Dear colleagues and friends, I'm sharing the following news on behalf of Professor Shihshan Huang: Dear all, We are pleased to announce the Rice University inaugural lecture in the new Tai Series on Cross-Cultural Studies, free and open to the public: *Robert Sharf, “Chan Buddhism Explained”* *Thursday, February 23, 2023, at 4:00pm CST (US and Canada)* *Online only via Zoom* Please register using the following link: https://riceuniversity.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_AElyELDkRx2PogRvHuzQQA *Abstract:* Considerable progress has been made in the past few decades in our understanding of the institutional and literary history of early (Tang and Song period) Chan. But when it comes to the properly *philosophical* teachings of Chan, as found in the “recorded sayings” texts (*yulu*) and “public case” compilations (*gong’an*), advances have been more modest. The writings of the Chan patriarchs are still regarded more as inscrutable utterances pointing to a non-discursive experience—perhaps something akin to a poetry of the sublime—rather than philosophy proper. My talk will argue otherwise, and demonstrate that Chan authors were advancing eminently scrutable and conceptually sophisticated positions on pressing issues and controversies that had preoccupied Buddhist exegetes for centuries. Indeed, many of the issues remain philosophically salient today. *Speaker Bio:* Robert Sharf is D. H. Chen Distinguished Professor of Buddhist Studies in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as Chair of Berkeley’s Center for Buddhist Studies. In addition to numerous articles and chapters, he is the author of *Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism: A Reading of the Treasure Store Treatise* (2002); *What Can’t Be Said: Contradiction and Paradox in East Asian Thought*(coauthored with Yasuo Deguchi, Jay Garfield, and Graham Priest, 2021), and co-editor (with his wife Elizabeth) of *Living Images: Japanese Buddhist Icons in Context* (2001). The Tai Lecture Series in Cross-Cultural Studies is supported by the Tai Fund for Cross-Cultural Studies. If you have any questions, please contact the lecture organizers, Eric Huntington and Susan Huang, cc'ed here. Thank you.