Practicescape at Bao shan

UC Berkeley's Center for Chinese Studies presents a talk by Wendi Adamek on her current work on Bao shan in terms of "practicescape," a multi-directional reinscription of the landscape in Buddhist terms.

The site known as Bao shan (Treasure Mountain) in Henan reveals a rich web of complex relationships: gender relations, lay and ordained relations, successive reshapings of the environment, human and non-human relations, and images and texts of various kinds. Dr. Adamek illustrates these relationships with slides and selected inscriptions from the site's treasures. Drawing from Tim Ingold's notion of a given environment as a rhizomatic "taskscape," she will discuss her current work on Bao shan in terms of "practicescape," a multi-directional reinscription of the landscape in Buddhist terms. The notion of "practicescape" allows us to examine the relationships noted above within the context of key co-dependent representations of practice space: empty peaks and caves with images, mountain and city temples, sites of ascetic "escape" and socioeconomic networks.

Dr. Adamek is a China religions scholar who received her Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Stanford University and has taught at Barnard College and Columbia University. Her book The Mystique of Transmission (Columbia University Press, 2007) centers on an 8th century Chan/Zen group in Sichuan and won an Award for Excellence from the American Academy of Religion. Works in progress include a book on the Buddhist community at Bao shan and a book on issues in environment and culture. Dr. Adamek's research interests include Buddhism of the Tang dynasty, donor practices, Buddhist art, and network theory.