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Spectrum at 1
With this issue, ARC Spectrum completes
its first year of publication. A glance at some of the stories
we ran reminds me it has been quite a year, both for ARC itself
and for Asian religions at Stanford. You can find these stories
on our Archive page.
The cover story of our first issue last
autumn was our big Kabir performance, and I wrote in my report
of our hopes for developing a South Asia religions program at
Stanford. We end the year with our announcement in this issue
of a joint ARC-Religious Studies campaign to start such a program.
We are delighted that Religious Studies faculty member Linda
Hess, who put together the Kabir tour, has agreed to take charge
of the campaign for us.
The other big story in that autumn issue
was the start of the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies. As I
write now, the university is in the process of making two senior
faculty appointments in the field, and we hope to be able to
announce the results of this process early next academic year.
This issue's report of our lecture on Shia Islam in South Asia
is an example of the sort of cooperation we hope to have with
the Islam program.
The winter issue of Spectrum featured
our trip to Taiwan, to visit Buddhist institutions there. Since
then, we have been working with our host for that trip, Fo Guang
Shan, to establish an ongoing relationship with our Stanford
Center for Buddhist Studies. During spring term, we welcomed
Ning Chao, president of Fo Guang University, for talks with Stanford
provost John Etchemendy; and in autumn, we hope to host a visit
by Fo Guang Shan founder, Master Hsing Yun.
The winter issue also had a story on the
launch of our program Tibet at Stanford 2004, a series of events
celebrating Tibetan culture; and by the spring issue, we could
report on the formation of the Committee for Tibetan Studies
and the start of arc/tibet, a project to build the field at Stanford.
Needless to say, we are delighted to announce in this issue that
Tenzin Tethong has signed on to help us with this effort.
On top of all this, we have joined with
Religious Studies in a proposal to develop a more robust program
in Chinese religions. Unlike India, Islam and Tibet, Stanford
has a long history and considerable resources in Chinese studies;
but in recent years, the university has had trouble maintaining
its strength in the field of religion. The new arc/china effort,
to be led by Daoist scholar Fabrizio Pregadio, will seek to turn
this around.
With so many new developments at ARC this
past year, associate director Wendy Abraham and program coordinator
Winnie Chin will need a quiet summer to recuperate and rest up
for the year ahead. For my part, I shall be taking a longer rest,
enjoying a year-long sabbatical. From this safe distance, I shall
be looking forward to each issue of Volume 2 of Spectrum,
to find out what is happening with all the ambitious ventures
we reported on this year.
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