BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Why orgies will set you free: sexual paradigms in ancient India an
 d postmodern society - Dr Daniele Cuneo (University of Cambridge)
DTSTART:20140305T193000Z
DTEND:20140305T210000Z
UID:TALK48928@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Charles Li
DESCRIPTION:Ancient India is well known as the land and civilization of re
 nouncement and asceticism\, a land where passions and desire cannot but pl
 ay the role of the villains\, the worst enemies to be defeated in the spir
 itual path leading to perfection and liberation from all suffering. Howeve
 r\, this clear-cut worldview seems to be easily disproved by the mere exis
 tence of two crucial Sanskrit words you may have stumbled upon while snoop
 ing around the shelves of bookshops here in the UK: namely\, Tantra and K
 āmasūtra\, the first being a religious and cultural movement and the sec
 ond being the title of an incredibly renowned work. This presentation will
  focus\, on the one hand\, on the role and meaning of sexuality in Tantra 
 and its crucial connection to the religious doctrine of liberation\, and\,
  on the other hand\, on the role and meaning of sexuality in the Kāmasūt
 ra (and related texts) and its pretty loose connection to any soteriologic
 al dimension\, with a few reasoned exceptions. Finally\, I will attempt to
  outline the theoretical and historical accidents that determined the prol
 iferation\, in many contemporary western bookshops and websites\, of title
 s such as “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Tantric Sex” or “The Cosm
 o Kama Sutra: 77 mind-blowing Sex Positions”. To trace this phenomenon\,
  we’ll go back to the sixties and seventies in the US and follow the cul
 tural transplant of Indian spiritual and erotic ideas\, how they blended i
 n with a very different social reality and contributed to the origin of a 
 plethora of new religious products in the globalized ‘market of religion
 s’ we currently live in.
LOCATION:Erasmus room\, Queens' College
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR