Tonan Talk: “The East-West Cultural Corridor Project: Living Buddhist Heritage in Myanmar”

Date: September 17th, 2013
Venue: Tonan-tei (Room No. 201), CSEAS, Inamori Foundation Memorial Building, Kyoto University

Title: The East-West Cultural Corridor Project: Living Buddhist Heritage in Myanmar

Speaker: Prof. Elizabeth Howard Moore, CSEAS Visiting Research Scholar, Professor of the Art and Archaeology of South East Asia at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)

Abstarct:
The East-West Cultural Corridor Project is a collaborative study into common cultural processes across mainland Southeast Asia.The research relates past histories to the present traditions of sites and connecting routes. In Myanmar a large number of these living traditions are part of the Buddhist culture, from handicrafts to monastic and religious architecture. Living traditions also include sacred landscapes where pilgrimage routes keep alive ancient stories recorded in local chronicles. The relationship between this living spiritual heritage and international and national cultural heritage institutions and laws is complex. The informal talk describes examples of these institutions and the contrasting mechanisms within which heritage is protected and sustained.

Speaker:
Elizabeth Howard Moore is a Visiting Researcher under the International Program of Collaborative Research (IPCR) and the Center For Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS). She is Professor of the Art and Archaeology of South East Asia at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London and Visiting Professor, Department of Archaeology, Yangon University.

She is working on a collaborative book entitled New Pyu Discoveries, and a volume on the role of Dawei and the Southern Coastal Zone in the East-West Cultural Corridor Project.

Moderator: Satoru KOBAYASHI, CSEAS, Kyoto University

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