136—May 2020 contents EDITORIAL NEWS, ETC FEATURES TRACKING THE LOSTIRISH BUDDHIST CONFERENCES, POST LOCKDOWN CONFERENCES BASR 2019 STUDYNG GURDJIEFF CESNUR 2019 ASSR 2019 BOOK REVIEWS RECENT PUBLICATIONS contents editorial This won't be a typical editorial, and this isn't impact on institutions which rely on foriegn a typical issue of the Bulletin. I'm putting this students, and may well have a dispropor- issue together while eveything is in flux due tionate affect on those on short-term or to the COVID-19 lockdown—this year's IAHR zero-hours contracts. These are not issues has already been cancelled, and I have just specific to Religious Studies departments, announced that our own conference will be of course, but as these departments are an online affair. What will happen with the already vulnerable due to size and perceived REF is still up in the air. Everyone is scram- obsolescence, it is going to be a tough time. bling to adapt to a changing situation, not least in our teaching and examination. Yet it is also clear that, while understanding the virus and its epidemiology are vital to The contents of the Bulletin reflect this un- our long-term well-being, on a global scale, certainty, and are a reminder of how fast this understanding how people react to the virus epoch-making situation has come upon us. may be just as important—how different Indeed, it maywell be the case that we never cultures construct their knowledge of the quite go back to business-as-usual, world, how this drives their behaviour and something which Liam Sutherland's timely how they negotiate this with other groups. piece addresses. This is not necessarily a And while this involves more than just "reli- bad thing, as crisis often drives systemic gion", religious studies scholars are espe- change, and embrasing new technologies in cially trained in how these negotiations teaching, research and other academic unfold. It is more vital than ever that our activities, as well as reconsidering how we unique perspective be heard on the public spend our time and balance our lives, could stage. have significant positive impact. On the oth- David G. Robertson er hand, this is already having a devastating 16/5/2020 www.facebook.com/groups/490163257661189/ twitter.com/TheBASR news, etc My second year as president of the BASR is (so far) the most challenging one. While we planned our usual one day conference, as 2020 was supposed to be the IAHR Congress, the world came to a still stand. Attention focused on how to help students getting through their degrees, from moving to online teaching (for most universities quite a rushed crash course), organizing PhD viva online, persuading external examiners to examine online material only, and so on. What got missed were the ECRs whose job possibilities flew out of the window and who lost opportunities to network at conferences. The lockdown will come at a cost, not just financially. It even seems that with the closure of religious communities the traditional role of religion to support their members and the wider public in a time of need became insignificant. A sign of the lack of understanding was evident in the comments made in a BBR Radio 4 Todayshow when a Corvid 19 survivor was told his experience which he had described as religious was “because of the drugs” he was given when on a ventilator machine. While just a small incident, it shows the importance of the study of religion and the BASR. Though our conference on campus is cancelled, I hope you will join us online for the AGM and the keynote we will be organising. We need your support to continue ourwork. Bettina Schmidt PUBLISHERS OFFER DISCOUNTS available again. They have reduced the price of all new ebooks by 10% and are also offering a further Bloomsbury is offering a 35% discount on all books 25% discount for ebooks using the code EQX. Please until the end of the year—including the Advances visit https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/religion/ series. Use the code GLR CB4 at https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/non-fiction/religion/ JOBS Equinox have made all journal issues published in the Rosalind I. J. Hackett was named a Chancellor’s last 12 months and all new issues freely accessible Professor at the University of Tennessee n August until the crisis abates. Anyone compiling remote 2019. She also received an honorarychieftaincytitle learning material and wishing to incorporate Equinox (“Yeye Meye” – Mother who knows our ways) from the journal or book material can arrange free access to Elerinmo of Erinmoland in Nigeria in August 2019. specific materials for the duration of the course Her term of office (2014-20) as Vice President of the module. International Council of Philosophy and the Human Sciences (CIPSH) ends in December. She has been Equinox are not currently able to supply print books appointed as a delegate of the American Council of ordered from our website. If you order a print book Learned Societies (ACLS) to the Union Academique you will be given access to the ebook and may Internationale (UAI) from July2020-24. request a copy of the print book when these are Series Update: BloomsburyAdvances in Religious Studies news, etc Advances (for short) is a series of original mono- graphs and edited collections in the Study of Reli- gion/s which was co-founded by James Cox at the University of Edinburgh and Peggy Morgan at Mansfield College, Oxford, publishing its first book in early 2008. Over the next twelve years the list has grown to nearly thirty publications, including several items by BASR members. From the begin- ning the series has been targeted at research publications in Religious Studies that combine empirical data from international sites—case stud- ies, ethnographies, interviews, surveys, archival sources—with various theoretical frameworks. The remit of the series has been kept broad, in line with the international and comparative ambitions of Religious Studies, with the overall aim to publish fresh, creative studies which integrate nuanced description with robust theory. Greg Alles brieflyserved with James Cox and PeggyMorgan as a third edit- or. In January 2012 co-founder Peggy Morgan stepped down. James Cox continued on the editorial board and was joined by Steven Sutcliffe. Craig Martin then joined the board for a spell before Will Sweetman came on board. After twelve years at the helm, co-founder James Cox stepped down in December 2019. Steve and Will were delighted when Bettina Schmidt accepted the invitation to join them to steer the series into a new decade. We welcome new proposals which fit the series' remit: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/series/bloomsbury-advances-in-reli- gious-studies/ Please contact Lalle Pursglove in the first instance: [email protected] Series Editors: Bettina Schmidt (University of Wales Trinity Saint David), Steven Sutcliffe (University of Edinburgh), Will Sweetman (University of Otago). The committee of the BASR invites nominations for the next President. The successful applicant will be sworn in as President Elect at the (online) AGM at the 2020 conference, and will take up the office ofPresident from the 2021 AGM at the conference in Edinburgh. Nominations (including self-nominations) to the SecretaryStephen Gregg—[email protected]—byAugust 1st, 2020. features Tracking Down the Lost “Irish Buddhist” Brian Bocking, University College, Cork A friend of mine, himself a published author, called me part-way through his reading of The Ir- ish Buddhist1 to ask how it was that three people could write a book. This made me think. The best answer I could supply at the time was ‘luck’, but shared academic values, complement- ary strengths and mutual respect were also key. The Irish Buddhist is written in one (collective) voice by Alicia Turner,2 Laurence Cox3 and me, living in different parts of the world and meeting in person on onlyfive occasions over ten years – all the rest of our collaboration was online. Re- search assessment and promotion prospects, as we know, discourage all forms of selfless be- haviour, and many of us might reasonably ask ‘how much did author x actually contribute to this publication?”. In the case of The Irish Buddhist I happen to know that each of us thinks the other two did more work, which is a happy state of affairs, but I wouldn’t know how very different skills and languages was a neces- to engineer it. sity as we unearthed accounts (always crying out to be critically analysed) of Dhammaloka’s The Irish Buddhist is a detective story that remarkable travels and extraordinary activities. draws on much traditional archival and interview The book however could only be researched and research ‘on the ground’ undertaken by its three written because of the massive rise of digitized authors and their sometime research assistants resources over the last decade. In late 2009, in Ireland, UK, USA, Canada, India, Sri Lanka, when I found online a possible indexreference to Burma, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Australia Dhammaloka in a newspaper archive in Singa- and Japan. Collaboration among scholars with pore’s National Library, I had to find a contact in Singapore to go to the library, print from the mi- when steamships, the telegraph, railways and crofilm and airmail to me in Ireland the papers mass printing were making the world smaller and with the full text. Within a year or two, everything enabling not just rulers, but also those who res- features in that archive was fully available online, and isted them, to organise on a global scale. today full-text online searching worldwide is the norm, paywalls permitting.