Loriliai Biernacki Wins Kayden Award, Organizes Conference at CU-Boulder on “Sex and Texts”
On October 15-16th, 2009, Loriliai Biernacki organized a conference, "Sex and Texts: Representations of Sexuality in Asian Religious Traditions," sponsored by the Kayden Award and the Center for Asian Studies. This conference addresses the relationships between sexuality and religious textual traditions, especially focusing on Asian scriptural texts. The conference began with a symposium on Loriliai Biernacki's (2008), which won the Kayden Award in 2008. This topic ties into the larger conference addressing representations of sexuality across a range of scriptural sources in different Asian religions, including Buddhism in China, India and Tibet, Hinduism and Daoism. Asian religious traditions typically present greater latitude in the expression of sexuality, evidenced in, for instance, the variety of esoteric traditions that explicitly involve sexuality. This conference offered the opportunity for comparative scope, bringing together specialists across traditions to address this understudied topic. Presenters included Constantina Rhodes, Kerry Skora, Ron Davidson, Judith Simmer Brown of Naropa University in Boulder, Steve Berkwitz, David Germano, Terry Kleeman (Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, CU) and the Department’s own Holly Gayley.