2006 - 2007 Events

• February 16 – 17, 2007 3:00 PM – 8:00 PM Tang Museum
  Symposium- The Ethics of Commitment: Assessing the Humanities in China Today
  Description: This symposium will bring together scholars from different academic institutions in both China and the United States who have given a new meaning to the humanities in the Chinese tradition. The symposium will focus on an ethics of commitment that has defined the humanistic outlook in contemporary China and in institutions that support Chinese studies as part of a humanistic agenda. The ethical focus of the symposium will discuss various commitments that are shared by those who are interested in China's long history as well as in its recent entry into a global community where it is expected to perform a crucial role in the twenty-first century. The symposium will be designed to encourage scholarly exchange between Chinese academics and American scholars on a central issue in cultural understanding. The traditional conception of the humanities in China will be related to what the humanities have come to mean in the modern West.
  Sponsored by the Dean of Faculty Office and co-sponsored by Asian Studies

• Monday, March 5, 2007 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM Emerson Auditorium
  Buddhist Moral Theory: A lecture presented by Dr. Jay Garfield, Doris Silbert Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy
  Smith College. Dr. Garfield is the director of the Five College Logic Program and the Five College Tibetan Studies in India Program, an exchange program between the Five Colleges and the Tibetan universities in India and so most Januaries takes groups of students to study Buddhist philosophy at the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies in India.
  Co-sponsored by the Department of Philosophy and Religion, Asian Studies and the Chaplain's Office.

• Thursday, March 22 - 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM Intercultural Lounge
  Buddhism and Psychology: A lecture given by Jonathan Landaw.
  Co-sponsored by Asian Studies

• Wednesday, April 4 8:00 PM - 9:00 PM Emerson Auditorium.
  Human Rights for Tibetan Women: A lecture presented by Dr. B. Tsering Yeshi, President of the Tibetan Women's Association in Dharamsala, India. Tibetan women in Tibet face discrimination in education, employment. and are subjected to gender-specific violence for expressing their political opinions. She asserted that "violence against women continues in its worst forms such as honour killings, genital mutilation and systematic rape of women… some endorsed and enforced by the state. Violence against women becomes a two-fold challenge when women are discriminated against because of their gender and race." Dr. B. Tsering Yeshi, addressed these violations in an oral statement delivered at the 61st Session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in April 2005.
  Co-sponsored by Asian Studies, Women Studies and Chaplin's Office.

• Wednesday, April 25 8:00 PM Emerson Auditorium
  Debate in Tibetan Buddhist Monastic Education: A lecture presented by Dr. Georges B.J. Dreyfus, Professor of Religion at Williams College. George Dreyfus was the first Westerner to earn the geshe degree (analogous to the Ph.D.) after 15 years of study in Tibetan institutions in India. He continued his education at the University of Virginia to earn a Ph.D. in Religious Studies. He will lecture on the unique role that debate plays in Tibetan Buddhist monastic education based on his partly autobiographical book, "The Sound of Two Hands Clapping: The Education of a Tibetan Buddhist Monk" (2003). His other books include "The Svatantrika-Prasangika Distinction: What Difference Does a Difference Make? " (2002; co-edited with Sara McClintock), "Recognizing Reality: Dharmakirti's Philosophy and its Tibetan Interpretation" (1997).
  Co-sponsored by Philosophy and Religion, Asian Studies and the Chaplain's Office.
  

• Thursday, April 26 3:40 - 5:00 PM Tisch 207
  Eating Spring Rice - The Cultural Politics of AIDS in Southwest China: A lecture presented by Dr. Sandra Hyde, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Social Science in Medicine at McGill University.
  Sponsored by Asian Studies