Online Program Book

This is the preliminary program for the 2024 in-person Annual Meeting, hosted with the Society for Biblical Literature in San Diego, CA - November 23-26. Pre-conference workshops and many committee meetings will be held November 22. If you have questions about the program, contact annualmeeting@aarweb.org. All times are listed in local/Pacific Time.


	A24-331 Religion, Sport, and Play Unit Theme: Religion, Sport, and Play Sunday, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM Convention Center-29B (Upper Level East) Jeffrey Scholes, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Presiding This Unit provides an opportunity for scholars to engage in emerging research at the intersection of religion and sport, games, and play. We are interested in examining these topics across broad geographical areas, religious traditions, and historical eras. We encourage critical reflection regarding relationships of religious institutions to sport, play, and games; theological and spiritual experiences of participants and spectators invested in these activities; and the cross-cultural applicability of the received categories. Zachary Simpson, University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma NHL Pride Nights, Religious Belief, and the Rhetoric of Fideism Abstract Pride Nights, events in support of 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals, sponsored by the National Hockey League, have recently caused controversy. A number of players, citing deeply held religious beliefs, have withdrawn from such events. Responding to this controversy, the NHL subsequently cancelled all special events, including Pride Nights. This response, along with the defenses of players, coincides with a cultural shift regarding the privacy and immunity from criticism of religious belief as codified in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Hobby Lobby v. Burwell decision. Such events foster a form of fideism, where religious belief, along with is social consequences, is seen as individual and isolable from institutional or collective criticism. Nevia Selmon, Harvard Divinity School Unveiling the Black Brute Archetype: Israeli Media's Portrayal of Palestinian and Arab-Israeli Athletes in the Context of Racial Discrimination and Nationalistic Assimilation Abstract Israeli media coverage perpetuates discrimination against Palestinian and Arab-Israeli athletes through the projection of the Black brute archetype onto these marginalized populations. Examining how Israeli media frames soccer as a symbol of Jewish-Arab coexistence, this paper reveals how Arab players are expected to embody this narrative, at the expense of their cultural identity and rights. Drawing parallels to broader societal dynamics, whiteness operates as a dominant force, reinforcing systemic violence and racial othering against Arab and Palestinian minorities. The analysis uncovers how Israeli media discourse, steeped in nationalistic rhetoric, silences dissenting voices and perpetuates religious and cultural hegemony. Arab athletes are pressured to conform to Jewish norms, including singing the national anthem and carrying the Israeli flag, further marginalizing their identity and perpetuating systemic violence. Ultimately, the paper argues that the portrayal of Arab and Palestinian athletes as "Black Brutes" enables unchecked violence and oppression by Israeli governance. Kristin Graff-Kallevag, MF Norwegian School of Theology Flow, spirituality, and long-distance running. When heaven is under your feet. Abstract The flow concept developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is well-established and applied in the field of sports, especially in sports psychology. Relating to previous studies of the relationship between flow and spirituality in sports, this paper explores experiences of spirituality in long-distance running by taking advantage of the concept of flow. The paper’s particular take is to bring this concept into dialogue with the notion of resonance, developed by sociologist Hartmut Rosa, thereby establishing a theoretical framework for analyzing spirituality in running. More precisely, the paper presents a study that analyzes written autobiographical narratives of long-distance runners. In these narratives, flow experiences are identified primarily in the subject’s resonant relationship to nature, the body, and the self. It is also argued that the concept of resonance proves helpful for a deeper understanding of spiritual flow experiences in long-distance running. Business Meeting Jeffrey Scholes, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Presiding Kimberly Diaz, University of California, Riverside, Presiding
	A24-332 Religious Reflections on Friendship Seminar Theme: Friendship Across Boundaries in Troubled Times: From Sibling Ancestors to Interreligious Friendships Sunday, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM Hilton Bayfront-Aqua 300 (Third Level) Mugdha Yeolekar, California State University, Fullerton, Presiding Friendship is a relationship of ethical significance that—while challenged in troubled times—can also intensify, endure, and reach across divides perceived to be unbridgeable. Presenters within this session consider friendship(s) across such divides. Laura Duhan-Kaplan discusses the adult sibling friendship between Ishmael and Isaac, identifying characteristics of sibling friendship and suggesting homiletic directions for discussing traditions of peace between Jews and Muslims. Lindsay Simmons examines ways in friendships between Jewish and Muslim women have been held to account through the period of the (current) Israel-Gaza War. Molly Gower highlights the work of interfaith and ecumenical institutes in Jordan and Jerusalem as she advocates for attentiveness to difference when exploring interreligious friendship and the common good. Wemimo Jaiyesimi focuses on the politics of friendship, drawing on the autobiographies of Charles Freer Andrews and Mahatma Gandhi to illustrate the potential for friendship across difference to actively contribute to peacebuilding and the pursuit of justice. Laura Duhan-Kaplan, Vancouver School of Theology Ishmael and Isaac: Sibling Friends and Parents of Peace Abstract In this paper, I discuss the adult sibling friendship between two biblical figures, Ishmael and Isaac. Their relationship embodies three characteristics highlighted in contemporary psychological literature. Successful sibling friends make time to enjoy each other’s company. They are mindful of how parents affect their dynamic. And they give each other permission to change. A close reading of Genesis 16-28, enhanced by Midrash Genesis Rabbah, shows these characteristics at play in Isaac and Ishmael’s relationship. Adult Isaac visits Ishmael and eventually chooses to live near his brother. After similar experiences with paternal violence, Ishmael and Isaac support one another. And, after becoming parents, the brothers encourage their children to marry. One purpose of my analysis is to highlight sibling friendship. Another is to suggest homiletic directions for discussing traditions of peace between Jews and Muslims. Lindsay Simmonds, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) Intimate Catastrophe: Can Muslim-Jewish Women's Friendship in the UK Survive the Israel-Gaza War? Abstract Through the philosophical-theological lens of the works of Jonathan Sacks, this paper will examine the multiple ways in which inter-faith friendships between Jewish and Muslim women in the UK have been held to account through the period of the (current) Israel-Gaza War. Conflict travels, and in this case especially, has been intimately felt by Jewish and Muslim communities globally. Arguably, friendship is ‘a relationship of ethical significance, with public, political, and spiritual dimensions’ (Ellithorpe, A., 2022) and friends necessarily have differing, often opposing, perspectives; each have complex communal and religious commitments; each wrestle with alternative truths. Inter-State conflict is a time when friendship might be seen to make excessive demands of us — to reach across what could be perceived as unbridgeable divides; this paper argues that although some friendships have inevitably fallen apart, others have been strengthened, deepened and have conspicuously intensified. Molly Gower, Saint Mary's College Difference and Devotion: Interreligious Friendship and the Common Good Abstract This paper brings together theoretical and Christian theological reflection and case studies. First, it reviews some traditional resources for a kind of practical theory/theology of difference. It suggests that attention to difference is an important corrective to the, perhaps more familiar, appeals to common ground in pursuit of the common good and peace. From there, it considers the history and contemporary work of two organizations, the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies in Amman, Jordan and the Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem, Israel. In the end, it argues that interreligious friendship is a productive site for the articulation of a practical theory/theology of difference, considering the so-called "strange," which attention can train us to see, in ourselves and in our friends, in the interest of a kind of personal and political devotion, the common good, and peace. Wemimo Jaiyesimi, Baylor University The Politics of Interreligious Friendship: Remembering The Peaceable Witness of Charles Andrews Freer and Mahatma Gandhi's Friendship Abstract Interreligious friendships are important not simply for how they enrich the spiritual, affective, and moral lives of the friends, but just as crucially for the way that they participate in important political work in the world. Through attending to the story of the remarkable friendship between British Anglican priest Charles Freer Andrews and Mahatma Gandhi, this paper illustrates how friendship across religious differences can energize peacebuilding and justice projects in the world. Drawing from the autobiographies of both men, I recount the political nature of this friendship. I draw on this story to make a wider theological case for how interreligious friendships serve as forms of Christian political witness in the world. Business Meeting Anne-Marie Ellithorpe, Vancouver School of Theology, Presiding Laura Duhan-Kaplan, Vancouver School of Theology, Presiding
	A24-333 Scriptural Reasoning Unit Theme: Author Meets Readers: Daniel Weiss' Modern Jewish Philosophy and the Politics of Divine Violence Sunday, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM Convention Center-25B (Upper Level East) Ashleigh Elser, Saint Louis University, Presiding This roundtable session, co-sponsored by the Scriptural Reasoning Unit and the Colloquium on Violence and Religion, will feature a conversation on Daniel Weiss' new book Modern Jewish Philosophy and the Politics of Divine Violence (Cambridge University Press, 2023). Panelists Robert Gibbs, University of Toronto Holger Zellentin, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Olaoluwatoni Alimi, Princeton University Martha Reineke, University of Northern Iowa Responding Daniel Weiss, University of Cambridge
	A24-339 South Asian Religions Unit Theme: Hindus, Muslims, and Contestations of Religion in Modern South Asia Sunday, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM Hilton Bayfront-Indigo D (Second Level) Bhakti Mamtora, University of Arizona, Presiding Stemming from conversations related to SherAli Tareen’s recent book, Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship After Empire, which brings together several conversations in South Asian Islam and South Asian religious studies more broadly, this panel considers the following questions: 1) How has new scholarship on Hindu-Muslim relations (Nair, Tareen) historicized and theorized the discursively porous yet sociologically stable categories of religious identification in early modern and colonial South Asia? 2) How do the concepts of sovereignty, translation, and friendship enable us to ask new questions about religious identity in colonial India? 3) What are the consequences of these answers for how we understand inter-religious strife in contemporary South Asia? Ghazal Asif Farrukhi , LUMS Knots in the Weave: Female Friendship, Ritual Tension, and the Religious Other Abstract In a sewing class on the premises of a Hindu temple in small-town Pakistan, Hindu and Muslim girls met every day to learn to sew together. The class was held together as a collective space by female friendship arising from shared interests and neighborly ties. In an asymmetrical religious milieu laden with recent histories of violence, ordinary interactions could be poisoned by the past, but they also enabled alternative possibilities of inter-religious friendships. This paper attends to the management of inter-religious ritual tensions and elaborate forms of aversion by young women grasping for language to parry what they understood as religious difference, as well as to find some ritual common ground with one another. I show how their commitment to maintaining and repairing relations with one another relied on shared, gendered norms and comportments that could bear some transgressions and failures but could also come apart easily. Francesca Chubb-Confer, Whitman College A Sufi/Hindu/Sanskrit/Urdu Gita: Religion, Language, and the Stakes of Translation in Colonial-era South Asia” Abstract This paper investigates the relationship between religion, language, and translation in modern South Asia, with a focus on the question of the mutual translatability of Hindu and Muslim traditions. Recent scholarship has challenged traditional notions of syncretism, urging a nuanced understanding of religious interactions. This paper delves into the pivotal role of translation, especially between languages linked to Islam and Hinduism, examining how it shapes the inter-religious encounter. Contrary to the belief that such dynamics were lost amid the nationalist politics of colonial modernity, this paper introduces an unexplored archive of Urdu translations of the Bhagavad Gita (1880s-1940s), mostly by Hindu authors. What were the stakes of translating a Hindu text into Urdu during a period of heightened religious and political tension? Through an in-depth analysis of Munshi Bisheshwar Prashad’s 1935 translation, “Nasim-e Irfan,” this paper explores the complexities of rendering Hindu scripture in Sufi vocabulary amid deteriorating Hindu-Muslim relations, arguing that the act of translation offers a transformative lens that challenges the notion of self as purely itself, and exemplifies a radical experiment in the context of colonial modernity. Ali Altaf Mian, University of Florida Genres of Hostipitality: Rethinking Hindu-Muslim Relations in Modern South Asia Abstract This paper builds on SherAli Tareen's monumental book, Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship After Empire, to describe and analyze a range of multi-genre sources in Urdu that touch on Hindu-Muslim relations in modern South Asia. The paper takes Tareen's argument and theoretical assumptions to new texts to construct a theory of "genres of hostipitality." I extend this analysis by highlighting the concept of genre, and in turn raise questions about hostipitality's literary forms as well as relational forms that are embedded in certain texts not examined by Tareen. These texts include Shiblī Nu'mānī's "Hindu Musalmānõ kā ittiḥād," Sanā’ullāh Amritsarī's Ḥaqq prakāsh bajavāb Satiyārth prakāsh, ‘Abdur Raḥmān Shawq's Islām awr Hindustān, and Ḥasan Niẓāmī's Hindu mazhab kī ma‘lūmāt. I argue that these writings offer perceptive portals into the intellectual terrain in which “religion” was being constructed and contested in response to colonial modernity. The colonial-era Indo-Muslim authors whose writings I draw on to speak to Tareen's arguments appealed to a range of discursive paradigms, such as scripturalism, rationalism, history as well as historiography, and ethics of listening. Responding SherAli Tareen, Franklin and Marshall College
	A24-334 Special Session Theme: Religious Studies Reviews: On the Importance and Future of the Form Sunday, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM Hilton Bayfront-Indigo H (Second Level) Mark MacWilliams,, Presiding This panel focuses on the book review, as genre and form, arguing for its centrality within scholarship, insisting on its creative possibilities in terms of style and approach, and investigating ways to make review-writing more legible to department and university administrators who, too often, dismiss this labor as (merely) general “service” to the profession. This panel also commemorates Religious Studies Review, the only journal devoted entirely to publishing reviews in religious studies and theology, on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. Panelists, a selection of current RSR editors as well as administrators from academic institutions, will discuss the function and necessity of reviews and reviewing. Attention will also be given to advice on review-writing for graduate students and junior scholars, and audience members will also have the opportunity to sign up to review books with RSR during this panel. Panelists Lori C. Patton, Brad Braxton, St. Luke's School Brian Collins, Ohio University Danielle Dempsey, University of California, Riverside John Goodrich, Moody Bible Institute
	A24-335 Study of Judaism Unit Theme: The Opportunities and Affordances of Centering the Arts in the Study of Contemporary Judaism Sunday, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM Hilton Bayfront-Sapphire 411B (Fourth Level) Jodi Eichler-Levine, Lehigh University, Presiding This roundtable will consider the opportunities and affordances of centering the arts as a vantage point for viewing and conceptualizing contemporary Jewish life. Attending to the arts offers opportunities to make a broad array of religious ideas, populations, and embodied practices visible. It centers as religious authorities people who are rarely described as among the traditional gatekeepers of theological or textual knowledge. Participants in this roundtable will draw on their ethnographic research with Jewish performers and artists, as well as with audiences in different Jewish cultural artistic settings to explore how centering artistic engagements with Jewishness can illuminate the diverse ways that both Jews and non-Jews encounter Jewish knowledge, live within Jewish time, and engage in Jewish praxis. Panelists Laura Yares, Michigan State University Jessica Roda, Georgetown University Jeremiah Lockwood, Yale University Responding Shenila Khoja-Moolji, Georgetown University
	A24-336 Teaching Religion Unit and Transformative Scholarship and Pedagogy Unit Theme: Resisting Climate Violence through Science-Engaged Theological Education Sunday, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM Hilton Bayfront-Indigo 204A (Second Level) Leif Castren,, Presiding While many scholars of religion and theology are passionate about mitigating the catastrophic pace of human-induced climate change, few are equipped scientifically and pedagogically to intentionally integrate climate science into the curricula of their respective disciplines. However, such integration is crucial for adequately preparing and mobilizing students to resist climate violence. This roundtable will convene a diverse group of theological school faculty, spanning various disciplines, all of whom have benefited from the inaugural grant provided by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, equipping professors of religion and theology to engage climate science. The roundtable will discuss a range of curricular approaches designed and tested by the participating faculty which incorporate climate science in diverse contexts within theological education. Additionally, the discussion will explore effective approaches and available resources for fostering intentional collaborations between climate scientists and educators of religion and theology, aligning academic efforts with climate action. Panelists Sharon Grant, Hood Theological Seminary Martin Hanna, Andrews University Matthew Goldstone, Academy for Jewish Religion Ekaterina Lomperis, George Fox University
	A24-337 Theological, Pedagogical, and Ethical Approaches to Israel/Palestine Seminar Theme: America and Israel/Palestine: Critical Approaches Sunday, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM Convention Center-30C (Upper Level East) Balbinder Bhogal, Hofstra University, Presiding This session will examine the relationship between the US and Israel/Palestine from a variety of historical and contemporary perspectives. The papers will focus on Muslim and Jewish approaches to this connection. Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Northwestern University “AmericaIsrael:” On the Boundaries of Political and Religious Dissent Abstract Discussions of the religious and affective elements of U.S. support for Israel often invoke dispensationalist theology, Christian and Jewish Zionisms, and Jewish American support for a Jewish state. All are important. Yet U.S. support for Israel is also more complex and conflicted. This paper takes the U.S. border as a heuristic to explore the boundaries of political and religious dissent involving U.S. support for Israel. I examine the curious affective politics of this support and its implications for the public policing of dissent. To develop this argument, I introduce the construct of “AmericaIsrael, " in which Israel and America act in concert as interwoven expressions of redemption. The border between the two states is both posited and suspended. For many Americans, Israel—both the State of Israel and the idea of U.S. support for Israel—represents a unique capacity for boundless collective self-realization. AmericaIsrael is a central figure in the US spiritual-political imagination. Edward Curtis, Indiana University, Indianapolis Arab American Midwestern Inter-Religious Unity and Palestinian Liberation, 1936-1954 Abstract This paper argues that Arab American Midwesterners, both Christians and Muslims, identified inter-religious unity as a foundation of Arab American solidarity with Palestine from the time of the Palestinian revolt in 1936 until a more confessional politics overtook Arab Midwestern civil society in the 1950s. Using the writings of many Arab American Midwesterners as well as news articles published in the Indianapolis-based Syrian Ark newspaper, I show how Palestinian liberation and anti-Zionism were presented as an inter-religious concern among Muslim, Orthodox, and Melkite leaders of the mainly Syrian-Lebanese Americans of the Midwest. In addition, this presentation asserts that a commitment to Palestine was not in tension with Arab Midwesterners' local, regional, and national identities but was in fact generative of communal solidarity and homemaking in all of these domains. Iskander Abbasi, University of Johannesburg Redefining Apartheid in American and Global Palestine Solidarity Debates Abstract In the recent past, debates have popularized concerning the value and meaning of the term apartheid. Is it a term that is adequate for discerning Israel’s subjugation of Palestine, or not? In this paper, I provide a conceptual comparative framework for understanding the various dimensions of apartheid as it relates to settler-colonialism and racial capitalism. Through engaging in contemporary debates within Palestine Studies, I demonstrate that the term apartheid has always been used to describe the legal, political, economic and gendered ways in which apartheid was understood in South Africa and globally. With regards to the concepts of settler- colonialism and racial capitalism, I place them within debates emanating from Decolonial Theory which outline their varied dimensions as understood by the long-duree critique of coloniality and capitalism. In conclusion, I argue that approaching the definition of apartheid from within this comparative conceptual framework demonstrates that their meanings are co- constitutive and co-determinative. Mitri Raheb, Dar al-Kalima University Theology after Gaza Abstract Gaza is a crucial litmus test for international morality and ethical standards in the twenty-first century. The Israeli onslaught on Gaza has exposed deep biases and blind spots in the West, as most of the Western establishment, political class, and churches have lined up to provide blanket support for Israel, politically, militarily, economically, legally, and theologically. This paper will address questions to be considered at this crucial juncture regarding responsibilities that theologians and scholars of religion and different faith traditions have in this moment. Responding Atalia Omer, University of Notre Dame
	P24-300 Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality Theme: Meeting of the Board of Directors Sunday, 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM Convention Center-7A (Upper Level West) Meeting of the SSCS Board of Directors
	M24-302 Theology Without Walls Group Theme: Explorations in TWW Systematic Theology Sunday, 3:00 PM - 5:30 PM Grand Hyatt-America's Cup CD (Fourth Level) Jeanine Diller, University of Toledo, Presiding This panel is TWW's first attempt to construct theologies without walls on particular topics within systematic theology. It constitutes a start on TWW's larger vision of assembling together an overarching wall-less systematic theology, or really many of them, since the pieces that we develop might cohere in various ways. Paul Hedges, Nanyang Technological University Thinking about Gd/s and Diversity: Polytheism in Christianity and Other Traditions as Multi-Devotional Praxis* Abstract . Kip Elolia, Milligan University The Contribution of African Pneumatology to Systematic Theology Abstract . Julius-Kei Kato, King's College London What Can Theology Without Walls Contribute to a Secular Age? Abstract . Daniel Carman, Boston University Sacramental Eschatology and Aesthetics in the Public Square Abstract . Royce Anderson, Independent Scholar Exploring Experiential and Empirical Touchpoints in a Systematic Theology Without Walls Abstract .
	M24-303 TUTKU Educational Travel Theme: “The Road to Nicaea: Which Bishops Attended and How Did They Get There?” Dr. Mark Wilson and Dr. Glen Thompson Sunday, 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM Grand Hyatt-Balboa A-C (Second Level - Seaport Tower) Sources suggest that about 250 to 318 bishops attended the Council of Nicaea in AD 325. Our presentation will seek to identify these bishops and the location of their bishoprics. We will also discuss the means and routes by which these bishops traveled to Nicaea for this historic event, whose 1700th anniversary is being celebrated in 2025. Dr. Mark Wilson and Dr. Glen Thompson
	A24-401 Arts, Literature, and Religion Unit Theme: Violence, Nonviolence, and The Margins Sunday, 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM Convention Center-26A (Upper Level East) Ossama Abdelgawwad, Valparaiso University, Presiding The panel “Violence, Nonviolence, and the Margin” examines the complex dynamics of power, resistance, and transformation within marginalized communities. Through diverse lenses of art, theology, documentary, and literature, the panelists explore how narratives of violence and nonviolence intersect at the margins of society, reshaping identities, reclaiming histories, and redefining theological and literary landscapes. The first paper examines the intersection of art and theology by juxtaposing Browder’s monument, “Mothers of Gynecology,” against Sims's monument. By analyzing Browder's work's aesthetic and activist dimensions, the paper highlights the power of art to challenge historical injustices and provoke theological reflection. This second paper discusses the emergence of The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries Movement within the LGBTQ+ community, redefining the traditional Black church. Through the lens of a documentary filmmaker, the paper documents personal transformation and spiritual renewal and showcases how marginalized communities are reshaping religious landscapes on a global scale. This third paper reevaluates Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s novel The River Between and proposes him as an ethnographic writer through a fresh interpretation of his novelistic work. By examining the novel's historical and imaginative functions, the paper positions his work within broader discussions of religion, literature, and indigenous narratives, like Chinua Achebe and Mongo Beti. Giselle Gaytan, University of Virginia Michelle Browder’s “Mothers of Gynecology” as Theological Locus: Aesthetic and Activist Engagement as Theological Reflection Abstract This paper explores how the engagement of art influences theological research through Michelle Browder’s “Mothers of Gynecology” monument in Montgomery, Alabama. One mile away from Browder’s work, Montgomery’s capitol commemorates Dr. J. Marion Sims as the Father of Gynecology, even as his discoveries were made by operating on enslaved women without their consent or anesthesia. In contrast to Sims’s monument, “Mothers of Gynecology” enacts the sacred space to remember the true Mothers of Gynecology: Anarcha, Betsey, and Lucy. In conversation with theological aesthetics and Kelly Brown Douglas’s Stand Your Ground, this paper will: 1) closely analyze the aesthetics of “Mothers of Gynecology” as a primary source for theological writing and 2) demonstrate how the monument created the space for ongoing activist engagement. Ultimately, I argue that Browder’s “Mothers of Gynecology” evinces the power of art to act as radical re-education, and thus as a space of necessary theological reflection. Ralph Basui Watkins, Columbia Theological Seminary Mapping the Margins of The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries: A Documentarian’s Journey Abstract In this paper I share my journey as a documentary filmmaker and photographer documenting the work of Bishop Yvette Flunder and The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries Movement. The movement on the margins of the traditional Black church is happening in this LGBTQ+ community. Over the last three years I have been co-creating with my LGBTQ+ siblings a six part documentary series along with portraits and documentary photos mapping the growth of this movement. This work has transformed me as I have seen God birth the Black church anew in this terrain. In this paper I share how a cisgender, heterosexual Black male was called to do this work and how I found God anew in my new faith home with my LGBTQ+ siblings. Moreover I share the story of this new church and how it is manifesting itself on a global landscape. Responding Constance Furey, Indiana University
	A24-402 Buddhism in the West Unit Theme: Translating Buddhism Across Imperial Contexts Sunday, 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM Convention Center-31B (Upper Level East) Caroline Starkey, University of Leeds, Presiding Buddhist Studies has increasingly attended to what Helen Jin Kim characterizes as the “transpacific turn,” namely the transoceanic cultural flows through which Buddhist identities and communities are constructed. In situating their subjects within multiple transoceanic imperial contexts, these papers orient contemporary Buddhists within modernist frameworks that disrupt a simple West/East binary. Paper 1 re-examines the fault lines of the disciplinary boundaries of Buddhism in the West to draw out various subaltern Buddhist modernities. Paper 2 utilizes an ecological and colonial studies framework to consider the ecological consequences and neocolonial limitations of Tibetan nāga practice in North America. Paper 3 situates Shaku Sōen’s discussions on Buddhist notions of social equality within anti-colonial solidarity and imperialist projects Stephan Licha, University of Chicago Blending the Rivers, Loosing the Flavor – American Legacies of Japanese Buddhist Discourses on Caste, Race, and Empire Abstract This paper explores the historically and ethically ambiguous nature of Buddhist notions of social "equality." The Japanese-American True Pure Land priest Yemyo Imamura (1867–1932) identified Buddhism's supposed commitment to caste equality as crucial to its flourishing in a multi-ethnic democracy. The paper focuses on the experiences of Zen master Shaku Sōen (1860–1919) on Sri Lanka under British colonial rule to investigate the genealogy of Imamura's claim. Sri Lankan Buddhism, Sōen argued, fostered inequality along lines of race and caste, undermining social cohesion and abetting the colonial regime. Japanese Mahāyāna Buddhism, in contrast, was predicated on equality and provided the basis for a liberatory anti-colonial politics. Ironically, Sōen's Mahāyāna was based on the apologetics of Singhalese Christians such as James de Alwis (1823–1878), and soon declined into ideological support of Japan's own colonial ambitions. This history throws into doubt Buddhism's capability of generating a robust notion of "equality." Upayadhi Luraschi, University of Chicago In Search of a Generative Problem Space for Buddhist Studies Abstract While the Buddhism in the West Unit of the AAR may at this juncture be tempted to re-brand as a Global Buddhism(s) Unit, fittingly inspired by the capacious intellectual space created by the esteemed Journal of Global Buddhism, there is a risk of glossing over important fault lines and subsuming our usual “problem space” (to borrow from the anthropologist David Scott) into the same framework, simply enlarged. There are indeed dynamic delineations in the Buddhist world that are worth thinking through, such as majority/minority religion and caste/casteless/subaltern Buddhism, all of which intersect in creative ways with socio-economic status, issues of inter-generational transmission or lack thereof, and, of course, geographical contexts saturated with history. Building on prior scholarship, I draw out the distinctively subaltern modernism of Black Buddhists in the U.S. and the U.K., and suggest that India is in fact the site of a paradoxical “Wild West” of contemporary Buddhism. Colin Simonds, University of Alberta Nāgas in North America: Ecology, Colonialism, and the Limits of Tibetan Buddhist Practice in Diaspora Abstract Despite their localized nature, North American Tibetan Buddhist communities have begun adapting indigenous Tibetan mountain deity (yul lha) and nāga (Tib. klu) practices to the American landscape. This article will explore some of the potentials and limitations of transplanting place-based religious practices through two lenses: ecology and colonialism. It will begin by analyzing several examples of how Tibetan Buddhists in North America are adapting these practices yul lha and nāga practices to the North American landscape. It will then think through some of the positive ecological consequences of North American nāga pūjās and consider how indigenous Tibetan approaches to sustainability may be imported alongside these religious practices. Finally, this article will think through the complicated dynamics of a diaspora community populating their new landscape with imported religious deities and consider the neocolonial limitations of nāga practice in its ability to work towards socioecological justice. Business Meeting Adeana McNicholl, Vanderbilt University, Presiding Caroline Starkey, University of Leeds, Presiding
	A24-403 Buddhism Unit Theme: Roundtable on Justin Henry's "Ravana's Kingdom: The Ramayana and Sri Lankan History from Below" (OUP, 2023) Sunday, 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM Omni-Gaslamp 2 (Fourth Floor) Tyler A. Lehrer, Virginia Wesleyan University, Presiding Justin Henry's Ravana's Kingdom: The Ramayana and Sri Lankan History from Below (OUP, 2023), shortlisted for the AAR Best First Book in the History of Religions 2023 prize, offers an innovative study of the reception of the Ramayana, the famed Hindu epic, among Sri Lankan Buddhists spanning from the medieval period to the present day. Three panelists will offer critical perspectives on the position of Ravana’s Kingdom amid the theoretical spectrum of the History of Religions discipline, Henry’s engagement with "many Ramayanas" at the margins of the Indic world, and the relevance of the book to ongoing issues of interreligious antagonism and interreligious cooperation in Sri Lanka. The panel will contextualize Ravana's Kingdom alongside other recent monographs marrying rigorous, text-critical philological research with theoretical interventions related to contemporary "lived religion," populist movements, and religion and politics. Panelists Anne Blackburn, Cornell University Gregory Clines, Trinity University Neena Mahadev, Yale-NUS College Responding Justin Henry, University of South Florida
	A24-404 Catholic Studies Unit Theme: Religion, Violence and Marian Devotion in South and South East Asia Sunday, 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM Hilton Bayfront-Sapphire 400B (Fourth Level) Kristin Bloomer, Carleton College, Presiding . Mathew Schmalz, College of the Holy Cross SRI LANKAN CATHOLIC IDENTITY AND THE 2019 EASTER BOMBINGS Abstract For the Sri Lankan Catholic community, getting to the truth behind the 2019 Easter bombings has posed a number of discursive and political challenges, especially when evidence emerged of government complicity in the attacks. The paper first presents an overview of the history of Catholicism in Sri Lanka, then focuses on the Catholic response to the bombings. Centering on the public pronouncements of Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, the paper argues that what has emerged in the Catholic response is what could be called a Sri Lankan nationalism of the common good, which is simultaneously prophetic and, interestingly, non-sectarian except concerning one particular issue that has vexed Sri Lankan Catholicism just as it has Sri Lankan society as a whole Cristina Lledo Gomez, BBI Australian Institute for Theological Education Filipin@ Catholic Marian belief as a double-edged bolo (sword) Abstract Being pinay (Filipina) is particularly characterised by an inferiority complex of being brown which makes them feel inferior to "white" people. To imagine a brown pinay Catholicism through devotion to Mary seems unthinkable or outside of the pinay imagination until one considers the Virgin of Balintawak of the Indigenous Philippine Christian Church, Iglesia Filipina Independiente. This paper briefly lays out the intersectional oppression of pinays and the use of Mary in Catholicism to reinforce this oppression. It turns to the Virgin of Balintawak to suggest a brown Catholicism that can not only help pinays reembrace their brownness, but also help them decolonize and reindegenize. Overall, the paper seeks to grapple with Filipin@ migrant Catholic Marian belief as a double-edged sword, a bolo, and to carve this sword from a weapon that perpetuates pinay oppression to a symbol of their resistance against their ongoing intersectional oppressions. Kristin Bloomer, Carleton College Mary on the Eastern Front: Our Lady of Madu in Times of War and Peace in Sri Lanka Abstract This paper analyzes the Sri Lankan civil war in relation to a specific, local form of Mary, Our Lady of Madu, and to Marian devotion across religious and ethnic lines. Prior to and from 1983-2009, the Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam (LTTE) fought the majority-Sinhalese Sri Lankan government for control over the northern part of the island, in the heart of which lies a dense forest containing the shrine. For most of that time, the shrine and surrounding area of Madu served as a sanctuary for more than 40,000, mostly Tamil refugees--until even it too could no longer be spared from war. This past August, the centenary anniversary of Madu Mata's coronation drew more than 500,000 people (both Tamil and Sinhala, across faiths), while Tamil bishops and priests continued to broker with the Sinhalese Sri Lankan government and engaged a centuries-old discourse of Tamil Catholic martyrdom, persecution, and healing via Mary. Responding Francis X. Clooney, Harvard University
	A24-405 Childhood Studies and Religion Unit Theme: Theologies of Child Well-Being, Agency, & Voice Sunday, 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM Convention Center-6F (Upper Level West) . Rode Molla, Virginia Theological Seminary Embracing Hybridity and Belonging: Pastoral Care for Diasporic Children Abstract Diasporic children's identities negate hegemonic cultural and religious constructs and call for a space that accepts people’s ongoing change, resistance, and assimilation in belonging and flourishing as their God-given right. Pastoral care for diasporic children amplifies how diasporic children’s resistance and resiliency manifest through a hybrid identity that enables them to belong in two spaces – that of their family and that of mainstream culture. Moreover, pastoral care for the diasporic children resists the political and social ideologies that make children's identity formation and flourishing inequitable and calls for hybridity and belonging as the main praxes for theological reflection to participate with diasporic children and affirms the need for hybridity to create a place of belonging for in-between identities in churches, schools, and political and social spaces for equality and equity of all children. Key Words: Hybridity, Belonging, In-between Religion, In-between Culture, In-Between Political Practices. Kiara Jorgenson, Saint Olaf College Explorations of Neurospicy Childhoods, Attention Economies, and Better Ways of Becoming Church Abstract This paper identifies and analyzes patterns of ableist attention economies in children’s educational settings within U.S. Protestant ecclesial communities, and offers alternative modes of being and becoming church. Careful examination of popular Christian curricula and materials from parachurch organizations discloses widespread disembodied pedagogical practices, which overwhelmingly lack principles of universal design for learning (UDL) and overlook the needs of neurodivergent child audiences. To address this failure of imagination and in an effort to construct better approaches, the paper takes up interpretations of the Biophilia Hypothesis, related theories of Attention Restoration Therapy (ART), and the science of children’s spirituality. Collectively these fields point to children’s need for nature connectedness and the particular role nature plays in the spiritual formation of children with so-called attention deficits. Because children are also theologically formed by worship, the paper briefly addresses contemporary research on children, disability and worship, championing the need for nature-rich sensory experiences. Catherine Tobey, The Kingdom of God, As Evidenced By Youth-Led Research Abstract With the conviction that the Kingdom of God belongs to young people, according to the biblical witness, this paper will explore the role of Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) as a critical part of child theology. Janine Luttick, Australian Catholic University Wellbeing and child voice: Rethinking child voice (and its absence) in Mark's gospel Abstract The Convention of the Rights of the Child has shaped child-centred practices in Australia which recognise that children’s wellbeing is positively affected when children have a voice in issues concerning them directly. Advancements in notions of child voice have also influenced the nascent field of the theology of childhood. In this paper, I demonstrate how the gospel of Mark confronts those who seek to find biblical bases for theologies affirming the voice of children. The silence of children in this sacred, authoritative text is salient in Australia where religious institutions address historic issues concerning child abuse within their organisations. These same denominations remain responsible today, moreover, for the wellbeing of children who participate in education, ministry, and social services. The paper illustrates how an engaged reading approach to interpreting Mark’s gospel offers a way of conceptualizing children’s voice and children’s silence with implications for theologians of childhood and for child-centred practices in Christian contexts. Business Meeting Kishundra King, Iliff School of Theology, Presiding Wendy Love Anderson, Washington University, Saint Louis, Presiding
	A24-406 Chinese Christianities Unit Theme: Explorations in Chinese Christian Historiographies: Missions, Inculturations, Nationalisms Sunday, 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM Convention Center-24B (Upper Level East) Shin-Fung Hung, Duke University, Presiding In this session, the Chinese Christianities Unit features papers that push the historiographical boundaries of our field. While rooted in examinations of historic missionary work and local inculturation, the papers in this session explore how the competition of Chinese national ideologies, often regarded in studies of China and Sinophone worlds as secular, can be genealogically and historically traced back to various Christian threads. In this way, the study of Chinese Christian histories can be seen to contribute to the examination of national ideologies in China and beyond. Topics that the papers in this session explore include Chinese communist theologies, 'Cold War Christian Chineseness' in the thought of Y.T. Wu, the influence of Margaret Barber on Watchman Nee, and the appropriation of Christian Reconstructionism among urban elite Christians in China. Zexi (Jesse) Sun, Belmont University Communist Public Theology? How Early CCP Revolutionaries Appropriated and then Condemned Christianity for National Salvation Abstract This paper examines the early Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ideological evolution, highlighting its strategic appropriation and subsequent rejection of Christian elements in the pursuit of national salvation. Building on the framework of Goossaert and Palmer, it interprets the CCP’s inception as a religious endeavor, where Christianity initially served as a model for moral and social reform. Through a detailed analysis of Chen Duxiu and Yun Daiying’s transformations—from viewing Christianity as a valuable source of sacredness to denouncing it in favor of Communism’s promises of social overhaul and enhanced organizational cohesion—the study illustrates the CCP’s shift towards positioning Communism as the ultimate sacred narrative. This exploration into the complex interplay between religious faith and political ideology helps illuminate the forces shaping modern China’s religio-political landscape and the role of sacredness in its nationalist and revolutionary discourses. Zhixi (Jordan) Wang, University of Alberta Cold War Christian Chineseness: Chinese Communist Party, Y. T. Wu, and Sino-Foreign Protestant Estrangement, 1948-1951 Abstract The term “Sino-Foreign Protestant Establishment,” defined by noted Chinese historian Daniel H. Bays, is central to understanding the evolution of Christianity in early twentieth-century China. Flourishing during the Republican era and unraveling in the mid-20th century with the rise of the Chinese Communist regime, this roughly four-decade-long Establishment underwent a significant shift. This paper explores, by introducing the concept of “Sino-Foreign Protestant Estrangement,” how the religio-political mechanisms catalyzed the shift from Sino-Foreign Protestant collaboration to estrangement. It focuses on Y. T. Wu, a pivotal Protestant leader in post-1949 church-state relations. The study argues that the transition from the Establishment to the Estrangement was orchestrated through three key strategies: ideological reconstruction, institutional rebuilding, and individual decoupling, all aimed at removing foreign influences from the initial Establishment. These tactics culminated in what is termed “Cold War Christian Chineseness,” a new phase of Chinese Christian self-identity shaped by these transformative processes. Brian Chiu, Biola University Bridging Cultures and Faith: The Transnational Mentorship of Margaret Barber on Watchman Nee in Twentieth-Century Chinese Christianity Abstract Margaret Emma Barber (1866–1930), a British female missionary, significantly influenced the spiritual development of Watchman Nee (1903–1972), a prominent leader of churches in China. Despite their significant impact, their mentoring relationship remains understudied in scholarly literature. This paper aims to fill this gap by examining the dynamic interaction between Barber and Nee in the 1920s, shedding light on the complex dynamics between Western missionaries and Chinese converts. Drawing on historical documents, personal writings, and contextual analysis, the study will explore Barber’s guidance and Nee’s perception of Barber’s personality and mentorship. The research aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the cultural and theological exchanges between Western missionaries and indigenous Chinese Christians in twentieth-century China and beyond. The study aims to enrich the narrative of Chinese Christianity by highlighting the significance of mentorship and cultural exchange in shaping its development across geographical and cultural boundaries. Yucheng Bai, Duke University Take Dominion of China: Christian Reconstructionism in Chinese Christianity Abstract The new generations of Chinese urban elite Christians have been searching for an intellectually robust political theology to guide their cultural ambition and their reformist drive. Some of their recent discourse, for example their endorsement of American Christian nationalism, their hostility toward the ordination of women, and their rejection of separation of church and state, calls into question what kind of political theology that had influenced them the most. For some influential and outspoken Chinese Christian leaders of the 21st century, the answer is clear. They adopted Christian Reconstructionism, sometimes also called theonomy, of American fundamentalists such as Rousas Rushdoony and Gary North. This paper traces the historical contingencies through which Christian Reconstruction theology made its way across the globe to China, and came to be favored by many Chinese Christians.
	A24-407 Christian Systematic Theology Unit Theme: Spirit, Finitude, and the Transformation of Silence Sunday, 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM Convention Center-9 (Upper Level West) Judith Wolfe, University of St Andrews, Presiding . Benedict Shoup, University of Notre Dame Romancing the Trinity: A Mystical Approach to the Equality of the Spirit Abstract An influential contemporary trend in pneumatology, pioneered by Thomas Weinandy and Sarah Coakley, uses resources from traditions of prayer to explain how the Spirit is equal to the Father and Son. Several thinkers who participate in what Coakley calls “incorporative” pneumatology draw on figures like John of the Cross to argue specifically that the Spirit’s activity in originating other divine persons is equal to that of the Father and Son. Despite the promising novelty of this approach, some have criticized these thinkers for attenuating trinitarian distinction without overcoming trinitarian inequalities. My paper contributes to incorporative pneumatology by supplying two new insights that I take from John of the Cross: his iterative theory of apophatic language and his nuptial framework for examining active trinitarian love. I argue that the combination of these two insights accounts for the equality of trinitarian activity in terms of nuptial love without jeopardizing trinitarian distinction. Caleb Hendrickson, University of Virginia Speaking of the Spirit in the Silence of the Desert Abstract Theological talk of the Spirit strikes at the root of the problem of theological utterance itself. To speak truly of God presumes that one speak in the Spirit. Yet, if the Spirit is the Spirit of prayer, then theology is led ever deeper into prayer's region of vast silence. Held within this silence, how can theology open its mouth? The paper considers two styles of theological speech, both of which prioritize the unutterable as touched on in prayer. These are John Caputo's "weak" theology and Sarah Coakley's systematics. It then turns to the desert moanstic tradition, which places theology under the discipline of silence. A contempoary theology that aims to follow after prayer must enter its unsettling silence, as well as those other unsettling silences that surround us: those of voices suppressed, lives cut short, and the ever more likely great silence of the species. Jacob Sherman, California Institute of Integral Studies The Spirit and the Water: Paul Claudel, Pneumatology, and the Sacralization of Finitude Abstract Although the influence of Paul Claudel upon twentieth-century theology is well known, little attention has been given to the way that Claudel’s oeuvre can help us not only to rethink a kind of sacramental cosmology but also the ways in which pneumatology is bound up with this project and reveals it as something more than just a retrieval of the premodern sacred. Through a reading of Claudel's second Great Ode, 'Spirit and Water', I argue that Claudel’s pneumatology points towards a theological resacralization of the finite that includes human subjectivity and creativity, indeed, one that gives a central place to the body, creaturely finitude, and to the shaping work of the human imagination. In this way, Claudel points us to a robustly theological account of human subjectivity in a sacramental cosmos, an account that escapes the aporetic modern theological shuttle between the epistemological turn-to-the-subject and reactionary reassertions of premodern metaphysics.
	A24-408 Collective Karma and Karmic Collectives: Conversations without Borders Seminar Theme: Karma and Time in Collective and Individual Perspectives Sunday, 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM Convention Center-29D (Upper Level East) Sinae Kim, Princeton University, Presiding This panel explores the interplay between karma and time, examining diverse perspectives from Buddhist and non-Buddhist sources across different historical periods. Recent studies on karma have critiqued the individualist approach (that karma works on the basis of an individual who is both the doer of an action and the recipient of the action’s result) and the realist approach (that karma represents objective reality, separate from lived experience). Building on these studies, the panel investigates how individuals and groups have imagined time — as cyclic, apocalyptic, unreal, and non-linear — as a means through which they orient themselves and others in a world of inconceivable karmic causes and results. Each paper discusses a specific imagination of time to offer fresh insight into how individuals and communities and their karmic agencies have been conceived. Nataliya Yanchevskaya, Princeton University Why Does Karma Need Time? A Hindu and Vedic Perspective Abstract Is it possible for the concepts of Karma and Time to coexist harmoniously within a single worldview? From a perspective of the doctrine of cyclic time (kālavāda) as developed in Hinduism, particularly in the epics, there is a noticeable tension between these two notions. According to this system, Time is a power that effectively governs the degree of righteousness (dharma) in the world through cosmic cycles (yugas) determining human destiny and afterlife. Conversely, the karmic law is also viewed as a force that decides the afterlife, rebirth, and liberation of humans based on their actions. However, the two concepts in their preliminary form coexisted in the Vedic worldview. Multiple time-related Vedic notions, such as ṛta, ṛtu, and saṃvatsara, were congruously connected with karman, the ritual action. In the Vedas, it was Time that determined the destiny of a person and governed ritual actions by putting them in a sequence. Brandon Dotson, Georgetown University The Apocalypse Can't Absolve your Sins: Karma and Time in a 9th-Century Buddhist Polemic Abstract Among the earliest extant Tibetan writings from Dunhuang, there is a text that belongs to a cult that prays for the coming of an apocalypse known as the Tempest. This Tempest will put an end to the present Evil Age and usher in a new Good Age, at the beginning of which believers and their ancestors will live again. Though the cult seems not to have survived, it was the target of a Buddhist polemic that railed against how the Tempest allowed people to escape the logic of karma. The polemicist inveighs, "the coming of the Tempest will not expunge your sins!" Drawing on both this cult and the polemic against it, this paper queries the extent to which time itself can be a liberating force that acts upon a given group of people, and the putative threat that such an idea poses to certain Buddhist understandings of karma. Jae Pi, Teaching Those of Shared Karma: Vasubandhu on How the Buddha’s Teachings are Made Abstract Based on Vasubandhu’s Vyākhyāyukti, this paper delves into the debate on the proper way to interpret the narratives detailing the karmic connections between the Buddha’s past and present lives. On one side of this debate is a realist interpretation, which views events in Śākyamuni’s past lives as real causes that lead to tangible effects in his present life. Conversely, an anti-realist interpretation, advocated by Vasubandhu, contends that the narratives of the Buddha’s lives do not posit real doers and real karmic actions and results. Examining the realist and anti-realist interpretations, the paper focuses on Vasubandhu’s anti-realist stance, grounded in the Mahāyāna concept of Śākyamuni as an emanation. The paper argues that, according to Vasubandhu’s anti-realist interpretation, the narratives of the Buddha’s lives are not descriptions of real events and individuals, but teachings crafted for specific audiences with shared karma which predisposes them to perceive buddhahood as a temporal progression. Claire Elliot, University of Pennsylvania Karmic Entanglements and Vessantara Jataka Arts: merit, mediation and imagination Abstract The Vessantara Jataka, which tells of the Buddha’s penultimate life, is of particular importance in Thailand where it has been closely tied to popular merit making practices. This paper analyzes the relationship between Vessantara Jataka art and merit making. It compares case studies from three different periods—the nineteenth century, mid 1960s, and today—to argue that both the form of artistic production and the specific artistic details within each piece influence donor-merit relationships, co-opting, incorporating, or displacing community. The pieces present different relationships between narrative time and place, and the time and place of the recitation, which, in turn, inform the kinds of merit and karmic entanglements these artworks generate. Ultimately, this paper argues that close analysis of the visual and material aspects of these Vessantara Jataka ‘texts’ are integral for understanding how they produce merit and for whom. Business Meeting Jessica Zu, University of Southern California, Presiding Susanne Kerekes, Trinity College, Presiding
	A24-409 Contemplative Studies Unit Theme: What do we mean by Meditation? Sunday, 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM Convention Center-7B (Upper Level West) Loriliai Biernacki, University of Colorado, Presiding These papers offer engaging new discourse on contemplative praxis as a means of teasing out precisely what we mean when we discuss practices like meditation. The first paper addresses meditation praxis within a historical Tibetan context by examining the healing effects of praxis within the context of the use of sound in the Unimpeded Sound Tantra (Sgra thal ‘gyur). The second paper in this panel draws from the writings of Tsongkhapa (1357-1419), (Gampopa (1079-1153) and Longchen pa (1308-1363) to discuss the Tibetan practice, thukdam, where the body of an advanced Tibetan practitioner exhibits signs of though clinically dead. The third paper offers an analysis of meditation practice through two different lenses, one derived from a religious context and one that exhibits something more akin to a technological reading of meditation praxis. Devin Zuckerman, University of Virginia Healing the Body, Speech, and Mind: A Model of Buddhist Contemplative Medicine in the Unimpeded Sound Tantra (Sgra thal ‘gyur) Abstract This paper explores a contemplative theory of medical healing found within the Great Perfection (Rdzogs chen) tantra, the Unimpeded Sound (Sgra thal ‘gyur), and its 12th-century commentary linked to Vimalamitra. Recasting traditional Buddhist theorizations of the person in terms of “body, speech, and mind,” as a model of disease pathology and treatment, this system proposes contemplative yogic techniques of body, mantric techniques of speech, and attentional practices of mind for treating physical illnesses. The paper considers the ways that Great Perfection Buddhist contemplative-scholarly communities in the 12th century drew upon conventional Buddhist doctrinal knowledge frameworks—such as body, speech, and mind—to address the decidedly this-worldly concern of healing the human suffering of illness. Tenzin Bhuchung, Princeton University Contemplative Practices involved in Thukdam: A Post-Clinical Death Meditation Observed Among Certain Tibetan monks Abstract Certain Tibetan monks demonstrate signs of vitality or being “alive” for up to 10-20 days following clinical death. In recent years, scientists have initiated studies on this occurrence, monitoring their brain activity during what is referred to as their thukdam meditation phase. However, what exactly is this contemplative practice, and within what context is such a post-clinical death meditation undertaken? Mahāyāna Buddhism emphasizes that meditation focused on perceiving reality and cultivating compassion is significantly more potent when conducted with the "subtle mind" rather than the "gross mind," wherein conceptual states, including dualism, persist. The subtle mind of the mind refers to innate clarity of the mind that is nonceptual and nondual. This paper will explore the three main contemplative practices associated with thukdam meditation: tantric, Mahāmudrā, and Dzogchen practices. Following that, I will analyze them from a broader Buddhist philosophical and soteriological perspective. Luca Del Deo, Harvard University Unveiling the Dual Technological and Cultural Identities of Meditation Abstract Approaching the term ‘meditation’ in the American milieu, one encounters a wide range of use cases. Meditation is sometimes represented as a distinct religious practice, other times a perennial human behavior, and popularly a kind of secular wellness practice. Depending on the context in which one encounters the term, meditation can be a specific technique or a therapeutic category. As an intervention to make sense of these competing conceptions, one can articulate meditation as appearing either as a ‘technological’ or a ‘cultural’ artifact. These categories can represent alternating and conflated epistemic identities inherent in the approaches taken by researchers, educators, and practitioners of meditation. Providing this distinction for how meditation is treated in different contexts allows scholars to more accurately assess the state of the term within societies, and engage in reflexive inquiry into how epistemologies of meditation are informed by implicit expectations concerning each identity. Business Meeting Loriliai Biernacki, University of Colorado, Presiding Michael Sheehy, University of Virginia, Presiding

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