Language, Poiesis, and Buddhist Experiments with the Possible Seminar

Seminar description
Our seminar investigates, over the course of five years, the poiesis of language—its capacity to create, bring into existence, and shape worlds, selves, and our shared sense of reality. To better grasp this potential of language, we approach Buddhist textual engagement foremost in terms of experiments with the possibilities of language (rather than under given textual categories, genre distinction, tropes, etc.) and examine how these have contributed to making the form and content of Buddhism itself, along with adjacent traditions. In doing so we emphasize that both content and modes of expression should be examined as inextricably involved in the process by which Buddhism has taken on its distinctive character as well as its sense of what is possible. We approach literary forms as an environment that enables Buddhists to find their voice, subject matter, style, and self-representation.

For the 2025 AAR Annual Meeting we invite proposals on the theme:

Poiesis and Poetics in the Sinographic Sphere

This year, we will investigate the role and meaning of language and its forms of expression—poetic foremost—in the sinographic sphere, where the Literary Sinitic Buddhist canon was used and shaped, whether in Buddhist or Buddhist-adjacent traditions such as Daoism, Confucianism, Shinto, and others. This will serve as a complement to last year’s discussion of early South Asian poetics. Last year was the root; this year, the branches.
 
Our focus will be on poetic language from its earliest manifestations through the early modern period (18th century), including verse genres in Literary Sinitic (shi, fu, zan, ming, etc.) and the vernacular literary traditions that emerged in relation to it (Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Tangut, Manchu, etc.).
 
In each proposal, we ask that authors explicitly address the moment of poiesis—the moment in which something is newly created or transformed through language or in language, in a play between the infinite openness of possibilities for expression and meaning on the one hand, and on the other hand their inevitable reduction into concrete choices, utterances, meanings. In your material, what is the innovation or transformation, on any scale, that occurs through language and in language? We ask our authors to discuss the moment of poiesis they have identified through the framework of the following three key aspects and their interrelations: 1) the compositional style and process, 2) the local/immediate context, and 3) the dynamics that made it possible to adopt innovation, e.g. historical developments, literary considerations, or doctrinal underpinnings that may have shaped the audience’s/interlocutors’ openness to the change and their reaction to it. 

We invite proposals for papers within this framework, with the following suggested as possible themes:

The historical emergence of Buddhist poetics, and how these were related to their broad—often not Buddhist—literary, social, practical, or doctrinal contexts. In particular, how do these forms of expression stand in relation to Buddhist world views, monastic and ritualistic contexts, or linguistic and literary practices during this formative period?
 
The role of sound and its relationship to script, be it literary, ritual, doctrinal, or other kinds of texts. How did the chanting of poems, scriptures, spells, liturgies create or move people, create new pathways, envisage new worlds? In what ways did authorities attempt to regulate the soundscape, and how did practitioners evade them?
 
The role of contemplative practices. How were contemplative practices described, mediated by, or embodied in verse and how did such uses of language create new realities or restructure existing ones? In what ways did poetry shape the interrelationships between the landscapes of environment, body, emotion, society, or cosmos?

Papers may be single or co-authored; they will be pre-circulated among this year's seminar participants and orally presented at one of our sessions. We aim to have short papers (up to 20 minutes) with one or more respondents, as well as an extended discussion facilitated by a steering committee member and including the audience.

Our seminar is committed to fostering diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, rank, institutions, geography, etc. and these issues will be given special consideration.
 
Deadline: 
All proposals should be submitted via PAPERS between Monday, January 27th and Monday, March 3rd when the CFP closes.