A “coffee-break” conference on Asian studies

Lo studio dell’Asia fra antico e moderno – giornate di studio, Rome, 10.-12.06.2010

To hold a conference which leaves behind the more stiff formulations of established and untouchable conclusions, and favours an open minded exchange of ideas, suggestions, criticisms in Italy was suggested by Elisa Freschi on her blog in March (here), and it really did not take long until that “coffee-break” conference took place a few days before at the Sapienza University of Rome in the Facoltà di Studi Orientali.

The presentations were held in six panels on linguistics and texts, manuscriptology and literature, on Development studies, and Asian history of art. To regroup the contributions of the English spoken panels without the Development studies on the basis of the discussed fields of study in matters of languages resp. literatures here (in order of appearance at the conference):

• Arianna D’Ottone (Rome) presented the Arabic Manuscript Vaticano 368, Elisabetta Benigni (Rome) Arabic literature and western canon.
• Michela Clemente (Rome) spoke on the Search of stylictic models for the identification of Tibetan xylographs, Illona Manewskaya (Manchester) on Tibetan medical didactic poetry.
• Mark Schneider (Hamburg) introduced the project Manuscript Cultures in Asia and Africa and its sub-project on Japanese manuscripts, Luca Milasi (Rome) spoke on historical fiction in Meiji Japan.
• Kengo Harimoto (Hamburg) presented the oldest Nepalese manuscripts of the NGMCP, Alessandro Graheli (Vienna) spoke on the textual sources of the Nyāyamañjarī, Adheesh Sathaye (Vancouver) on the Mahābhārata, Elisa Ganser (Leiden) on the Nāṭyaśāstra and related texts, Artemio Keidan (Rome) on layers in the Aṣṭādhyāyī, and Rosaria Compagnone (Naples) on the Pādmasaṃhitā.
• Sara Kaczko (Rome) spoke about textual criticism in Classical philology, Carlo Vesella (Rome) on Late Classical Greek phonology.
• Luca Alfieri (Rome) presented on the adjectives in Vedic literature, Leonid Kulikov (Leiden) on the history of the PIE case system, Frank Köhler (Tübingen) on RV 1,60 (Dīrghatamas cycle), Paola Rossi (Milano) on śakti and Luca Picardi (Naples) on triḥ sapta and ekaviṃśa/ti in the Veda

(the abstracts are available on the conference’s web site). The conference was very interesting and it can be seen that there was a broad range of relevant presentations which the organizers were able to bring together. A whole panel was dedicated to contributions towards Development studies (see the bundled panel abstracts here). Although there were some concerns it could be too boring for the majority of the present philologists the presentations in that panel were very interesting and I’ve learned that the discipline is relatively new in Italy and follows some very own approaches. The panel inspired to get somewhat deeper into that and the conference proceedings which are going to appear are planned to contain a separate survey of the recent Development studies in Italy. Seen how well the conference was convened it could be supposed that the proceedings are going to appear very soon (given that everybody is sending in his paper punctual). Because the majority of contributions on the whole conference was held by Italian scholars the event was also an unique opportunity even for the foreign guests to meet the Asian research in Italy. I am very glad to hear that the next Italian “coffee-break” conference is already planned for next year and maybe there is always enough demand to let this turn into a series.

I’ve made some pictures of the event, the gallery is here, and an archive of them could be found here (if the presenters that do not appear would please excuse – at the end the batteries have gone empty).