Dynamics of Devotion
Andrew Quintman (Wesleyan), Lara Braitstein (McGill), Heidi Nevin (Independent), Anne Klein (Rice), Holly Gayley (University of Colorado, Boulder), and Annabella Pitkin (Lehigh) take on the topic of devotion in translation. Annabella Pitkin skillfully facilitates discussion focused on three themes: literary and embodied devotion, translation as an act of devotion, and the cultural translation of devotion. Regarding the first, the group considers what terms are particularly difficult to unpack in English, posing questions like, “How does language serve to dictate devotion?”, and, “How does literature and its utterance help mediate the distance between subject and object?” While translators are positioned as well-intentioned authorities, translation as an act of devotion relates to the ethos of the translator approaching the translation of devotional literature and how translators might perform their craft in service to particular communities of practice. Finally, the panel discusses how to translate a concept like devotion across language communities and cultural differences acknowledging the role of the translator to guide or teach based on his or her choices. These topics elicit enthusiastic participation from the audience and a lively discussion ensues.
Event: Lotsawa Translation Workshop – Plenary Session
Date: October 7, 2018 – 9:00 am
Speakers: Andrew Quintmen, Anne Klein, Heidi Nevin, Holly Gayley, Lara Braitstein
Topics: Tibetan Language, Translation, Transmission
Andrew Quintman
Wesleyan University
Andrew Quintman is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Wesleyan University, where he specializes in the Buddhist traditions of Tibet and the Himalaya. His book The Yogin and the Madman: Reading the Biographical Corpus of Tibet’s Great Saint Milarepa (Columbia University Press, 2014) won the American Academy of Religion’s 2014 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion, the 2015 Heyman Prize for outstanding scholarship from Yale University, and received honorable mention for the 2016 Association of Asian Studies’ E. Gene Smith Book Prize. His English translation of The Life of Milarepa was published by Penguin Classics in 2010. He is currently writing a history of Drakar Taso Monastery in Tibet’s southern frontier and a study of the Buddha’s life story through Tāranātha's visual and literary materials from Puntsokling Monastery in western Tibet.
Anne Klein
Rice University
Anne Carolyn Klein/Rigzin Drolma, Professor and Former Chair of Religious Studies, Rice University, and Founding Director of Dawn Mountain, (www.dawnmountain.org). Her six books include Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse: A Story of Transmission; Meeting the Great Bliss Queen, Knowledge & Liberation, and Paths to the Middle as well as Unbounded Wholeness with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. She has also been a consulting scholar in several Mind and Life programs. Her central thematic interest is the interaction between head and heart as illustrated across a spectrum of Buddhist descriptions of the many varieties of human consciousness.
Lara Braitstein
McGill University
Lara Braitstein is Associate Professor of Indian and Tibetan Buddhism at McGill University. She has also taught at the Karmapa International Buddhist Institute (K.I.B.I.) in New Delhi, and the Rangjung Yeshe Institute in Kathmandu. She teaches Mahayana & Vajrayana Buddhist Philosophy, Buddhist Hagiography, and Tibetan/Himalayan Buddhist literature and historiography. She translated the 14th Shamarpa’s The Path to Awakening, and is the author of The Adamantine Songs: Study, Translation, and Tibetan Critical Edition, a study of Saraha’s Mahamudra poems. Her recent research is a study dedicated to untangling the history and representation of the 10th Shamarpa Chodrup Gyatso.
Heidi Nevin
Independent
Heidi Nevin studied Tibetan language at Manjushri Center for Tibetan Culture (1996-8); apprenticed to Kyabje Chatral Rinpoche (1996-2003); served Lama Tharchin by helping to translate the mkha’ ‘gro thugs thig (Vol. Ma of Dudjom Rinpoche’s Collected Works) and other texts (2006-present). She translated the autobiography of Khenpo Ngakchung (Wondrous Dance of Illusion, Shambhala, 2013, restricted text) and is currently translating volume one of Dungse Trinley Norbu Rinpoche’s three-volume Collected Works. Heidi lives in Corvallis, Oregon, USA.
Holly Gayley
University of Colorado, Boulder
Holly Gayley is Associate Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. With a passion for translation, her research examines the revitalization of Buddhism on the Tibetan plateau since the 1980s with a special interest in issues of gender, agency and identity in contemporary Buddhist literature by Tibetan masters and cleric-scholars. She became interested in the academic study of Buddhism through her travels among Tibetan communities in India, Nepal, and China, and completed her M.A., in Buddhist Studies at Naropa University in 2000 and Ph.D. at Harvard University in Tibetan and Himalayan Studies in 2009. She is author of Inseparable across Lifetimes: The Lives and Love Letters of the Tibetan Visionaries Namtrul Rinpoche and Khandro Tāre Lhamo (Shambhala, 2019) and Love Letters from Golok: A Tantric Couple in Modern Tibet (Columbia University Press, 2016) and co-editor of A Gathering of Brilliant Moons: Practice Advice from the Rimé Masters of Tibet (Wisdom Publications, 2017). Her articles on an ethical reform movement spearheaded by cleric-scholars at Larung Buddhist Academy in Serta include "The Compassionate Treatment of Animals: A Contemporary Buddhist Approach in Eastern Tibet" (Journal of Religious Ethics, 2017), "Controversy over Buddhist Ethical Reform: A Secular Critique of Clerical Authority in the Tibetan Blogosphere" (Himalaya Journal, 2016), "Non-Violence as a Shifting Signifier on the Tibetan Plateau" (Contemporary Buddhism, 2016 with Padma 'tsho).
