I’ll be giving a talk at a symposium celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies.
I’ll be speaking on a roundtable about furthering mutual understanding between the US and Japan.
I’ll be speaking on a panel about my experiences as a recipient of the Crown Prince Akihito Scholarship. Details when I have them.
I’m co-hosting a symposium on Material Secularisms at Penn on February 27–29. I’ll be speaking on a panel about “Bodies” on Saturday morning, 2/29 at 10:00.
Conference description:
“Is secularism anything more than books on a shelf?”
The classic secularization narrative of the mid-20th century envisioned a progressive decline of religion as part of the advance of modernity. Charles Taylor has referred to this as the “subtraction story,” in which “religion” is a sort of artificial imposition that modifies a neutral intellectual-cultural landscape buried beneath the surface. But Talal Asad encourages us to think about “formations of the secular” as something more than just the emergence of universal reason. Secularism, in its many iterations across global history, is made, rather than found. This means that secularism, too, is embodied, felt, and the site of a full-fledged material culture, including objects, clothing, space, architecture, monuments, bodily practices, media, and more.
Mobilizing the idea of the “uncanny valley” (in which the robotic Other is sufficiently similar to, and different from, the Self so as to overcome feelings of unease), I use recent reportage on Kōdai Temple’s android bodhisattva “Mindar” to show how journalists and Japanese roboticists put religion in place while simultaneously reifying notions of Japanese cultural uniqueness.
Jackie Stone’s students and friends gather to honor her retirement from Princeton University.
I’ll be speaking after lunch on the Monday as part of a roundtable about religion and capitalism. (One of my fave topics!) Teaser: What do tidy closets, sugar addiction, and human rights have in common?
神道国際学会シンポジウム：「アニメのカミ：若者文化と神道」
大学コンソーシアム・キャンパスプラザ京都 （京都駅前）
第２講義室
15:00~18:00
講師：
ジョリオン・トーマス
重ねられる画像：アニメ技術と宗教意識
アレキサンダー・ベネット
アニメと武道：ポップカルチャーと伝統文化のクロスオーバーについて
岡野卓司
アニメ、アニマル、アニミズム：鳥獣戯画から火の鳥の日本文化誌
