Siam Society is holding a lecture on "Theravada Buddhist Constructs: Introducing Two New Volumes" at its Lecture Room on the 4th floor on Saturday at 2pm.
It will be conducted by three speakers -- Ashley Thompson, Hiram W. Woodward chair of Southeast Asian Art at SOAS University of London; Samerchai Poolsuwan, professor of Anthropology at Thammasat University; and Katherine Bowie, a Vilas distinguished achievement professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Thompson is editor of Early Theravadin Cambodia: Perspectives From Art And Archaeology (NUS Press) and co-editor of The Routledge Handbook Of Theravada Buddhism, two new volumes seeking to set out new frontiers for exploration of Theravada worlds.
She will provide an overview of each publication, highlighting editorial strategies and research challenges underpinning the collective works. She will also present elements of her own contributions to the volumes, tracking relations between temporally and geographically disparate mainland Southeast Asian monumental contexts of the second millennium, from Angkor to Pagan to Sukhothai.
Samerchai will draw from his contributions to both volumes exploring and extending Hiram Woodward's concept of "Ariya Buddhism" as evidenced in murals and sculptures from central Burma and western Thailand.
Bowie, meanwhile, will speak on anthropological approaches through consideration of her work featured in the Handbook, on the evolution of Thai funerary practices as these express social divisions and highly localised understandings of death.
The fee is 200 baht (free for members and students).
Email pinthip@thesiamsociety.org or call 02-661-6470--3 ext 203.
