Yesterday I had the good fortune to attend the Rangjung Yeshe Institute’s Symposium on Buddhism Translated. The speeches by John Dunne, Tom Tillemans and Sara McClintock were every bit as stimulating as I had anticipated, and each one of them brilliant in its own way. They also provided plenty of pointers to further research material, which is what I would like to highlight here. Dr. John Dunne, for example, during his lively power-point enhanced examination of mindfulness made reference to a wonderful article by Jay Garfield entitled Translation as Transmission and Transformation, which is available online here and highly recomended. Professor Tom Tillemans led us through an enlightening investigation of why translation often fails, with particular reference to problems in translating texts on logic and epistemology (Skt. pramāṇa), during which he referred, among many other sources, to Quine’s famous thesis on the indeterminacy of translation, an important idea although widely dismissed and regarded by many, including Tillemans, as extreme. For her part, Dr. Sara McClintock introduced the brilliant Umberto Eco’s theories on the role of the reader into her lucid discussion of the importance of narrative in Buddhism.
Hopefully it will not be too long before the lectures appear online.
No comments:
Post a Comment