We are pleased to announce the draft programme of papers for the 2016 Spalding Symposium, which will be held at St Michael’s College, Cardiff, and convened by Drs Simon Brodbeck and James Hegarty of Cardiff University. Registration details will be circulated shortly.
Friday 15th April
2.00-3.15pm Registration, tea and coffee in St Michael’s College reception area
3.15-3.30 Welcome, announcements
3.30-4.30 Opening Keynote Lecture: Prof. Phyllis Granoff (Yale University) – ‘Narrating Conversion: Some Reflections on Buddhist and Jain Stories’
4.30-5.30 Dr Vijay Ramnarace (Cardiff University) – ‘Narrative Marketing: Evolving Accounts of the Miraculous Naming of a Pre-Modern South Asian Theologian’
5.30-5.45 Comfort break
5.45-6.45 Dr Brian Black (Lancaster University) – ‘Narrative Connections between the Upaniṣads and the Mahābhārata’
6.45-7.45 Dinner in St Michael’s College Dining Hall
7.45-8.45 After Dinner Paper: Prof. James W. Laine (Macalester College) – ‘Good Guys and Bad Guys: Narrative Constraints and the Epic of Śivaji’
Saturday 16th April
9.00-10.00 Dr David Fiordalis (Linfield College) – Framing Buddhist Narratives, Creating a Narrative World: The Hundredth Tale of the Avadānaśataka
10.00-11.00 Drs Saswati Sengupta and Sharmila Purkayastha (Delhi University) – ‘Of Famines and Females: the Politics and Poetics of Lakṣmī Bratakathās of Bengal’
11.00-11.30 Tea and coffee
11.30-1.00 Postgraduate Papers:
Sander Hens (Ghent University) – ‘From Foolish King to Rajput Hero: Reworking the Life Story of Prithviraj Chauhan during the Delhi Sultanate Period’
Noor van Brussel (Ghent University) – ‘Revenge, Hatred, Love and Regret: the Employment of Narrative Empathy in a Regional Purāṇa’
Jacek Skup (Jagiellonian University, Krakow) – ‘The Narratives of Nation Building: Nationalism, Secularism and Religion in M. A. Jinnah’s Speeches’
1.00-2.00 Lunch in the St Michael’s College Dining Hall
2.00-3.00 Dr Eviatar Shulman (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) – ‘Aśvaghoṣa’s Viśeṣaka: the Saundarananda and its Pāli “Equivalents”’
3.00-4.00 Dr Elizabeth M. Rohlman (University of Calgary) – ‘Narrative Discourse and Intertextual Engagement in the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa’s Frame’
4.00-4.30 Tea and coffee
4.30-5.30 Dr Christopher R. Austin (Dalhousie University) – ‘Narrative Streams in Ravivarman’s Ocean: Theatre and Theology in the Pradyumnābhyudaya’
5.30-6.30 Keynote Lecture: Prof. Rupert Gethin (University of Bristol) – ‘Narrating the Dharma: Frame Stories in the Dīghanikāya’
6.30-7.15 Free time
7.15 Dinner in St Michael’s College Dining Hall
Sunday 17th April
9.00-10.00 Dr Reiko Ohnuma (Dartmouth College) – ‘Animal Doubles of the Buddha’
10.00-11.00 Dr James Madaio (New Europe College, Bucharest) – ‘Scriptural Hermeneutics and Narrative Examples in Advaita Vedānta: the Reading of Stories to Determine Dharma’
11.00-11.30 Tea and coffee
11.30-12.30 Dr Adheesh Sathaye (University of British Columbia) – ‘The Cultural Power of Proverbial Verses within the Prose Tales of Śivadāsa’s Vetāla Collection’
12.30-1.00 Closing discussion
1.00-2.00 Lunch, followed by departure