one, although the increasing scale of the phenomenon is probably unprecedented. Its importance in the present is stimulating scholars to examine more closely examples of hybridization in the past, including the Renaissance (viewed here as a movement for the revival of antiquity rather than more vaguely as a period in European history, c.1400-1600).

About Peter Burke

Professor Emeritus of Cultural History and Fellow of Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge. Burke is celebrated as a historian not only of the early modern era, but one who emphasizes the relevance of social and cultural history to modern issues.

The social history of filing

Open guest lecture by Professor Peter Burke, Cambridge University.

Time and place: Apr. 17, 2012 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 14, PAM

A common definition of the term ‘file’ is ‘a collection of records of the same type’. In a broader sense, a file is an item of information stored in a form that allows its retrieval, so that speaking about files turns into speaking about record-keeping in general, whether by governments, businesses or scholars, as in the case of this lecture. The approach is described as a social history because it emphasizes social groups: the producers of files (from high-status scribes to lowly clerks); the keepers of files; and the consumers of files, such as merchants and administrators.  The uses of files, to do what to whom, will also be discussed.

What follows offers a provisional periodization, based on the (im)materiality of files, and distinguishing five ages, though not forgetting the survival of older materials and methods into later periods. The story will not be told in terms of progress but in terms of the costs, benefits and unintended consequences of different systems.

  1. Human memory as a filing system, assisted by training and by aide-mémoires such as the Peruvian khipu.
  2. The age of two rival media of storage and retrieval, clay tablets and papyrus, from the 3rd millennium BCE onwards, in Sumer, Egypt and elsewhere
  3. The age of parchment, more or less the Western Middle Ages, c.500-1500 CE.
  4. The age of paper (in other words relatively cheap paper), c.1500-2000.
  5. The digital age, returning to immateriality, and developing from a series of innovations that produced new kinds of file (audiotapes, videotapes, microfiches, CDs).

“A House Divided”  The History of Hindi and Urdu 1800-1947

A lecture series with Dr. Barbara Lotz, Institute of Cultural Studies of East and South Asia Würzburg University, Germany.

Time: 27.-29. March 2012.

Hinduī, Urdū and ‘Hindoostanee’: Invented by the British? 1800-1854

Time and place: Mar. 27, 2012 12:15 PM–2:00 PM, PAM seminarrom 10

  • Perspectives of research
  • Terminology: Hinduī, Hindustānī, Khaṛībolī, Urdū, Hindī
  • Amir Khusrau
  • College Fort William
  • J.B. Gilchris
  • Lalluji Lal

Reading: Insha Allah Khan: “Rānī Ketkī kī kahānī”  (c. 1803)

Politics and Strategies: Hindi for Hindus, Urdu for Muslims 1860-1900

Time and place: Mar. 28, 2012 12:15 PM–2:00 PM, PAM seminarrom 454

  • Raj Shiv Prasad Sitarehind
  • Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan
  • Bharatendu Harishchandra

Reading: Badrinarayan Upadhyay ‘Premghan’: “Hamāre deś kī bhāṣā aur akṣar” (1895)

On the Way to Partition: Hindi and Urdu in the ‘National’ Discourse 1900-1947

Time and place: Mar. 29, 2012 12:15 PM–2:00 PM, PAM seminarrom 14

  • Hindu and Muslim Organisations
  • M.P. Dvivedi
  • Gandhi and Tandon

Reading: Premchand: “Urdū Hindī aur Hindustānī” (1934)

North Korean Chuch’e Ideas

Open guest lecture by Prof. Sergei O. Kurbanov, St. Petersburg State University

Time and place: Mar. 26, 2012 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Helga Engs Hus, Aud. U35

North Korea is a country of traditional Confucian culture. Nevertheless it is often called in mass media “communist” or “socialist” state. In fact the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea gives an interesting example of coexistence of a westernized “socialist” shape together with traditional Confucian mind and social structure. This phenomenon can be clearly illustrated through the analysis of North Korean Chuch’e Ideas – the leading ideology of North Korea which has fully substituted the “communist” ideology (which North Korea has followed only for the limited period of time) by national ideological system.

The upcoming lecture will introduce both official North Korean view on Chuch’e Ideas and independent comparative analysis of this ideological system

Prof. Sergei O. Kurbanov

Full-time professor of the Faculty of Asian and African Studies of the St. Petersburg State University, Director of the Center for Korean Language and Culture. 

Toward an inclusive multicultural society: Japan's challenge in the 21st century

Public lecture by Professor Koichi Iwabuchi, Waseda University, Tokyo

Time and place: Mar. 8, 2012 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, Auditorium 3, Sophus Bugges hus

In the last decade, in Japan as well as Korea and Taiwan, the issues concerning growing multicultural situations have come to be discussed more seriously. While this appears to be in contrast to the marked decline of multiculturalism in many Western countries, they all share a similar trend of tightening national borders and stressing patriotism. This lecture will explore in the Japanese context a globally shared challenge of constructing an inclusive multicultural society that fosters the fair recognition and treatment of culturally diverse citizens.

Professor Iwabuchi is a very prominent scholar in the field of popular culture. He has published widely on the cross-fertilization between Japanese and other East-Asian popular cultures, media, transnationalism and globalization. His theoretical work is highly evaluated and many of the concepts introduced in his acclaimed book Recentering Globalization (Duke University Press, 2002) have become widely used theoretical instruments. Professor Iwabuchi will be teaching various courses as a guest professor at IKOS during March.

Taxation and the Sikkimese State: A Selection of Administrative Documents from the Sikkimese Palace Archive

Open guest lecture by Dr. Saul Mullard, Oxford University & Namgyal Institute of Tibetology.  

Time and place: Mar. 8, 2012 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Grupperom 4, Georg Sverdrups hus

The Sikkimese palace archive was discovered in 2005 stored in old boxes and suitcases having been neglected for many years. The collection contains over 1000 documents in Tibetan, Nepali, Lepcha (the language of the indigenous people of Sikkim), Maithali, and English and covers an historical period from 1663-1916.

In this seminar he will present and examine a number of administrative documents from this collection during the period c.1750-1850 on the subject of Sikkimese estates in Nepal and India as well as in Sikkim proper. These documents will be used to show the territorial extent of the Sikkimese state and the conflicts posed to Sikkim by the expansion of the British colonial empire. He will also raise issues relating to the strength of states in Tibet and the Himalaya.

2011

The Effects of Internet Activism on Protest Policing in China

Guest lecture by Dr. Guobin Yang, Columbia University

Time and place: Nov. 24, 2011 10:15 AM–12:00 PM, Auditorium 2, Sophus Bugges hus

Since the early 1990s, popular protest in China has incorporated digital technologies, leading to the rise of digital or internet activism. The policing of protest is similarly undergoing digitization, with law enforcement authorities relying increasingly on digital technologies for policing activism and protest. Amidst the many studies of digital activism, however, the question of whether and how the digitization of protest has affected the policing of protest is overlooked. This study aims to fill this gap by examining how the digitization of activism has shaped the practices of policing.

Dr. Guobin Yang is Associate Professor at Barnard College, Columbia University. He is a leading scholar on internet activism in China and the author of The Power of the Internet in China: Citizen Activism Online (New York: Columbia University Press. Paperback edition 2011). His research also includes underground culture and communication during the Cultural Revolution, environmental NGOs and activism in China, as well as the Chinese student movement in 1989.

Dr. Yang visits Oslo in connection with Cuiming Pang's defence of her PhD thesis "The Power of Cyber Communities: Building Collective Life in China".

Routes, roads and landscapes

The Routes-project will launch and celebrate its new anthology Routes, Roads and Landscapes with an open seminar.

Time and place: Nov. 18, 2011 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Room 489 PAM

This book is output from the research project "Routes, Roads and Landscapes, aesthetic practices en route 1750-2015" financed by NFR's KULVER project. 

Presentations by:

  • Mari Hvattum, leader of the Routes-project and Professor of Architectural History and Theory, AHO
  • Karl Otto Ellefsen, Rector at AHO, Professor of Urbanism
  • Anne Eriksen, Professor of Cultural History at IKOS, UiO and member of the KULVER board

Pecha Kucha by:

  • Torild Gjesvik
  • Kristina Skåden
  • Janike Kampevold Larsen

Shaping secularism in Nepal

Reflections on goddess Kumari at the Supreme Court.

Dr. Chiara Letizia, University of Milano-Bicocca & University of Oxford, will give a public lecture on this topic.

Time and place: Sep. 23, 2011 10:15 AM–11:30 AM, Undervisningsrom 2, Georg Sverdrups hus

In 2005 a human rights lawyer filed a petition at the Supreme Court challenging the tradition of the living goddesses (Kumaris) in the name of child rights. In particular, the petition addressed the case of the former royal Kumari, who lives a sequestered ritual life until puberty and who, as a goddess of the nation, used to bless the king once a year. Nepal overthrew its king and was declared a secular state in 2007, but the little goddess still sits on her throne and now blesses the president instead. In this lecture anthrpologist Chiara Letizia examines the arguments of the parties and the court’s verdict - rendered in 2008 - for the way they address the relation between the state and religion. ¨

Chiara Letizia is researcher and lecturer in cultural anthropology at the University of Milano-Bicocca and Research Associate at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford. Her current field research is about the meaning and the implementation of secularism in Nepal after the declaration of the country as a secular state in the Interim Constitution of 2007.

Guest lecture: Japanese Women Under the Neo-Liberalist Reform

Prof. em. Chizuko Ueno, University of Tokyo

Time and place: 29. August 2011 16:15–18:00, Aud. 3, Helga Engs hus

Chizuko Ueno, now Professor Emerita, was  Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at the University of Tokyo Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology until March this year, and is an author of numerous books and articles on a wide range of topics related to gender and social welfare in Japan. She has a long publication list both in Japanese and English, which includes Nationalism and Gender (Trans Pacific, 2004) and The Modern Family in Japan: Its Rise and Fall (Trans Pacific, 2009). She has written widely on issues related to the care of the elderly, neo-liberalism, and women’s position in recent years.  

Abstract

During the past few decades, Japan has gone through neo-liberalist reform under globalization. This process resulted in a growing gap among women, in addition to the gap between men and women. Who has gained from it and who has lost? How do feminists respond to this change? The Japanese women's experience will suggest a way of survival for women in most industrialized societies.

All new (and old) Japanese students are strongly encouraged to come to Professor Ueno’s lecture! 

Contact

Reiko Abe Auestad, Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages

The Significance of Buddhist Scriptures

Professor Jonathan Silk, University of Leiden will give a guest lecture on this topic.

Time and place: 12. April 2011 16:15–18:00, Seminar room 1, PAM

In all of our careful philology, we often lose sight of what should be a fundamental question: What do Buddhist scriptures mean? This is not (here) a theologian’s question, but that of historian. To address this question as historians, we need to think about related questions, or sub-questions: To whom, and under what conditions, do these scriptures mean or signify in the first place? There is an ambiguity here I would like to explore: what something ‘means’ refers to its ‘significance,’ which in turn refers to the manner in which it is understood. Scriptures are understood both to ‘mean’ and to ‘be,’ that is, to convey content and to have status, or to put it in other words, both to have import and to be important.

Regarding the importance of these scriptures, rather than assuming a status, we must think about those for whom they possess(ed) some importance or significance. This presentation attempts to offer a few suggestions of ways to approach these fundamental questions. Among other things, it asks questions such as: if scriptures share pericopes or stock expressions, what—and how—do such shared materials signify in their different contexts? How are we to understand the relative importance of preserved scriptures when their contents often seem so similar? If scriptures are created through the collection of pre-existing elements, (how) do they differ from anthologies?

Organizer

The Oslo Buddhist Studies Forum, IKOS

The Sociology of Indian Religion, or: What Can Social Theory learn from Bhakti?

Guest lecture by professor Martin Fuchs, University of Erfurt, Germany

Time and place 11. April 2011 12:15–14:00, Seminar room 12, PAM

Bhakti was one of the least understood areas of Indian religion for a long time. Sociologists in particular found it difficult to build bhakti into their conceptualisations of Indian society and Indian religion. This presentation will discuss the works of the most renowned sociologists of Indian religions, Max Weber and Louis Dumont, and their understanding of bhakti. It will then suggest a different interpretation of bhakti based on recent cultural studies approaches to bhakti.

Martin Fuchs is Professor for the History of Indian Religion at the Max-Weber-Kolleg, University of Erfurt (Germany). His main areas of research – reflected in a large number of book and article publications – are: culture and social theory, anthropology of South Asia, sociology and study of religions, social and religious movements, Dalits, urban anthropology.

Translating texts from elsewhere: Reflections inspired by the 1607 translation of Euclid's Elements into Chinese

Karine Chemla, University Paris Diderot, will give a lecture on the Chinese translation of Euclid’s Elements.

Time and place: 1. April 2011 14:15–16:00, Seminar room 10, PAM

The Elements are definitely among the great texts of history in being a text-book of mathematics for more than two thousand years. As such the Elements are very much the basis of European mathematics, and also physics, throughout the centuries since it was written around 300 B.C. 

Her goal is to outline what could be an approach to translating as a historically situated operation and to this translation as a historical object.

The present linguistic situation of Romani in Europe

Guest lecture by professor Ian Hancock, Univeristy of Texas, Austin.

Time and place: 24. February 2011 10:15–12:00, Georg Sverdrups hus

Professor Hancock works at the Department of Linguistics, the Department of English and at the Romani Archives and Documentation Center, all at University of Texas in Austin. He is a distinct scholar and author in the field of Roma and Romani studies and has to his credid a great number of publications. Moreover, he is an engaged activist for the cause of Roma rights and member of numerous Roma-related organisations.

Ian Hancock has been invited to Oslo by the Norwegian Student Society and there will be also a discussion at Chateau Neuf on Wednesday the 23rd, at 7pm. There Ian Hancock will be discussing the situation of the Roma people in Europe, along with journalist and author Jahn Otto Johansen – and eventually with the Student Peace Prize laureate Dusko Kostics.

2010

Islamists in Crisis? The Uncertain future of Political Islam in the Arab World

Guest lecture by Shadi Hamid, Brookings Doha Center.

Time and place: 11. nov. 2010 13:15, Helga Enghs hus

Shadi Hamid ir Director of Research at Brookings Doha Center and Fellow at Saban Center for Middle East Policy.

Organizer

Fault Lines of Islamism, IKOS

The Development of Japanese Painting and its close proximity to Literary genres such as Poetry and Monogatari

Guest Lecture by Professor Masatomo Kawai of Keio University, Tokyo  

Time and place: 11. october 2010 18:15–20:00, Aud. 2, Georg Sverdrups hus

What are the most salient characteristics of Japanese painting? Professor Kawai provides a historical overview of the characteristics with focus on the emergence of “Yamato-e” (Japanese painting) as opposed to “Kara-e” (Chinese painting) in the 7th through 9th century. The “Yamato-e,” depicting nature and famous sceneries, was often painted as accompaniment to waka-poetry, and its development was closely connected with that of the monogatari-literature at the Heian court (The most famous example is the illustrations of Genji-scrolls), and of other literary genres in the later Muromachi and Edo periods.

There will be an opportunity for questions and discussion after the lecture.

Professor Kawai is Professor Emeritus at Keio University, Department of Art History, and published numerous books and articles on Japanese art and paintings. The lecture (in Japanese) will be translated into English.

Socially Engaged Buddhism: Local Manifestations of a Buddhist Socio-ethical Philosophy

Professor Dr Michael Zimmermann, University of Hamburg.  

Time and place: 5. October 2010 16:15–18:00, Seminar room 10, PAM

For a long time, so-called Socially Engaged Buddhists, in East and West, have set out for activities engaging with society inspired by Buddhist teachings and often led by teachers of their respective Buddhist communities. There are plenty of examples of such activities organized in different forms, transcending simple attempts of characterization. In my talk I will deal with some of the underlying principles of Engaged Buddhism and raise the question whether there is a common fundament they share - an underlying expression of a Buddhist socio-ethical theory. The Chapter on Right Conduct in the Bodhisattvabhūmi, an early text of the Mind-Only-School of Mahāyāna Buddhism, seems to provide formulations of such a theory. I will discuss the relevant paragraphs in some depth.

Michael Zimmermann is Professor for Indian Buddhism at the Asien-Afrika-Institut of Hamburg University and Director of the Zentrum für Buddhismuskunde.

Organizer

The Oslo Buddhist Studies Forum

Guest lecture: Hindi as a contact language of India

Professor Anvita Abbi, Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany & Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, India.  

Time and place: 23. September 2010 14:15–16:00, Seminar room 15, PAM

Post independent India has witnessed an enormous increase in the users of Hindi as a contact language for inter-group and intra-group communication. Hindi in its non- standard varieties is used and accepted by Scheduled and non-Scheduled language speakers all over the country, but specifically in the northeast region (Scheduled languages enjoy an official status whereas the others lack this status). Hindi in its non-standard form is seen as a big leveler since it mitigates the differences and hierarchies among disparate and distinct tribes. Prof. Abbi brings in examples from such varieties to demonstrate that Hindi is the only language available for communication for non-English speakers across the country.

Anvita Abbi is chairperson at the Centre for Linguistics at the Jawahar Lal Nehru University. Her fields of research are, among others, areal linguistics and typology, language contact and bilingualism, tribal and endangered languages. She was awarded the prestigious Rashtriya Lokbhasha Samman.

Buddhism in crisis? Institutional decline and the cultural transformation of temples in contemporary Japan

The Oslo Buddhist Studies Forum invites you to attend the lecture by Dr. Ian Reader, professor of Japanese Studies, University of Manchester.

Time and place: 21. sep. 2010 16:15–18:00, Seminar room 10, PAM

In reports of the sectarian councils and meetings of several major Buddhist sects in Japan in the past two years, one term keeps recurring: kikikan ‘a sense of crisis’ that hangs over Japanese Buddhism. It came up also in many talks I had with Buddhist priests, officials and leaders in my most recent field trip to Japan. Buddhist temples are closing in large numbers in rural Japan, while population decline and an ageing population are eroding Buddhism’s traditional economic support structures. In urban Japan, a new funeral industry is beginning to eat into the monopoly Buddhist temples long enjoyed in dealing with death and the ancestors – the main areas in which the Japanese have engaged with Buddhism as a household religion. Even areas of popular practice linked to Buddhist temples - such as pilgrimage- and once relied on to sustain temples through difficult times, are not attracting the numbers of visitors that they did a few years back. For many temples (notably major pilgrimage sites) the need to develop alternative support structures has led to an increasing emphasis on ‘heritage’ and tourism, while increasingly downplaying ‘religious’ issues- a pattern that has its own implications for the future of Buddhism in Japan.

In this talk I outline the evidence that indicates the extent of this crisis and the factors behind it, while examining various responses to it. In particular I pay attention to what the longer term implications are for Buddhism in Japan, and whether we are perhaps seeing the beginning of the death throes of a major religious tradition.

Professor Reader's research interests center around the study of religion especially in the modern day, and on Japan. His main focus is on using studies of Japanese issues and topics to inform wider academic discussions and studies of religion.

Organizer

The Oslo Buddhist Studies Forum, IKOS

Guest lecture: The Middle Babylonian Letters from the Kassite Kings of Babylon to the Kings of Egypt

Prof. John Huehnergard, University of Texas at Austin  

Time and place: 17. sep. 2010 15:15–17:00, 389 PAM

Prof. Huehnergard's research interests are focused on the historical and comparative grammar of the Semitic languages, especially of their morphology and their dialectology. Among the Semitic languages, he has concentrated primarily on Akkadian, and secondarily on Ugaritic, classical Ethiopic (Ge'ez), ancient Aramaic dialects, and classical Hebrew. He is also interested in the study of modern Semitic languages (especially modern Ethiopian Semitic and Neo-Aramaic), in ancient Egyptian, in the larger Afro-Asiatic language family to which Semitic and Egyptian belong, in theoretical aspects of comparative and historical linguistics, and in the history of writing and literacy.

The Srinathji ki Prakatya Varta: Reading Mughal kingship and political change through a Vaishnava Hagiography

A presentation by Emilia Bachrach, University of Texas, Austin   

Time and place: 17. September 2010 10:15–11:15, Seminarrom 9, PAM

Emilia examines the Shrinathji ki Prakatya Varta, a hagiography of the Vallabha Sampradaya, which narrates the movement of a local manifestation of Krishna, Shrinathji, from Braj to Nathdwara in the 17th century. Opposing common interpretations of the text, which claim that Shrinathji’s move was responding to Mughal aggression, Bachrach argues that the text is accounting for the political economic changes of the time. Instead of depicting Mughal leadership as evil, the varta portrays the Empire as one among many political entities competing for the prestige of caring for the sect and its powerful deity.

Emilia is PhD student at the University of Austin in Texas. She focuses her studies on religion in South Asia, especially on Hindu-Vaishnava devotional traditions in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat. Her interests include ritual and performance theory, women's ritual practice, and Hindu devotional poetry and performance.

Guest lectures: Gender and Performance in South Asia

Professor Kathryn Hansen at Department of South Asian Studies, University of Texas, Austin.

Time and place: 7. sep. 2010 16:15–16. sep. 2010 18:00, Seminarrom 3, PAM

Lecture plan:

  • 07.09.2010 Eroticism and Artistic Patronage in Pre-Colonial India Lecture
  • 08.09.2010 Sanitization of Performance under Colonialism and Nationalism Lecture
  • 09.09.2010 Devadasis and Dance Traditions in South India Lecture
  • 14.09.2010 Baijis and Classical Music in North India Lecture
  • 15.09.2010 Female Impersonation and Parsi Theatre in Western India Lecture
  • 16.09.2010 Ritual and Transgenderism Today Lecture

Kathryn Hansen's research Interests are: The history of theatrical practices in South Asia, gender and performance, South Asian literary and cultural studies (modern period), South Asian (Hindi, Urdu), diaspora, ethnicity, and immigration.

Workshop om "The Discourses and Memories on Trans-border Movements in Postwar Japan and Beyond"

Toshio Iyotani, Yumi Hirata and Tatsua Mima.

Time and place: 29. August 2011 13:15–15:00, Seminar room 301, Harriet Holters hus

Toshio Iyotani: Rethinking Japan’s Migration Experience and the so-called “Migration Studies”

Focusing on the processes of cross-border movements of people in postwar Japan, this paper seeks to challenge such the conventional perspective on migration as an “exception” to the settled “norm” of existence, to be controlled by state authorities, and to open up new ways of perceiving the regional movements of people.

Toshio Iyotani: Professor of International Economics and of Sociology at the Graduate School of Social Sciences, Hitotsubashi University. Ph.D. from Kyoto University. Expert on migration and globalization issues.

Yumi  Hirata: Colonial Children in Postwar Japan: Displaced Identities betwixt and between

Focusing on the “Colonial Children” – Japanese born in colonial Korea and resident Koreans in Japan – this paper seeks to identify both differences and similarities in the socio-cultural orientations of these two groups, and thus shed light on the aftereffects of colonialism and the postcolonial perspectives.

Yumi Hirata: Professor at Osaka University. PhD from Kyoto University (2002). Expert on gender in modern Japanese literature.

Tatsuya Mima: Reading “Sung Kil-sun case”

Sung Kil-sun (Shinkichi Narita) was a Korean resident of Japan, who performed euthanasia on his mother, on her explicit request, on 31st, May 1949, thus triggering the first-ever court decision on euthanasia (1950) in Japanese history. This paper is an attempt to understand this complex and contradictory story from the viewpoint of “displacement”. By doing so, we can see this homicide as the story about the desperate death of a Korean woman who was forced to move to Japan during the Japanese occupation period because she was poor and sick, and who then was forced to remain in Japan after 1945 because of the same reasons.

Tatsuya Mima: Associate Professor, Human Brain Research Center, Kyoto Univeristy Graduate School of Medicine. PhD from Kyoto University (1997). Expert in the field of neurology.

Contact

Inquiries related to the workshop may be directed to Prof. Vladimir Tikhonov

Seminar on "Encounters of traditional Indian systems of learning with modern means of creating and preserving knowledge."

Two lectures: Sumathi Ramaswamy: Global Encounters, Earthly Knowledges, Worldly Selves Rich Freeman: Meta-pragmatics and Practicalities: Pedagogy in the Priestcraft of Kerala

Tid og sted: 26. mai 2011 13:15–16:00, Seminarroom 6 PAM

While Sumathi Ramaswamy looks at how modern, scientific geography was pedagogically introduced into a historically pre‐scientific, traditional world, Rich Freeman's considers how a pre‐scientific ritual tradition is brought forward into the milieu of a modern pedagogical setting.

 

Published Mar. 2, 2022 10:54 AM - Last modified Jan. 18, 2024 4:22 PM
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