Update: The One Who is Really Lost: A Conference in Honor of William R. LaFleur

[Ross Bender]

The One Who is Really Lost:

A Conference in Honor of William R. LaFleur

September 23-24, 2011

Campus of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

 

The sudden unexpected demise of Penn’s distinguished Japanologist William R. LaFleur in February 2010 deprived us of a major voice in the fields of Japanese religion, literature, culture, and recently and perhaps most importantly, bioethics.  At this conference, we will explore our colleague’s posthumous works, which range widely across these fields.  We will also spotlight his original poetry.

 

The conference will open with a lecture by Stephen D. Miller of the University of Massachusetts Amherst on “Whose Michi Is It Anyway?:  The Road(s) to Buddhahood in Heian Court Poetry” at noon on Friday the 23^rd of September. 

A memorial for Professor LaFleur, open to all, is scheduled for 3:30-5 that afternoon, with reception to follow. 

Readings of the posthumous works, with commentary, as well as papers on his influence, will fill the day Saturday.  A reception follows.  The public is welcome to all events.

 

Participants and topics are currently scheduled as follows (subject to change):

Justin McDaniel, University of Pennsylvania, Reading “New Humanism as Praxis”

Highlight Talk: Hank Glassman, Haverford College, "Playing on that Liminal Shore: the Birth of sai no kawara "

Denis Gainty, Georgia State University, Reading from “Meat Lecture”

Edward Drott, University of Missouri, and John Lizza, University of Kutztown, Reading from Bio-lust: Organs, Desire, Money, and Social Health

Special Address: Jacqueline Stone, Princeton University, Freaks and Philosophers: Minding the Body in Medieval Japan--Outline of an Unpublished Work

Keynote Address: Steven Heine, Florida International University, "Seasons Are the Reason: On Bill LaFleur's Methodological Influences, and Dogen's Chinese Poetry Collection"

Eleanor Kerkham, University of Maryland at College Park, Reading from “Poverty in Extremis: Reduction and Basho”

Maki Isaka, University of Minnesota, Reading from a planned book on Japanese Literature

John Harding, University of Lethbridge, Reading from Akropolis and Miyako: 'East' and 'West' through the Classics of Greece and Japan, forthcoming book co-authored with Jeremy McInerney, University of Pennsylvania

Gary L. Ebersole, University of Missouri, Kansas City, Reading from “Mere Zen/Mere Buddhism”

Rika Saito, University of Western Michigan, Reading from “The Concept of Conception”

Lewis Harrington, University of Pennsylvania, Reading from Watsuji’s World: Making Cultures Critical, a planned biography

Henry Smith, Columbia University, Reading from The Karma of Books, a planned autobiography

 

 

The title of this conference is derived from Bill’s translation of one of the poems of the medieval Japanese monk Saigyō:  “So, then, it’s the one / who has thrown his self away / who is thought the loser? / But he who cannot lose self / is the one who is really lost.”  The gathering will be a memorial for the one whom we have lost, but it will also be an occasion to question our own positions in relation to this individual and his body of work.  In discussing this poem, Bill notes that the literary critic Kobayashi Hideo credited Saigyō with “opening totally new territory, a place no one had entered before.”[1]  Bill LaFleur’s work has similarly been recognized for going to new places and broaching unprecedented questions.   This conference aims to recall that legacy, see where it was going at the end, and craft plans for carrying it forward. 

 

Details on the program and locations will be available on the Center for East Asian Studies website, http://www.ceas.sas.upenn.edu/, or you may contact Linda Chance with questions, lch...@sas.upenn.edu.  Information on “Visiting Penn” can be found at http://www.campustravel.com/university/penn/.  For less expensive hotel options, see http://www.budgettravel.com/bt-dyn/content/article/2005/06/04/AR2005060400740.html?page=2.  Or http://www.business-services.upenn.edu/offcampusservices/?p=housing_search/temporary_housing

The Gables B&B is a 20 minute walk or 5 minute trolley ride from campus.  Downtown is a 30 minute walk or quick ride.

 

---

[1] William R. LaFleur, Awesome Nighfall: The Life, Times, and Poetry of Saigyō (Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2003), p. 29

--
Ross Bender
http://rossbender.org