University of Heidelberg

International Symposium

Imagining the Feminine in East Asian Religions and Medicine

PROGRAMME

Karl Jaspers Centre for Advanced Transcultural Studies,
University of Heidelberg
November 5–7, 2010

 Convened by Dominic Steavu and Anna Andreeva

Friday, November 5th, 2010

18:00 – 20:00: Welcome Reception at the Karl Jaspers Centre

Saturday, November 6th, 2010

9:00 – 9:15: Welcome Address by the Chair of Intellectual History

Session I. Reproductive Symbolism

9:15 – 10:00: Grégoire Espesset (CRCAO)
“Procreation, Life Cycles, and Prenatal Infancy Regained in Great Peace Beliefs”

10:00 – 10:45: Christine Mollier (CNRS, CRCAO)
“Conceiving the Embryo of Immortality: ‘Seed-children’ and Sexual Rites in Early Taoism”

10:45 – 11:00: Coffee break

Session II. Daoist Embryology

11:00 – 11:45: Dominic Steavu (Heidelberg)
“Situating the Center: Taiyi as Embryo in Daoist Visualization Practices”

11:45 – 12:30: Fabrizio Pregadio (Stanford Center for East Asian Studies)
“From the Inner Gods to the Internal Elixir: Daoist Views of the Embryo and the Infant”

12:30 – 13:30: Lunch Break

Session III: Foetal Buddhahood

13:30 – 14:15: Lucia Dolce (SOAS)
“The Embryonic Generation of the Ritual Body: Tantric Practices from Medieval Japanese Material”

14:15 – 15:00: Gaynor Sekimori (SOAS)
“Foetal Buddhahood: From Theory to Practice—Sexual Symbolism in the Autumn Peak Ritual of Haguro Shugendo”

15:00 – 15:15 Coffee break

15:15 – 16:00: George Clonos (Stanford)
“Secret Traditions Amidst the Mountains: Embryology and Landscape in Tokugawa Period Shugendo”

Session IV: Men, Women, and Traditions of Inner-Cultivation

16:00 – 16:45: Catherine Despeux (INALCO, CRCAO)
“La grossesse de l'adepte taoïste et l'identite sexuée”

16:45 – 17:30: Charlotte Furth (USC)
“Nüdan (Female Alchemy) in China”

 19:30: Dinner

Sunday, November 7th, 2010

Session V: The Feminine Embodied

9:15 – 10:00: Brigitte Baptandier (CNRS)
“Women’s Bodies as Mandalas. Three Levels of Representation of the Feminine: A Significant Cross-checking”

10:00 – 10:45: Katja Triplett (Marburg)
"Views of the Female Body in the Medico-ritual World of Japanese Early and Medieval Buddhism"

10:45 – 11:00: Coffee Break

Session VI: Curative Strategies

11:00 – 11:45: Hendrik Van der Veere (Leiden)
“Mi mo kokoro mo: Curative Rituals for the Enlightened Body and Mind”

11:45 – 12:30: James Benn (McMaster)                                                                    “Yin, Buddhism, and Medicine: Multiple Aspects of Tea in Eisai's Kissa Yojoki”

12:30 – 13:30: Lunch Break

Session VII: Gods and Ghosts, and Illness

13:30 – 14:15: James Robson (Harvard)
“Maladies of the Mind:  Women, Guanyin/Kannon and Mental Illness in East Asia”

14:15 – 15:00:  Michael Como (Columbia)
“Urbanization, Disease, and the Ghosts of Heian Japan”

15:00 – 15:15:  Coffee Break

Session VIII: Religion and Reproduction

15:15 – 16:00: Matsumoto Ikuyo (Yokohama City University)
“Parturition Rituals Related to the Medieval Japanese Empresses: The Protection of Women’s Bodies in Esoteric Buddhism”

16:00 – 16:45: Anna Andreeva (Heidelberg)
“Women, Healing, and Esoteric Kami Worship: The Miwa-ryu Rituals for Pregnancy and Birth”

16:45 – 17:15 Concluding Discussion

Monday, November 8th, 2010

Departure of Participants