We invite proposals for papers for the 41st Spalding Symposium on Indian Religions, which will be hosted by Cardiff University at St Michael’s College, Llandaff, on 15th, 16th and 17th April 2016.
The theme this year is ‘narrative’, by which we mean written or orally transmitted accounts of event that are real or fictive. This could include topics ranging from the narrative portions of Vedic literature to oral histories of the partition of India. Our purview includes religions of South Asian origin wherever in the world they are being practised, and those of non-South Asian origin present within South Asia. We welcome papers based upon any and all research methods, including textual, historical, ethnographic, sociological and philosophical.
Presenters are usually allocated forty minutes for their paper and twenty minutes for discussion, and will normally be expected to pay their own conference registration and expenses. The Symposium fee, including food and accommodation, will be £175, with a non-residential rate of £75. Registration details will be sent separately. In some cases financial assistance for speakers may be available.
We also welcome proposals from doctoral students, who will be allocated twenty minutes for their paper and ten minutes for discussion, and offered free registration at the Symposium.
We are delighted to announce our keynote speakers for the Symposium, and the provisional titles of their papers: Phyllis Granoff, the Lex Hixon Professor of World Religions at Yale University (‘Narrating Conversion: Some Reflections on Buddhist and Jain Stories’), and Rupert Gethin, Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Bristol (‘Narrating the Dharma: Frame Stories in the Dīghanikāya’).
If you would like to give a presentation, please send a title and abstract (maximum 500 words) to the Convenors, Simon Brodbeck and James Hegarty, at hegartyj@cf.ac.uk, by 7th December 2015.