Invited talk by Dr. Matthew King

In this talk, Dr. Matthew King will discuss his second monograph, In the Forest of the Blind: The Eurasian Journey of Faxian’s Record of Buddhist Kingdoms. In the Forest of the Blind is a circulatory history of the 19th century disciplining and undisciplining of “Buddhist Asia” between Paris, Beijing, Irkutsk, Ulaanbaatar, and India among new readers of Faxian’s famous Foguoji (early 5th century CE). Pursuing a history of the humanities beyond the epistemic sovereignty of the West, this book finds new opportunities for a radical Buddhist studies to lead, not simply follow, theoretical and methodological projects in the critical Asian humanities today.