Specialist in Things Tantric - STS NEWS # 1
File: News#184
STS NEWS # 1 November 26, 1984
Dear Colleague:
This mailing is being sent out to a number of persons (listed at end of this package). It has three primary purposes. The first and simplest of these is to develop a "registry" of academics who have a serious interest in, or are currently engaged in, research on tantric topics. The second is to solicit your responses to our own feelings that the world needs a regularly published newsletter/journal on tantric studies. The third is to suggest that the interests gathered in in (1) and (2) above be conflated so as to generate an organization to support them, The Tantric Studies Society (name subject to better suggestions).
With the above goals in mind we have drawn up a very short "registry" questionnaire that we ask you to answer and return to us. Once we have received and compiled as many answers as we think this effort is likely to produce we will, free of charge, share all the information with all those who have seen fit to respond. The registry should, when completed, allow all of us to have a much fuller idea of the whole range of on-going research on tantra or related topics and, also, to obtain an up-to-date list of addresses. Who knows, we may even find people doing research which has direct impact on our own work.
The idea of a newsletter/journal/bulletin is a bit more involved. It is based on several factors: the sense that there are an increased number of younger scholars working in these areas but no increased outlets for publication; a sense that even when work gets published the delays and lags in conventional journals are just too great for optimum scholarly impact; the feeling that published articles are scattered into too wide a variety of publications to be kept up with; the feeling that a forum for work or works in progress would aid collaboration, prevent duplication, and stimulate creative thinking. We have, thus, deliberately used the term newsletter/journal/bulletin at this point to indicate the sort of organ we are considering. Indeed, we have at least two "small journals" in mind as possible models for our proposed Tantric Studies Bulletin. (Only a suggestive title.) These are T'ang Studies and the Journal of the Chinese Religions Group, with some preference for the slightly more informal ambiance of the latter (especially in its earlier incarnation as the Bulletin for the Study of Chinese Religion). We would like to see this tantric bulletin be open to a number of kinds of contribution from fairly straightforward single-topic articles to preliminary translations of key texts, summaries of work in progress, brief reviews of important but likely to be missed works, and so on. We could even visualise that most ancient genre of literature, the series translation. (If anyone is working his/her way through the Mahavairocana Sutra, for instance, we would much rather see the preliminary outtakes now rather than wait forty years for the finished book.) We also are quite firm in wanting copyright (or open reprint permission) to stay with the authors of any such articles. Publication of such a bulletin would of course be a good deal easier than it might once have been what with the current widespread and growing use of wordprocessors. Would you be interested in such a journal? We invite your suggestions and responses.
The creation of a society would serve several purposes. The most obvious would be that of stable interchange among interested parties. This would not be have to be tied simply to the production of a journal or bulletin. A formal entity might give us the option of seeking panel space at the meetings of such academic organizations as the American Academy of Religion or the Association of Asian Studies. This would follow the path of the Japanese Religons Group and the Chinese Religions Group. It, would, however, also allow the possiblity of relatively small conferences aimed at three or four days of intense examination of specialty topics as well. Though the thrust of these two types of venue are opposite of each other, there seems no reason that we should have to choose only one of them. Again, is there a groundswell of support out there? Are there persons willing to do the work? Are there papers just waiting for a place to be given? Are there suggestions and ideas to add?
A final word. For neither the registry, nor the proposed society, nor any journal that might eventuate do we have a very hard-nosed definition of "tantra." Any person. movement, document, or icon that coheres several of the standard features of tantra would be appropriate. We would like at least to bridge the gap (fostered in no small part by the almost ancient distribution of separated NDFL centers in the sixties, but not only by that) between China-Japan on the one hand and India-S.E. Asia on the other. Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, or syncretic tantra are all equally tantra to us. We would include at least Hindu tantra, Indian Buddhist tantra, the Bauls, any siddhas, Tibetan Buddhism, Sahajiya, golden pill Taoism, Chen-yen, Shingon, and Taimitsu Buddhism. We only leave Mongolian Buddhism, Bengali Sufism, and Tangut Manicheaism off the initial list becasue we are too ignorant to make a judgement as to the fit and/or bare existence of same. Possibly we should consider serious work on Western alchemy as well.
James H. Sanford
Department of Religious Studies
101 Saunders Hall
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, N. C. 27514
Charles Orzech
Department of Religious Studies
200 Foust Hall
University of North Carolian at Greensboro
Greensboro, N.C. 27401
Questionnaire
I. For the registry
Your Name:
Address:
Business phone:
Primary research interests:
Current publications and/or on-going projects:
Any relevant long term plans:
In the space below, please insert the name and address of anyone who should get this letter but is not now on our list or who is on the list but with a partial or wrong address.
II. About the journal
Do you think such a journal is, in fact, timely?
If you would favor the publication of such a newsletter-journal- bulletin, how nearly are you in agreement with the ideas for it stated in this cover letter? What changes or additions would you suggest?
Do you have any idea how much you would feel would be a reasonable cost per issue of such a journal (if it were, say, 80 pp. long)? We would in no case try to make a profit-- fat chance, fat chance-- on such a venture.
III. About the Society
Would you favor the establishment of such a group?
If so would you like to see it affiliated with:
(a) the AAR
(b) the AAS
(c) the AOS
(d) other
(e) be unaffiliated
Do you have any further suggestions or comments.
