The Suffering Fetus & Female Freedom by Dr Amy Paris Langenberg, 3 July, @ AS8 Level 7, 10 Kent Ridge Crescent
Eschewing the backward projection of secular liberal feminist categories, Amy Paris Langenberg’s work describes the basic features of the Buddhist discourse of the female body, held more or less in common across sectarian lines, and still pertinent to ordained Buddhist women today. The textual focus of her study is an early-first-millennium Sanskrit Buddhist work, the Descent of the Embryo Scripture, or Garbhāvakrānti-sūtra. Drawing out the implications of this text, Langenberg offers arguments about the significance of childbirth and fertility in Indian Buddhism, namely that birth is a Buddhist master metaphor; that Buddhist gender constructions are centrally shaped by Buddhist birth discourse; and that, by undermining the religious importance of female fertility, the Buddhist construction of an inauspicious, chronically impure, and disgusting femininity constituted a portal to a new, liberated, feminine life for Buddhist monastic women. Thus, this study of the Buddhist discourse of birth is also a genealogy of gender in middle period Indian Buddhism.
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Saturday at 11 AM – 5 PM, @ Goodman Arts Centre
Tanjong Goodman is back with its brightest and boldest edition yet!
Get up close with Goodman’s resident artists in over 50 programmes and explore a vibrant array of art forms that include storytelling, craft making, dance and more.
Also happening is everyone’s favourite Tanjong Goodman Weekend Market and the launch of The Artground – A curious place to be, Singapore’s newest children’s arts centre!
ADMISSION IS FREE.
For more information, visit http://bit.ly/
Opening Draft; Sultan Ibrahim & On The Threshold of Listening, 6 – 8 July, Chamber @ The Arts House, 8 – 9 pm
The 3 lecture-performances are part of Ho Rui An’s larger curation entitled For Lack Of A Better Word created for The O.P.E.N. which also includes Unsettled Assignments and The Unforgetting Space, two exhibitions at 72–13.
“…in saying ‘not this word’, I perform not a rejection tout court but an opening for something else to come. The ‘lack’ is a strategy of non-alignment that converts its dissatisfaction with the existing positions into a generative moment, allowing me to entertain (in all senses) . . . By this token, it is a mode of critique that understands that we need more, so much more, than just ‘better’ words.”
— For Lack Of A Better Word by Ho Rui An.
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Urban Governance in Georgetown, Penang by Dr Fiona Willamson, 4 July @ AS8 Level 7, 10 Kent Ridge Crescent, 4pm
This seminar will explore urban planning, public health and the weather in George Town, Penang. Weather, urban planning and public health were (and still are) integrally connected but little research has connected climatic factors with the health and urban planning of this town. The framing of this relationship has undergone significant shifts in thinking and appearance over time. Parallel to this, ideas about public health and climate changed dramatically over this period. One lens into these processes is the situation and expression of health and climatic concerns within governmental structures. Central to the argument is the premise of transition and experiential factors. Flood management, meteorological research, ideas about climate and public health, water supply, drainage and sanitation were linked, essential facets of urban development. Climate and extremes of weather, public health, and town planning were all dealt with by government departments. Over the period in question however, scientific knowledge, the general public’s expectations of government, the direction of planning, and the structures of local governance, shifted. The study therefore offers insight into the processes of knowledge making and social expectation over a long period. This seminar will start by exploring the situation facing the settlement’s inhabitants, in terms of specific climate and health challenges. It will then consider how these challenges were addressed, why and by whom, and how these elements were repositioned over the period in question.
Migrant Poetry Evening, Saturday at 7 PM – 9 PM @ The Arts House
On 8th of July 7-9pm, at old Parliament House at BLUE room both Singaporean and Bangladeshi poets, writers, and singers, are coming together to speak in the common language of poetry, songs, and love.
Join us this evening, when we put racial and cultural differences and language barriers aside, to listen to each other’s stories, and find out a little bit more about another culture.
For full lists of performers and more details, check here!
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