Pandemics in Local and Historical Cosmologies. From the earliest documents to COVID-19 on May 20-21, 2022

PANDEMICS IN LOCAL AND HISTORICAL COSMOLOGIES
From the earliest documents to COVID-19

May 20-21, 2022

International Multidisciplinary Conference, Organised by:
Centre for Oriental Studies and Department of Estonian and Comparative Folklore – University of Tartu;
Groupe Sociétés, Religions, Laïcités – École pratique des hautes études;
Institut für Religionswissenschaft – Universität Bern;
Abteilung für Mongolistik und Tibetstudien Institut für Orient und Asienwissenschaften (IOA)
- Universität Bonn.

Join online: https://ut-ee.zoom.us/j/5390938250?pwd=RE1TTzdmWE0rY0c0bldISS9BSU5Wdz09

MAY 20, FRIDAY
(Tartu, Ülikooli 16, room 214)

10:00 – 10:15 – Opening of the Conference

10:15 – 12:15
Panel 1
(Chairing: Ülo Valk, University of Tartu)

1. Alina Oprelianska (University of Tartu) "God is Dead: Luciferase, God’s Gene, and COVID-19 Vaccines in the Antichrist Advent Belief Narratives"
2. Dmytro Yesypenko (University of Alberta) “Voiceless Subaltern, Vampires and ‘Religious Plague’ in Ivan Franko’s Epidemic Narratives”
3. Anastasiya Fiadotava (Estonian Literary Museum) “Internet Folklore at the Times of Global Pandemic: COVID-19 in Belarusian Online Humor”
4. Anastasiya Astapova (University of Tartu) “From COVID-19 to the War in Ukraine: Conspiratorial Thinking among Russian-speakers in Estonia”

12:15 – 14:00 - Lunch

14:00 – 16:00
Panel 2
(Chairing: Karénina Kollmar-Paulenz, University of Bern)

5. Ines Stolpe (University of Bonn) “Resilience as Potentiality in Mongolia”
6. Joanna Dolińska-Streltsov (University of Warsaw) “Public Discourse Concerning COVID-19 Pandemic in Mongolia in the Years 2020-2021: From the Early Pandemic Perseverance Through the Political Upheavals up to the Successful Vaccination Diplomacy”
7. Anna D. Tsendina (National Research University Higher School of Economics) “Folk Medical Books of the Mongols (dom-un sudur) XVII – early ХХ century”
8. Ayur Zhanaev (Warsaw University) “Causes of Plagues According to Buddhist Texts for the Buryat laity (19th and beg. 20th c.)”

16:00 – 16:15 – Coffee break

16:15 – 17:45
Panel 3
(Chairing: Alevtina Solovyeva, University of Tartu)

9. Karénina Kollmar-Paulenz (University of Bern) "`Subduer of the troops of demons' (bdud kyi dpung rnams `joms mdzod ma): disease in the gCod tradition of Tibetan Buddhism"
10. Wan De Jia（University of Cambridge）”Mountains and Virus: an Observation on the Local Anti-epidemic in a Tibetan Village During COVID-19 in the 2020”
11. Kikee D Bhutia (University of Tartu) “Reinvention of Religion and Ritual Amidst COVID-19 in Sikkim”

MAY 21, SATURDAY
(Tartu, Ülikooli 16, room 214)

10:00 – 12:00
Panel 4
(Chairing: Alina Oprelianska, University of Tartu)
12. Monalisha Medhi, Pallabi Borah (Gauhati University) “Traditional Healing Practice during Covid-19”
13. Pallabi Borah (Gauhati University) “Social Memory and Social History: Revisiting the Kala-azar Epidemic in Colonial Northeast India”
14. Conghui Wang (University of Tartu) “A Brief Analytical Narrative of Epidemic Anthropomorphic Figures in Early Ancient China: From Plague Ghosts to Plague Gods”
15. Kevin Kind (Johns Hopkins University) “Protecting the Musulman Children: The Xiang Army, Smallpox, and the Origins of Mass Vaccination in Late Qing Turpan, 1881-1911”

12:00 – 13:45 – Lunch

13:45 – 15:45
Panel 5
(Chairing: Grégory Delaplace, École pratique des hautes études)

16. Christos Lynteris (University of St Andrews) “The Staggering Rat and the Yunnan Plague Narrative”
17. Elizaveta Volchkova (National Research University Higher School of Economics) “Popular Perception of the Plague Epidemic in Guangzhou, China in 1894”
18. Olga Mazo, Aglaya Starostina (National Research University Higher School of Economics) “Origins of Xu Xun, a Chinese Medieval Protector from Epidemics”
19. Aglaya Starostina (National Research University Higher School of Economics) “The Evolution of the ‘Bat Soup’ Rumour on the Internet”

15:45 – Conclusive Discussions and Closing of the Conference

Organising Committee:
Alevtina Solovyeva
Alina Oprelianska
Grégory Delaplace
Ines Stolpe
Isabelle Charleux
Karénina Kollmar-Paulenz
Ülo Valk

Information: Alevtina Solovyeva, alevtina.solovyeva@ut.ee