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SAA is organising a lecture by Prof. Martin Puchner

SAA is organising a lecture by Prof. Martin Puchner

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SAA is organising a lecture by Prof. Martin Puchner
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THE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND AESTHETICS


presents a lecture

by
Prof. Martin Puchner
Harvard University


on


Scenes of Instruction: How the Buddha, Confucius, Jesus and Socrates Created a New Performance Genre


January 30, 2018, at 5.30 p.m. SAA auditorium.


A short description of the talk: In one of the striking patterns of world history, charismatic teachers emerged within a few hundred years of each other in the centuries before the Common Era, introducing new forms of thinking and living. One of the things they had in common was that they did not write. Instead, they insisted on live teaching. But when they died, students began to transform the words and deeds of these teachers into writing, creating a new performance genre in the process. Soon, these new, vivid texts availed themselves of new technologies such as paper and print as well as new formats, such as the book. The story of these teachers and their students combines performance, writing and technology in ways that speak to our own revolution in reading and writing methods.

A warm welcome to the modified and updated website of the Centre for East Asian Studies. The East Asian region has been at the forefront of several path-breaking changes since 1970s beginning with the redefining the development architecture with its State-led development model besides emerging as a major region in the global politics and a key hub of the sophisticated technologies. The Centre is one of the thirteen Centres of the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi that provides a holistic understanding of the region.

Initially, established as a Centre for Chinese and Japanese Studies, it subsequently grew to include Korean Studies as well. At present there are eight faculty members in the Centre. Several distinguished faculty who have now retired include the late Prof. Gargi Dutt, Prof. P.A.N. Murthy, Prof. G.P. Deshpande, Dr. Nranarayan Das, Prof. R.R. Krishnan and Prof. K.V. Kesavan. Besides, Dr. Madhu Bhalla served at the Centre in Chinese Studies Programme during 1994-2006. In addition, Ms. Kamlesh Jain and Dr. M. M. Kunju served the Centre as the Documentation Officers in Chinese and Japanese Studies respectively.

The academic curriculum covers both modern and contemporary facets of East Asia as each scholar specializes in an area of his/her interest in the region. The integrated course involves two semesters of classes at the M. Phil programme and a dissertation for the M. Phil and a thesis for Ph. D programme respectively. The central objective is to impart an interdisciplinary knowledge and understanding of history, foreign policy, government and politics, society and culture and political economy of the respective areas. Students can explore new and emerging themes such as East Asian regionalism, the evolving East Asian Community, the rise of China, resurgence of Japan and the prospects for reunification of the Korean peninsula. Additionally, the Centre lays great emphasis on the building of language skills. The background of scholars includes mostly from the social science disciplines; History, Political Science, Economics, Sociology, International Relations and language.

Several students of the centre have been recipients of prestigious research fellowships awarded by Japan Foundation, Mombusho (Ministry of Education, Government of Japan), Saburo Okita Memorial Fellowship, Nippon Foundation, Korea Foundation, Nehru Memorial Fellowship, and Fellowship from the Chinese and Taiwanese Governments. Besides, students from Japan receive fellowship from the Indian Council of Cultural Relations.