On Nomadology: Buddhist Traces Reconsidered

01.04.2022 15:15 - 16:45

Avishek Ray | Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology Silchar, IFK_Research Fellow

This talk teases out the connection between Buddhism and nomadology in the context of South Asia. It will demonstrate how itinerants trying to achieve alternate utopia have had their political agency mapped on to the Buddhist legacy. It will briefly discuss the Vedic-Buddhist feud on questions of itinerancy, and then explore how the trope of the nomad returns in the postcolonial discourse -- precisely, how postcolonial anxiety centering on the figure of the nomad finds symbolic expression in the literary discourse, at a time when the colonial government's intent to sedentarize the 'nomad native' would yield a wide range of defiant counter-mobilities.

Organiser:
Institut für Südasien-, Tibet- und Buddhismuskunde
Location:
Seminarraum 1 des ISTB, Spitalgasse 2, Hof 2.7, 1090 Wien