Events

Jointly organized by Centre for Asian Legal Studies, and Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore.

CHAIRPERSON

Asst Prof Dian Shah, Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore

ABSTRACT

Buddhism and Comparative Constitutional Law offers the first comprehensive account of the entanglements of Buddhism and constitutional law in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Tibet, Bhutan, China, Mongolia, Korea, and Japan. Bringing together an interdisciplinary team of experts, the volume offers a complex portrait of “the Buddhist-constitutional complex,” demonstrating the intricate and powerful ways in which Buddhist and constitutional ideas merged, interacted and co-evolved. The authors also highlight the important ways in which Buddhist actors have (re)conceived Western liberal ideals such as constitutionalism, rule of law, and secularism. Available Open Access on Cambridge Core, this transdisciplinary volume is written to be accessible to a non-specialist audience.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Kenneth Dean is Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple Professor in the Humanities Division at Yale-NUS College, and Professor at Department of Chinese Studies, National University of Singapore (NUS). He is also the research cluster leader for Religion and Globalisation at the Asia Research Institute, NUS. His recent publications include Epigraphical Materials on the History of Religion in Fujian: Zhanghou Region, Fuzhou 2019, Secularism in South, East, and Southeast Asia, NY: Palgrave, (2018) co-edited with Peter van der Veer, and Chinese Epigraphy of Singapore: 1819-1911 (2 vols.), Singapore: NUS Press (2017), co-edited with Dr Hue Guan Thye. He directed Bored in Heaven: A Film about Ritual Sensation (2010), on celebrations around Chinese New Year in Putian, Fujian, China. Other publications include Ritual Alliances of the Putian Plain, 2 vols., Leiden: Brill, 2010 (with Zheng Zhenman). His current project involves the construction of two interactive, multi-media databases, Singapore Historical GIS (SHGIS) and Singapore Biographical Database (SBDB) databases. These projects can be viewed online at http://shgis.nus.edu.sg and http://sbdb.nus.edu.sg.

Maitrii Aung-Thwin is Associate Professor of Myanmar/Southeast Asian history and Convener of the Comparative Asian Studies PhD Program at the National University of Singapore. His current research is concerned with law, resistance, and knowledge production in South and Southeast Asia. His publications include: A History of Myanmar since Ancient Times: Traditions and Transformations (2013), The Return of the Galon King: History, Law, and Rebellion in Colonial Burma (2011) and A New History of Southeast Asia (2010). He is a Burma Studies Foundation trustee (USA), Deputy-Director of the Asia Research Institute, and editor of Journal of Southeast Asian Studies.

Benjamin Lawrence is Research Fellow at the Centre for Asian Legal Studies, National University of Singapore. He received his PhD from the University of Victoria (Canada) in 2020, with a thesis that sought to highlight the ways in which constitutional ideas and practices are manifested outside of judicial institutions in Cambodia. He has interest in the study of law and society, as well as comparative constitutional law. In addition to degrees from the University of Leicester and the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London), he also worked with a number of international organisations, including most recently the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue.

Benjamin Schonthal is Professor of Buddhist Studies and Head of the Religion Programme at the University of Otago in Aotearoa/New Zealand, where he also co-directs the Otago Centre for Law and Society. Ben’s research examines the intersections of religion, law and politics in South and Southeast Asia. He is the author of Buddhism, Politics and the Limits of Law (CUP 2016) and serves as Associate Editor for South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies and Buddhism, Law and Society as well as being an executive board member of the Australian Association of Buddhist Studies. His current research examines the history and contemporary practice of Buddhist law.

Tom Ginsburg is Leo Spitz Distinguished Service Professor of International Law at the University of Chicago, where he also holds an appointment in the Political Science Department. He is also Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation. He holds BA, JD and PhD degrees from the University of California at Berkeley, and currently co-directs the Comparative Constitutions Project, an NSF-funded data set cataloging the world’s constitutions since 1789, that runs the award-winning Constitute website. His latest book is Democracies and International Law (2021), winner of Best Book Prize from the American Branch of the International Law Association. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Dian Shah is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law of National University of Singapore. Her research interests includes law and religion, comparative constitutional law, and human rights, and her work focuses on the interaction of law, religion, and politics in plural and divided societies. Dian is the author of Constitutions, Religion and Politics in Asia: Indonesia, Malaysia and Sri Lanka (CUP 2017) and the co-editor of a volume on Law and Society in Malaysia: Pluralism, Religion and Ethnicity (Routledge 2018). She has also published in International Journal of Constitutional Law (I-CON) and Oxford Journal of Law and Religion. She serves as Editor of Asian Journal of Comparative Law (AsJCL).

REGISTRATION

Admission is free. We would greatly appreciate if you RSVP at https://bit.ly/3VNMPlL.