Calendar

Fall Public Lecture Series

Throughout the fall of 2024, international specialists will present to a broad public audience aspects of the rich cultural heritage of Buddhism (material culture, music, texts, and visual arts) and its impact on contemporary culture in Asia and beyond.

Organized by Vesna A. Wallace and Fabio Rambelli (Religious Studies, UCSB).

This series is part of the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

All lectures will be held at the University Club of Santa Barbara (https://www.uclubsb.org/)

October 8 professor Michael Como (Columbia University) “Buddhism, Written Language, and the Religious Revolution in Eighth Century Japan”

October 29 professor Vesna Wallace (UCSB) “Text and Image Relations in Mongolian Buddhism”

November 19 composer Daryl Jamieson (Kyushu University, Japan) “Buddhist Influences in Contemporary Music”

December 12 professor Sunmin Yoon (University of Delaware) “The Sacred and the Secular in the Practice of the Mongolian Buddhist Songs”

All lectures are open to the general public. For information, please contact the University Club of Santa Barbara.

For members of the UCSB community, please contact Fabio Rambelli (rambelli@ucsb.edu) or Vesna Wallace (vesna.wallace@ucsb.edu).

Supported by Luce Foundation and American Academy of Religion, Robert N.H. Ho Family Foundation Global, the Uberoy Foundation, and the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

A mini conference featuring three lectures highlighting the relationship between early Christianity and ancient Mediterranean material culture. The 25% in the title refers to the percentage of the membership of the Society of Biblical Literature who identify as women. This event promotes their contributions.

Lectures by:

Prof. Roberta Mazza, Associate Professor of Papyrology, University of Bologna

Prof. Jorunn Økland, Director, Norwegian Institue at Athens; Professor of Gender Studies at the University of Oslo

Prof. Christine M. Thomas, Virgil Cordano OFM Endowed Chair in Catholic Studies, Department of Religious Studies, University of California

sponsored by
the Virgil Cordano OFM Endowed Chair in Catholic Studies, Department of Religious Studies, UCSB
the History Department, UCSB
the Ancient Borderlands Research Focus Group, Interdepartmental Humanities Center, UCSB

This lecture is part of the “Buddhist Cultural Heritage Past and Present” organized by Vesna A. Wallace and Fabio Rambelli (Religious Studies, UCSB) in the context of the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

University Club of Santa Barbara (https://www.uclubsb.org/)

Open to the general public. For information, please contact the University Club of Santa Barbara.

For members of the UCSB community, please contact Fabio Rambelli (rambelli@ucsb.edu) or Vesna Wallace (vesna.wallace@ucsb.edu).

Supported by Luce Foundation and American Academy of Religion, Robert N.H. Ho Family Foundation Global, the Uberoy Foundation, and the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Old Seeds in New Soil: Constructing Shinto Space and Place Outside of Japan

Shinto is popularly imagined as a ritual tradition coterminous with Japanese ethnicity, culture, and geography. Historically hailed as a “divine realm/nation” (*shinkoku*), the Japanese archipelago is home to a sacred landscape of shrines, mountains, forests, rivers, and seas inhabited by deities called *kami*. Where and how then does Shinto ritual take place outside of Japan? Based on ethnographic research among global Shinto communities, this talk examines approaches to the reterritorialization of Shinto, particularly in North America. Ugoretz analyzes how global Shinto communities’ production/construction of ritual space and place reinscribe traditional definitions of the religion as well as notions of Japaneseness, establishing a hierarchy that often privileges “Japanized” spaces. However, recent developments
concerning environmentalism and digital technology suggest emergent universalist orientations toward Shinto space.

Kaitlyn Ugoretz is Lecturer and Associate Editor for Publications at the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture (Nagoya, Japan) and finishing her PhD in EALCS at UCSB. She is an anthropologist of religion studying the globalization
of Shinto, digital technology, and media. Ugoretz is also the host of the award-winning educational YouTube channel, *Eat Pray Anime*.

Organized by Fabio Rambelli. Supported by the UCSB Department of Religious Studies and UCSB Shinto Studies Chair.

This lecture is part of the “Buddhist Cultural Heritage Past and Present” organized by Vesna A. Wallace and Fabio Rambelli (Religious Studies, UCSB) in the context of the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

University Club of Santa Barbara (https://www.uclubsb.org/)

Open to the general public. For information, please contact the University Club of Santa Barbara.

For members of the UCSB community, please contact Fabio Rambelli (rambelli@ucsb.edu) or Vesna Wallace (vesna.wallace@ucsb.edu).

Supported by Luce Foundation and American Academy of Religion, Robert N.H. Ho Family Foundation Global, the Uberoy Foundation, and the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.