Announcing Ananda Abeysekara for the 2011 Lester Lecture
This year, for the 2011 Lester Lecture, the Religious Studies Department has the privilege to host Ananda Abeysekara, Associate Professor in the Department of Religion and Culture at Virginia Tech. His lecture, "The Un-translatability of Religion, The Un-translatability of Life," will take place on Monday, February 7th at 5:00pm in Humanities 250. The lectureship this year is being organized by Assistant Professor Ruth Mas.
The question of political and religious identity as it is constructed in monastic institutions and set in opposition to society at large is one important example of how Abeysekara has framed the issues of power, self-definition, and violence in Buddhist culture. His work runs parallel to such contemporary theorists and philosophers as Talal Asad, Alasdair McIntyre, and David Scott. And, similar to these scholars, his theoretical models are strongly influenced by the writings of Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, as well as other notable post-modernists. Further, Abeysekara is in conversation with such leaders in the field of Buddhist identity, political discourse, and ritual expression as S.J. Tambiah and Gananath Obeyesekere. For all these reasons, his work constitutes an important contribution to the study of past and present articulations of power and identity in post-colonial South and Southeast Asian Buddhist traditions. In the broader context of Religious Studies, Abeysekara has raised pertinent questions concerning the tools of analytical inquiry, how scholars employ theories of analysis, interpretation, and critique.
In preparation for Dr. Abeysekara’s visit, a panel of graduate student fellows has been involved in weekly seminars designed to critically and creatively engage his most recent publication, The Politics of Postsecular Religion: Mourning Secular Futures. During each weekly seminar, participants discuss significant concepts from this work and examine the voices of Abeysekara’s interlocutors. Seminar participants include Henry Schliff, Ravenna Michalsen, Eric Haynie and Kenneth Richards.