Specialist in Things Tantric - STS NEWS # 6
File: News#691
STS NEWS # 6 January, 1991
The Society for Tantric Studies is at a critical juncture. Up to now the organization of meetings, the publication of the Newsletter and the compilation and distribution of the Registry have depended almost entirely on the time and efforts of Jim Sanford, Glen Hayes, and Charlie Orzech. A variety of professional responsibilities necessitate some change in this arrangement, and this is a good time to consider future directions.
Meetings: We would like first, to schedule an organizational meeting at the Fall 1991 AAR meeting to help chart the course of the Society in the future. At present, the "Tantra Occluded" meeting is scheduled in California for May of 1992. Richard Payne who is arranging the meeting has applied to NEH and other organizations for funding to support the conference. We would like to follow the Tantra Occluded conference by proposing a panel for the Comparative Studies Section of the Fall 1992 AAR. June McDaniel (College of Charleston) has floated the idea of a joint regional meeting in conjunction with the Southeast American Academy of Religion which meets yearly in March.
Some of us feel that the lack of participation shown for the previously proposed joint meeting of the Society with the Conference on Asian and African Studies in Toronto is evidence that we need to renew our efforts either for small regional meetings, for greater participation in the meetings of AAR and AAS, or for both. Moreover, a Journal might act to catalyze renewed interest in the Society.
Journal: Several new, small journals have appeared in the Religious Studies/Asian Studies areas. We have seen the flourishing of the Journal of Chinese Religions, and the modest success of more specialized publications such as T'ang Studies, and most recently Taoist Resources. In October and November a proposal for support of a Journal was presented to the Publications Board of the American Academy of Religions. While the proposal was praised the Board nevertheless felt that the topic was too narrow to merit direct AAR support. That a pan-Asian religious phenomenon which has been in existence for nearly two thousand years is regarded as too narrow a topic reflects more upon the perspective of the AAR than upon any reality. We have since found out that Taoist Resources enjoys the financial support of the AAS and we will look there next. Glen Hayes has also agreed to approach SUNY Press. If you have other suggestions please write or phone. At present we envisage a fairly large editorial board to help spread the work around. One member opined that he would be quite willing to read up to three papers per year.
We expect such a journal to initially appear on an annual basis and subsequently biannually. The journal will be approximately 80 to 100 pages in length. It will be cross-cultural in scope, covering all of Asia and perhaps some peripheral areas, and will explore Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, and perhaps some Taoist forms of tantra. Production is expected to be by desktop publishing and the journal will be available in both hardcopy and disk format. The core of the editorial committee would consist of those persons who volunteered at the Syracuse meeting:
- Janet Gyatso (Tibetan Buddhism), Amherst College
- Glen Hayes (Medieval North India), Bloomfield College
- John McRae (Chinese Buddhism), Cornell University
- June McDaniel (Modern Indian Religions), College of Charlston,
- Paul Muller-Ortega (Kasmiri Shavism), Michigan State University
- Charles Orzech (Chinese Vajrayana), University of North Carolina Greensboro
- James Sanford (Japanese Vajrayana), University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
- David White (Indian Classical traditions), University of Virginia
Tantric Ritual Presentation: June McDaniel (College of Charles ton), author of The Madness of the Saints (U. of Chicago Press) presented a paper, "Tantric Ritual and its Justifications: The Case of the Kulavarna Tantra," on July 20th, 1990. The talk was held in the Religious Studies Department of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was sponsored by the Triangle South Asia Colloquium and the Society for Tantric Studies. Some thirty-five people attended the talk, including members of the Society from Colleges and Universities throughout the North and South Carolina area.
