Upcoming Lecture: Buddhist Diplomacy in Colonial Southern Asia by Anne Blackburn
Anne Blackburn will give a lecture on "Buddhist Diplomacy in Colonial Southern Asia," based on her new book, Locations of Buddhism: Colonialism and Modernity in Sri Lanka (2010).The lecture will take place at 5:30pm on Thursday, October 7th at the British Studies Library on the 5th floor of Norlin Library
As British and French colonial control deepened in Lanka and Southeast Asia during the latter half of the 19th century, Buddhist monks and devotees relied increasingly on regional Buddhist networks in order to address the direct and indirect effects of colonial presence on royal courts and Buddhist communities. Drawing on epistolary and newspaper records in Pali, Sinhala and English from Lanka, this lecture explores Buddhist collaborations within the Indian Ocean world, especially those related to ritual, pilgrimage, and monastic institution-building.
Anne Blackburn is Associate Professor of South Asian Studies and Buddhist Studies at Cornell University. In her research, she has challenged the stimulus-response model of colonial contact through careful attention to regional dynamics and interactions between South and Southeast Asia. Her other publications include Buddhist Learning and Textual Practice in Eighteenth-Century Lankan Monastic Culture (2001) and Approaching the Dhamma: Buddhist Texts and Practices in South and Southeast Asia, co-edited with Jeffrey Sameuls (2003).