 So, good morning. My name is Lucia Dolce. I'm the convener of the DMA Buddhist Studies here at SOAS, and I'd like to welcome you to SOAS Virtual Space. So, and welcome to the Buddhist, to the program. You may have already read in information on the program that this is a most comprehensive program in Buddhist studies in the UK. It's housed within the School of History, Religions and Philosophy, and is supported by language teaching that includes most of the languages of Buddhist. And as an extracurricular activity, we have also a research center, Buddhist Studies Research Center, which offers other opportunity to engage further with the study of Buddhist. So, what I would like to do today is to say a few things of what you can expect from the MA Buddhist Studies, and to speak a bit about the program structure. So, let me start with the first point. How do we study Buddhism? We take Buddhist Studies as a field, Buddhist Studies is not a discipline, but it can be approached from various disciplinary perspectives. So, I think we can consider it an interdisciplinary field of inquiry where it is possible to combine historical, philosophical, ritual, material, culture approaches, or to choose any of these. The basic approach at SOAS is a critical one, which I mean that we look at the traditions respectfully, but we also are interested in the academic studies of these traditions and the consequences that the study of Buddhism has had for the study of the areas where Buddhism has impacted and the study of religion or philosophy in its whole. We are also very much interested in placing Buddhism in the areas where it developed. So, we would be looking at Buddhism not in the abstract, but as a living religion. So, with attention to not only the scriptural literature, the textual literature, the philosophical thoughts, but also the practices of the Buddhists in the countries where they existed today, where they have existed in the past. Another very important point about our approach is that we do pay attention to the development of scholarship, not only in the West, but also in the East, if you allow me, these broad categories East and West. And here I think we need to know the importance of Asian scholarship, especially Japanese scholarship, but also Chinese scholarship more recently for the understanding, for general understanding of Buddhism. All our faculty, the members of staff who will be teaching in this program are the master researchers in one or the other form of Buddhism. So, the teaching in the program is based on research and first hand knowledge of the field, which brings a lot of advantages because you have a very sort of fresh and up-to-date approach and knowledge of the field. Now, what else to say about Buddhism? We used the word Buddhism in the singular, but we do also need to understand the diversity of Buddhism. It's historical and geographical development, so we can as well speak of Buddhism as of Buddhism in the plural. This means that Buddhism has both a transnational dimension. It's a Pan-Asian religion that started in India, Central Asia, and moved to Southeast Asia and what is called Northeast Asia, so up to the Far East Asia. And from there it moved to Europe and to America. So, we can think of it as a transnational religion, as a transnational philosophical approach, but it also has very important local incarnations. So, this dynamic between the transnational aspects and the very local aspects is a very important point to note in the study of Buddhism. And this brings also a lot of what I call ambiguities and contradictions in how we represent Buddhism. Buddhism is at the same time one and many. Buddhism engages with the construction of the political world of society, and therefore it takes different forms. So, while studying Buddhism, we can also study aspects of the interface between religion and politics, but also more broadly about the construction of gender, theories on the environment, and so on. So, let me pass on now to the structure of the program. As I said, the program is based in the School of History, Religions, and Philosophy, which is abbreviated as HRP. And the core teaching team for last year, for this year, and I'm saying this because it may be there may be additions in the coming years, is made of three members of staff. Myself, Luchedocha, I'm working on Japan mainly with some foreign, the Chinese and the Koreans of the Sino, the Sinitic world of Buddhist. Dr. Tarvanyan, Stephanie Tarvanyan works on China. And Professor Urish Pagar, who is also the head of department who works on India and Tibet. So, this is the core team in HRP, but we are very lucky to have several colleagues who work on different aspects of Buddhism in other departments. And I thought I would mention here, especially the Art History department, where there are two colleagues with whom we collaborate and whose classes are included in our program. And that is Dr. Christian Lutzantis, who is a specialist in Tibetan Himalaya area, and Professor Ashley Thompson who works on Tarvayan Station. So, this is a pretty substantial team of researchers whose first research has come to us. Now, the structure of the program that you have seen already from the website. I hope you have already familiarized yourself with what is on the website, so that there are questions or queries about it that can be solved during this presentation. The basic structure of the MA with the studies follows the structure of all MAs and so on, of most MAs and so on. You need to take total modules to the equivalent of 120 credits plus a dissertation of 10,000 words. That is worth like the 60 credits. There are different types of modules, core modules, which means the modules that you have to take, everyone who takes within the program has to take. And then there are elective modules so that you can choose from a pool of options within the department that work on Buddhist studies or on related subjects. And then there are often options that means that you have a maximum of 30 credits that you can take from courses offered across the school. So, when we come to what exactly these modules are, the core course of the program, so the compulsory core course, is called critical concept in Buddhist studies. This is a especially a methodological course that looks at some concepts, some ideas that are relevant for the study of Buddhist studies and a Buddhist study of Buddhism and looks at them from different perspectives, basically. So, for instance, we would be looking at what it means text, what it means image, what it means ritual in the case of Buddhism. And again, what is society, what is an institution within the world of Buddhism. This is a course that I convene at the moment and normally has just students from the MA, Buddhist studies, although some students of related MA are also allowed to take it. Then the other courses of the program are more area-based. So, we have one course on India and Tibet that is called Buddhist meditation in India and Tibet. I would look at Buddhism in these areas through the focus on meditation, that we have a course on East Asian Buddhist thought that covers one tradition within the broader East Asian world, every different tradition. That we will have a thematic courses on China in Japan, Chinese Buddhist MA themes and religious practice in Japan, text rituals and believers. So, with this, I think we cover the great majority of Buddhist Asia. There are other modules in the program that are either on related tradition or on comparative perspectives. And I've given here some examples of the most, of those that are most commonly taken by students or who modules the students have found to be as most useful. And those are modules on Daoist that is of interest for working on East Asia, religions of ancient India that covers all other religions that grew up in the Indian continent at the moment of the development of Buddhism and origins and development of yoga in ancient India. As I said earlier on, there are also modules in our history that are Buddhist specific. And again, there are changes from one year to another in the offering that we can make available. But basically, these are available courses. One covers the Gandharan art, one covers the Tibetan, well Tibetan and Malayan areas of Buddhism. And that's what is called interpreting visual expressions of the Mandala and another one, the art of the Maritime Silk Road. So, the so-called southern way of development, southern route of development of Buddhism. So far for the more conceptual courses, next to them, we offer a number of canonical and spoken languages of the Buddhist world. And I hope that I've written all of those that I'm on offer at this moment. So, we have Sanskrit, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Burmese, Vietnamese and Thai at this moment. And we hope to offer to missing ones next year again. And as for the other options, I didn't write them here, but you will be allowed to take other options if you have space and if they are relevant to what you want to do in the MA through consultation with the convener. Now, how do you go around choosing these modules? One very important aspect of the MA program at SOAS is that at the same time, focus and flexible. So, it does allow you to, let's say, build your own portfolio. And I would like to give you an example of how you can do that. And I've taken as an example an hypothetical student who wants to concentrate on the development of Buddhism in Japan. And I've done that because obviously it's my own field of research. So, you would be taking on top of the core course of the program, critical concept in the studies, the two courses that are mostly most relevant. So, the course that is dedicated to Japanese religions is religious practice in Japan. That is a 30 credits course, what we call a full unit, which means that it goes across the entire year. And this course has a historical, contemporary dimension and introduces different theoretical perspectives to the study of Buddhism. And then you would take also East Asian Buddhist Code, which is 15 credits, so half a unit means it is offered in one term, which, as I said, focused on one tradition of the Sino, well of Sino-Japanese, of Sino-Japanese Buddhism. Then, and this is where the choice, the most interesting choice comes to, you just think of how to complement the very focus to study of Buddhism in Japan with either other related tradition in the regional context. So, let's say the Semitic world, and here you could do something like Buddhism in China, or Taoism, or something more specific in Japan, for instance, Japanese pre-modern literature, if you are interested in the pre-modern development or modern society, if you are interested in contemporary expressions. Or you can go through more specific themes related to religion. So, for instance, you could join in the course on the expression of mandalas if you are interested in a more visual, in the more visual aspect of Buddhism, or you can do religions of India if you are interested in looking at the origins of Buddhism, or Buddhist meditation in India, or something like that. And finally, if you have never studied the languages of Buddhism, or if you have studied them and you want to improve your knowledge, you can take courses in the primary languages in this case of Japanese Buddhism. So, we offer classical Chinese, classical Japanese, and of course modern Japanese at all levels. And the insertion of language has been very important for those students to take this MA as a step towards a PhD, a further study in the field. If you may know, or maybe not, maybe I'll say that the MA programs, and in particular the MA Buddhist studies, has this double function of being just further education for anyone who has done a bit of religion, or even a bit of Buddhism, I wanted to know in more details, one or the other tradition, but also as a sort of filling the gaps kind of course for those who have, for instance, already a BA in Japanese studies, or have done a BA in history in Asia, and want to concentrate for their research degrees on Buddhism. So, it does have, you will have in class both students who may be interested generally about Buddhism, or students who have very clear ideas of what they want to get out of the course. And that brings a very interesting dynamic to all, really to all courses. Okay, I'd like to go on really a little bit more afterwards, we can take your questions. How do we teach? There are a variety, there's a variety of teaching methods, so it's difficult to say just in one word, but you will have regular lectures followed by seminars, or you will have interactive lectures, where the lecture would be open to interruptions, to discussion within the lectures, or very fluid format. In any case, what I really want to stress is that active participation from the students is always required, welcomed, and encouraged, so that that is the way of learning, of learning more, and of being, of learning together, let's say, let's go this way. I also want to say something that's about the new modes of learning that have been introduced last year because of the of the need to teach online. Although we are now already back on campus for most of the classes, but not for all, we have maintained a kind of double mode of teaching, both what we call asynchronous learning and synchronous learning. So there is a lot of material that you find online on the dedicated pages of each module, which allows for asynchronous learning, and that adds to the contact time that takes place in class or with your peers. So these two modes actually worked out pretty well in increasing the occasions to learn. As teaching is different from course to course, assessment is different from module to module. But generally speaking, the modules are assessed by coursework, which means essays or written work rather than exams. Obviously language courses will have exams, but hardly any other course has exams. And that is because we do want to encourage a critical approach that is more obviously unfolding through written work and also to develop a better research skills, whether you will be using it for a further degree or you will be using in all other career paths that you will embark. So when I mean written coursework, the traditional format of an essay, but also case studies, the response papers, reviews, a range of different written work that is meant to hone your skills. Some modules have also class presentations, whether individual or in group. Most modules will have seminar participations. And also we also introduced some formative assessment, which means assessment that is not marked. So you don't need to worry about your final mark for that assessment, but that helps you to develop the skills you need to write a good essay, for instance. So that's what I can say about the assessment class attendance is always being compulsory, but in fact, my students are not really very happy to be in class and to take advantage of the opportunity offered by not only the lecturer herself, but also by the discussions with their peers. Almost all, I mean, we are all staff members are very much available for student consultations. We have dedicated office hours, but we also offer quite a good deal of supervision for not only for the final dissertation, but also consultation for writing your essays. So there is a lot of guidance besides the contact hours during the teaching itself. This maybe we don't need to do it, or if there are questions, we'll come back to the numbers of hours that the programs are supposed to retain. I wanted to say just one word and then I'll stop about the fact that although the curriculum of the program itself is quite intense and quite full, there's much more happening at SOAS and we do hope that the MA students coming into the program will make the most of it. I mentioned earlier on at the center and I'll come back in a minute, but first of all, the library. SOAS Library is one of the world's most important academic library for the study of what we say Asia, Africa and the Middle East, but in our case for the study of Buddhism. And there are other very important resources in the area where SOAS is, which is called Bloomsbury for those of you who are not familiar with London, both in terms of library, British Library for instance, and museums. The British Museum again is very close by and we often organize some events together. There are also many talks and guest lectures and seminars offered across the school in departments or research centers and they are really a treasure trove for getting familiar with maybe little topics within the study of Buddhism that are not covered in class. And here I present a few things about the center of Buddhist studies, which is our flagship and one of the oldest center of Buddhist studies in the country and which I'm the chair of at the moment. We have two series of lectures. One is a dedicated lecture on Chinese Buddhism, which is supported by the Hope Foundation. And another one is one of the really oldest lecture series called the Buddhist Forum that is more broadly on all aspects of Buddhism. Often these lectures are joined by occasions for seminar-like discussions with possibly students, both PhDs and MAs, so there is really a lot to take from them. And there is an outreach series that is funded by the Chinese Foundation called Buddhism Inside Out and we have covered the different themes through the years and what we have looked at. Beth and Buddhism, we have looked at meditation, we have looked at sound, music and Buddhism. So these are very open lectures to a broader public, not necessarily the academic one. And you can see the events on our website. There are other relevant research centers according to the geographical area so that you are interested. And there's a center for the study of Japanese religions. There is a South Asian Institute. There is a Center for Yoga Studies. And then there are other regional centers of the China Institute, which is a Korean Institute and so on. So research is very much in our interest. And equally, there are some extracurricular activities that are not part of the credit building, but that have been very much appreciated by MAs students. They're not meant originally for MAs students, but MAs students have often taken part in it. And I put down here on this slide a reading look in Chinese with this text which seems to be very popular this year, with this year's cohort. Okay, I think I will stop here and I'd like to take any questions that you may have or anything that you want to hear, father. Hello, chair. Hi. Hi, my name is Ayako. Thank you very much for your seminar today. Thank you for attending. Where are you joining us from? I live in England, Uckfield, which is one hour and a half minutes away from London. And then I used to be taking an MA translation course that took so was 2012. Ah, okay. So we are already familiar with the system. Yes, yes. And then this time I'm very interesting Buddhism course for my sort of career and my like, it will be my life research. That is what I feel now. So this will be the beginning of it, I hope. That's very nice to hear. Yes. So there are four questions that I have. The first one is that if it's at all possible to provide us some reading lists, if at all possible, because I don't have academic Buddhism knowledge. I'm very interested in and then I've grown up in Japan. So I know what Buddhism looks like in a daily life, you know, but not in academic way. So I'm reading academic Buddhism books in Japanese right now. But if there are some recommendations or reading lists in English written in English, that would be really, really helpful. And then I could make the most of the course as well before, you know, entering in. So yeah, that's the first question. This is a question is the recurrent question. Actually, I can supply a couple of a couple of general books, but my colleagues do not agree with giving out reading lists before students apply. Of course, yes, I understand. So I can supply, because I'm the convener, so I get, oh, it's me the one who gets this question, but there is a lack of reluctance to do that. So of course, beforehand, I'll be happy to do that after maybe we have seen the applications. So if you can come back to me, I certainly can provide you a couple of sort of introductory courses. Yes, yes. Yeah, introductory is perfect. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Right. So the second question is that, well, you mentioned that, you know, students are now back to the campus, most of them. But I have little children, and then maybe sometimes I have to take, you know, I cannot join the lecture when, you know, they are sick or something. And then I was wondering if there is a possibility of like joining your lecture online, of course, with the video so that you can see, you know, I'm actually here. At the moment, it is possible. We teach, so I teach all my classes both online, I mean, I teach in class, but on Zoom. So that is possible because the situation at the moment is not such that we can avoid that. Students who are sometimes ill and the government has still allowed some Asian students, some non-domestic students to join online up to, I think, this year is up, although we expect everyone from January on. So in principle, we would like to keep the system, but I can't tell you exactly how. One thing that I can say is that we actually have always recorded our lectures, even before the pandemic as part of our strategy for helping students, because we have also a pretty large number of foreign students to look back at the lectures and to clarify something with themselves. So if it is an occasional, an occasional absence, there will be a way to get back the material of the lecture. We do hope, I think we all would like to keep this opportunity to do it online synchronously. I mean, it has worked quite well, you know, you don't hear 100% when the students speak, but you certainly hear the teachers and those who are closer to the mics, because we don't have, you know, it's not that all of a sudden we could organize all the classrooms that saw us with systems that you needed to do a really synchronic thing. So that is a level of expenses that is out of our visibility, but we are doing it because we had already the equipment there to record lectures. So it has been working pretty well, I must say, this year, because it happened to that, you know, once one student is actually one got covered, the other one was really feeling sick and didn't feel like joining the others just in case. So these kind of things at this moment, unfortunately, happened. So we hope to keep that system. But I want to say it's not going to be an online delivery course. Of course, yes. Yeah, I would like to join, like, face-to-face, of course. I mean, because we have also built, we worked so hard to build a lot of what I said are called asynchronic resources. So we, you know, we want to, we have learned that, so we can as well organize, although we have learned to make things available more broadly. And if we manage really to find a good balance, and if it works well, this year, we may think we'll have it for a longer period, because last year the fact that we were online actually meant that many students joined from all sides of the world. And it was really different than I was, very interesting. And they would not have been able to join, because maybe they were worth people work or were doing like a second degree and something like that. Mm-hmm. I see. Yeah. Okay. So, so I think there shouldn't be any problem. But yes, keep it, if you, let's say, if you had said that you are in Japan and you're not coming out, I would have said, well, no, this isn't, it's just occasional thing. I'm sure that there would be, I mean, there are certainly, there's material on the dedicated pages. We have a platform for students where we put all our material, including the recordings, so. Oh, okay. That would be great, because that, you know, once, once I'm in, I would like to make the most of it. So, yes. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. And I'll be quick. So, yeah, the last question that would be, is there any chance to, you know, chat with the current students? Because I'm interested in what the current Buddhism students are doing, for instance, for the dissertation. I found, you know, there is a page, a source page that you can chat online, but I couldn't find anyone from Buddhism course. So, I don't know that, so we'll have to be organized. Later on in the year, I used to have one of the students joining us when we were on campus for the open day, so to speak a bit about what they do. But if you want to know only about the dissertation, we had planned to put a number of titles on our website, just to give an idea. Now that you mentioned it, it seems not to have happened. I asked our offices to do it, just to give an idea. But the themes are really very broad, depending on. Yes, yeah, I believe so. It depends on every year would be different. I don't think I've had, I mean, I've almost never had the same dissertation topic. Oh, that's interesting. Oh, yeah. Yeah, because everyone comes with their own interests, so directing the dissertation that go from, I don't know, very philosophical analysis of the mandala to, you know, the role of Ashoka in East Asia, or in India, to the kind of institutional problems of contemporary Buddhism in Japan or Chinese Buddhism and environment. So there have been really such a variety of. We do have, we hope to keep it at the moment. We still have a prize for the dissertation in Buddhist studies, which is sponsored by the Kensei. I can tell you that some of them should be online on the website of the center. The winning, you can look at that for the winning presentation. Maybe Rachel, if you are school there, would you mind to go into the website of the center of Buddhist studies and look at the Kensei prize for the dissertation? Maybe we can share that page with the students here. So you can look at that yourself. And if we have a minute, I'll do it myself later on. But is that all? Maybe we should ask it. There are other questions from other attendees today. I see a Talisha and Marilina. Any question here? Hello, can you hear me? Yes. I'm sorry. I don't have any question because I arrived a little bit late. We'll see the recording later. Okay. Okay. Yes, we don't hear you very well. Thank you. Do you hear me? Yes. Perfect. Yeah, I arrived a little bit later too because I had to pick up a package and there was some issues. So hi, I'm Talisha. I'm coming from Netherlands. And so I'm not sure if I missed out on it in the beginning of the lecture. So that's why I'm happy it's also recorded. But I'm currently doing a master in international relations where I specifically focus on the direction of culture and politics and how that plays a role. And so I've been really focusing on the Buddhist approach to international relations. Fantastic. Yes. And I was wondering if that would be okay to then apply for this master because I don't know what is like the application requirements. Do you mean the availability? So where do you come in when we were talking about the program? Yes. Yes. I'm from the Netherlands and I'm currently studying at Leiden University. Yeah, I understand that. At Leiden University. Yes. That's actually my alma mater. Oh, okay. Yes, I did my PhD in Leiden. I'm familiar with the institution. No, I think it's very interesting. It's a very interesting perspective that you can certainly carry out in the program. And in fact, I was talking about all these extracurricular activities that we have. And one of those that we are going to organize was supposed to be this year, but because it's so complicated with the current pandemic, that will be for next year, is a series of lectures with the International Red Cross. Oh, wow. To speak exactly of this international relation focusing on Buddhism and their activities that have already been carried out and they want to go on carrying out. One of our staff members is involved in this international event related to what happened in India, in Sri Lanka and so on. So that would be exactly basically what you'd like to do. And one thing that I spoke about assessment generally speaking, but one thing that I didn't say is that in most of these courses, certainly I can't remember about Buddhist meditation, but certainly in East Asian, Chinese, Japanese, you are and also critical concept, you are free to choose the topic of your essays. So you can build the program around your interest also because of that. So let's say that you want to write in every course on a perspective that we may want to call that of international relations. And this international relations is very broad, so it depends on what you mean. But you could focus in all your essays on that point of view, let's say, by a consultation with the personal teachers in these courses. And so really use what you're learning plus to build up your knowledge and apply it to the question of, let's say, international relations. Yeah, that's great. And so when I'm applying, it's okay if I just send in my BA degree, but then also like a great list up until now, because obviously I didn't finish my master yet. It's okay. Normally the selection is done via the BA. So I have to say that I'm the academic advisor. So the admission, the professional services, the offices will be taking care of all the admission and so on. So the application will come to me only as an academic advice, as the academic choosing it. But you have a statement to write in the application. So the application is online. You can look at it already, go on the program. So you have to write a statement. And I think there is where you can write what you have done so far, what you want to get out of the degree. Yeah. But I mean, it's absolutely okay. We are quite flexible on the previous academic course of students coming into the program, exactly because Buddhism is such a wide kind of field of inquiry and can be approached in so many ways. And also, some students have a very different knowledge that maybe, you know, there may have been a practitioner for 20 years. And in fact, they know a lot of details about Buddhism. And so what they need at that point is more the kind of framework, the academic framework, while there are students, maybe like you have not really studied Buddhism, and then want to get the story, you know, in its entirety, so to speak. Yeah. Yeah, I think the course it works for both kinds of students. So it's a difficult course to teach, I'll tell you. So far, so far has been quite successful to cater to both these types of students. Yeah, it sounds amazing. Thank you. Thanks. And I see there's something in the chat. Oh, yes. So Rachel put, let me see if I can open it. And the grants available. Actually, that's not what I meant, but with these events, news, I think, maybe. For some reasons, it's always echo here. Can you see my screen? No, I should stop sharing. Sorry, I'll share another screen here. Share. Can you see this screen? Yeah, I can see it. So on the news, you will see the Kinsey Foundation award for outstanding while actually it's MA dissertation. Why is it written PhD dissertation? So if you open it, I don't know. Oh, that's a different one. Sorry, sorry. That's not given by SOS. I think maybe. Sorry, the source one. I cannot control the website. But somewhere here, that should be, you see this one? Yes. So this is for instance, the award for the MA dissertation. And so you can see the title here of the dissertation and something about the student. And she did the presentation for the open day last year. Maybe we have that recorded and we could put it on the website. Maybe Rachel, we can look into that later on. Yeah, sure. So, but Ayako, this gives you an idea, maybe? Yes, certainly. Yes, I will read this later on. Thank you very much. We can read this. And if you look down there, these must be also the same awards. Yes, these are the same awards. And they are for MA and PhD students. They used to be for both now and they are only for the MA students. Okay. Thank you. We are almost at the end of the session. Any other questions, any other comments that you have? Yeah, thank you very much for today. Okay, then. Thanks to you, to all of you to join us. And I hope to receive your applications after the program and for meeting your test. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, everyone. Goodbye. Thank you. Bye.