{ "150122-21908105": { "datetime_modified":"20260811T120103", "datetime_start":"20260917T170000", "datetime_end":"20260917T183000", "has_end_time":1, "date_start":"2026-09-17", "date_end":"2026-09-17", "time_start":"17:00:00", "time_end":"18:30:00", "time_zone":"America\/Detroit", "event_title":"Sixth Annual Luis Gomez Memorial Lecture", "occurrence_title":"", "combined_title":"Sixth Annual Luis Gomez Memorial Lecture: Learning to Read from Mah\u0101y\u0101na S\u016btras by Natalie Gummer", "event_subtitle":"Learning to Read from Mah\u0101y\u0101na S\u016btras by Natalie Gummer", "event_type":"Lecture \/ Discussion", "event_type_id":"13", "description":"Learning to Read from Mah\u0101y\u0101na S\u016btras\n\nWhy read Mah\u0101y\u0101na s\u016btras? These seemingly fantastical, overtly manipulative, frankly baffling ancient texts might seem to have little to attract contemporary readers. I will argue, however, that they have much to teach us about the act of reading. Because they assume a sacrificial cosmology in which reading is a ritual for transforming self and world, they help us to recognize and question the features of our own technologically informed cosmology of reading. In our time, when reading is often reduced to information transfer or an optional leisure activity, Mah\u0101y\u0101na s\u016btras show us how word-born worlds enter and alter our bodyminds. In the process, they challenge us to rethink, and experience, literature differently. Learning to read Mah\u0101y\u0101na s\u016btras\u2014and learning to read from Mah\u0101y\u0101na s\u016btras\u2014demands that we recognize the ritual aspects of literature, Buddhist and beyond.\n\nBiography\n\nNatalie Gummer is Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies and holds the Edwin F. Wilde, Jr. Distinguished Service Chair at Beloit College, where she also directs the Center for Integrative Learning. Her research examines textual and ritual practices in premodern Mah\u0101y\u0101na Buddhist literary cultures, with particular interests in performance, translation, and the contemporary ethical possibilities of Buddhist literature. 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