We have some exciting events planned for the coming academic year, when we will also be welcoming our first cohort of masters students to ECBS.
Monday 15th September 2025, 12.30-1.30pm, Rainy Hall, New College
ECBS lunch
Join us for the first ECBS lunch of the semester, when we welcome our new cohort of students and reconnect with existing members. Bring your own lunch or buy from the Rainy Hall cafe. We will meet weekly during semester at the same time and place, for informal conversation.
Tuesday 23rd September 2025, 4.10-5.30pm, Martin Hall, New College
Dr Halle O'Neal: Tracing Emotions in Calligraphy, Paper, and Buddhist Rituals of Medieval Japan (Religious Studies research seminar)
Abstract:
With the cataclysm of death, what happens to those remaining fragments of a life, which appear disposable to others but become the mourner’s heart-breaking distillations of both loss and trace? While a fading practice today, handwritten letters in medieval Japan were the primary form of communication between long-separated lovers, parents unlikely to reunite with their children, and distant friends, artists, and poets. In this rich epistolary culture, letters – reused, recycled, and reframed – figured prominently in Buddhist memorial rituals. With the death of a loved one, family members gathered the dead’s letters and transcribed sacred scripture on their surface, transforming the original missive into a letter sutra (shōsokukyō). Adorning these scrolls with gold, silver, and indigo dyes, women were the first to make memorial palimpsests. Indeed, they invented a wider cultural practice in which mourners tempered grief by transforming the everyday traces of loved ones into potent objects. This talk explores the creative methods deployed by women in coping with death and loss, the ephemerality and afterlives of letters, paper’s fragmentation via reuse and recycling, and the haptic engagement with layered manuscripts.
Friday 26th September 2025, 5:15pm, Meadows Lecture Theatre, Old Medical School, Doorway 4
Philippe Buc (Leiden University): “Buddhadharma, rajahdarma, regnum, sacerdotium: Some Comparisons between Medieval Japan and Western Medieval Europe”
Friday 3rd October 2025, 10am-12pm, University of Edinburgh Main Library, room 1.07
Book donation and reception
This event is by invitation only. It will include talks and a tea ceremony, led by representatives from the Manchester Fo Guang Shan Temple, and marks the receipt by the library of a donated copy of The Encyclopedia of Buddhist Arts.
Friday 10 October 2025, 11am-12pm, Elizabeth Templeton Lecture Theatre, New College
Justin McDaniel (University of Pennsylvania): Living Deliberately through Existential Despair
Justin McDaniel’s research is within Buddhist Studies and a broader study of human flourishing. In this talk, he explores two courses he teaches that ask students either to take on monastic vows (no tech for a month, no speaking or touching, food & dress restrictions, etc.) or read books cover to cover from 5pm to midnight in silence. It will discuss student experiences, and why turning off and learning how to single-task can lead to unexpected felicities and revelations. This is a joint event for the Edinburgh Centre for Buddhist Studies and the Scottish Network for Religion and Literature.
Tuesday 4th November 2025, 4.10-5.30pm, Martin Hall, New College
Dr Sara Swenson (Dartmouth): "Sharing Hearts: Buddhist Humanitarianism and Mutual Aid in Vietnam" (Religious Studies research seminar)
Abstract:
Recent scholarship on Buddhist humanitarianism tends to focus on large-scale movements. For example, several studies document how major organizations like the Tzu Chi Foundation have expanded rapidly to address social-service needs, offer disaster relief, and mobilize volunteers across Asia. However, in contemporary Vietnam, informal mutual-aid efforts have grown alongside formal humanitarian programs. These small-scale movements are difficult to trace and document. Some groups lack official registration with the government. Other groups derive from indigenous sects of Buddhism that lack international recognition. Still others operate through almost untraceable semi-private spaces of personal bank accounts and closed chats on messaging apps, which can make mutual-aid efforts difficult to distinguish from personal generosity. Yet, these informal movements have major effects on both donors and recipients. Real material needs are met among recipients. Existential needs are also addressed as online forums and in-person events reshape philosophical interpretations of Buddhism. Grassroots charity events function as sites where unconventional community leaders adapt concepts like “dana” and “merit-making” to new economic and political circumstances. This paper draws on ethnographic research following Buddhist aid organizations in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The three case studies presented show how charities are more than a failsafe for decentralized social services—rather, they are a vital resource for community members to find connection and meaning in a rapidly changing world.
Wednesday 5th November 2025, 4.15-6pm, 50 George Square, Room 1.06 (Project Room)
Florence Galmiche (Université Paris Cité): "Human and Animal Destinies Intertwined: Buddhist Rituals for Animal Rebirth in Contemporary South Korea"
Florence Galmiche is an anthropologist, an associate professor at Université Paris Cité, and a member of the ‘China, Korea, Japan’ laboratory and the Institut universitaire de France. Her research focuses on religion and ritual in Korea, with a particular interest in the relations between lay and monastic Buddhism, religious practices that seek to intervene in the world and effect change, and the relationship between the living and the dead. She also investigates the treatment of the remains of Korean forced labourers in Japan, and the ways civic and religious groups engage with memory and ritual care.
Part of the Asian Studies seminar series. This talk is supported by the Academy of Korean Studies.
Friday 7th November 2025, 5.30-6.30pm, Martin Hall, New College with Prof Sasson joining online
Vanessa R. Sasson: "The Gathering: A Story of the First Buddhist Women" (New College Festival of Books and Belief)
What do we see differently when we become the creator, rather than the consumer, of stories? This is what Vanessa Sasson, an academic in the field of Buddhist Studies, set out to do in her first novel, ‘Yasodhara and the Buddha’ (Bloomsbury 2021), telling the Buddha’s life story through the eyes and experiences of his abandoned wife.
Her second novel, ‘The Gathering’ (Equinox 2023), goes further still, exploring the story of the first Buddhist women’s request for ordination. Sasson will be joining Naomi Appleton in conversation as they explore not only the ways in which Sasson’s research feeds into her creative writing, but also how creative writing might be viewed, in itself, as a form of academic practice.
Please note: while this is an in-person event, Vanessa R. Sasson will be joining on the big screen from Canada.
Further information and booking on the Festival website.
Monday 1st December 2025, 2-5pm, Senate Room, New College (and hybrid via Zoom)
Panel Discussion: Humour in Premodern Buddhist Literature
Join four ECBS members for a discussion of how we might understand - and indeed identify - humour in early narrative literature from different parts of the Buddhist world. Featuring Prof Naomi Appleton, Dr Janine Nicol, Prof Rajyashree Pandey and Dr Upali Sraman.
Other events in 2026, details to follow:
- Date tbc: Our regular works-in-progress workshop
- Date tbc: Our annual Khyentse Lecture in Buddhist Studies and associated panel discussion
- Date tbc: A CPD day for school teachers, on making as Buddhist practice
- 12th March: A History of Art research seminar from Carolyn Wargula
- 11th June: Our "Discovery Day" for school pupils
- 24th-26th June: The 2026 UKABS conference on Buddhism and Emotion, hosted by ECBS, on which follow the link for further details.
Check back later for details, or contact buddhist.studies@ed.ac.uk to be added to our mailing list or membership.