Date and Time: 9 November 2026 at 4:00–5:30 pm (In-person and online) | 00:00 (Taiwan time)
Venue: Basement Teaching Room 1, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Pusey Lane, Oxford, OX1 2LE
Tea at 5:30–6:00 pm (Common Room)
Online attendance via Teams.
Meeting ID: 375 052 511 703 055 8 Passcode: 4dP9Vp3q
Enquiries: pyi.kyaw@ames.ox.ac.uk
Abstract:
The talk examines the biographies of three lesser-known monks who went from Southeast Asia to India in the 1950s and 1960s, a period of major developments in the internationalization of Buddhism and the ways Buddhism came to recognized in post-independence states, both in India and in Southeast Asian countries. Like other monks arriving from Southeast Asia, these monks navigated their identity in India in relation to citizenship, education, the founding of temples identified with national traditions, and the growth of different meditation traditions. The three monks hold particular interest for the complexities of their ethnic/national backgrounds. Two (Mok Sophal and Kim Trieu) were Khmer Krom (that is, ethnic Khmer from Vietnam). A third, Lok Ta Praserdh, was born in western Cambodia, but, going to India after a monastic education in Thailand, was initially identified as Thai. The situation of these monks evokes some of the texture of monastic life and the complexities of Buddhist transnationalism in India at a historical conjuncture.
Speaker:
John Marston is a professor at El Colegio de México in Mexico City. He completed a doctorate in anthropology at the University of Washington in 1997. He is co-editor (with Elizabeth Guthrie) of the book, History, Buddhism, and New Religious Movements in Cambodia (University of Hawaii Press and Silkworm Books), and editor of Anthropology and Community in Cambodia: Reflections of the Work of May Ebihara (Monash University Press), and Ethnicity, Borders, and the Grassroots Interface with the State: Studies on Southeast Asia in Honor of Charles F. Keyes (Silkworm Books). A collection of his writings, Budismo y sociedad en sureste de Asia, was published by El Colegio de México in 2020. His articles have appeared in journals such as Estudios de Asia y África, Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, International Journal of Comic Art, Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science, and Critical Asian Studies, and in edited volumes published by Cornell University Press, Routledge, Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Cornell University Southeast Asia Studies Program, and Center for Southeast Asian Studies Publications of Northern Illinois University. He is perhaps best known for his research on Cambodian religion – in particular on new movements centered on religious building projects, and on the markers of cultural change in Cambodian religion as it corresponds to socio-economic transition.
Respondent:
Olivia Porter is a Teaching Fellow in Religious Studies and a member of the Centre for Religion and Public Life at the University of Leeds. She works primarily on Tai (Shan) Buddhism practiced by communities living in the Myanmar-China borderlands, combining textual and ethnographic approaches to explore what ‘minority’ Buddhist communities, traditions, and texts can teach us about contemporary Buddhism.
About the Yin-Cheng Distinguished Lecture Series: Launched in September, 2021, the Yin-Cheng Distinguished Lecture Series (印證佛學傑出學術系列講座) is a collaborative, multi-university partnership between Peking University, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Inalco (Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales), Princeton University, Harvard University, the University of British Columbia, University of California, Berkeley, SOAS, University of London, University of Tokyo, and Taiwan University. The Lecture Series is established in honour of Venerable Cheng-yen 證嚴, founder of Tzu Chi, and her mentor Yinshun 印順 (1906–2005), with the goal of promoting topics in Buddhist Studies.
