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Talks

Stone carving of mythical creature

Forthcoming, August, 2025

“Sthiramati on Consciousness: A Minimalist Perspective from the Triṃśikā-bhāṣya.”

Could there be a Buddhist Illusionism? Panel at the XXth Congress of the International Association on of Buddhist Studies, Leipzig University

2024

“Emergent Forms: Buddhist Poetical Language and Its Contexts.”

Roundtable Session at the Language, Poiesis, and Buddhist Experiments with the Possible Seminar, Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR), San-Diego, Session organizer and presider.

2024

“Buddhist Languages and the Language of the Buddha in Premodern South Asia.”

Panel at the Buddhism Unit, Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR), San-Diego, Respondent.

2024

“Time and Perception in Aśvaghoṣa’s Works.”

Talk at the Collaborative Conference on Buddhist Studies, Taiwan National University, Taipei,

2024

"Perception and Conceptualization in Aśvaghoṣa's Saundarananda's Meditation sections"

Indian Philosophy and Buddhist Studies Department, Tokyo University. Invited Talk.

2024

“Multi-modal Buddhist history: Exploring Narrative Traditions through the Analysis of Text-image. Relations, Aśvaghoṣa and Gandhara” (with Jessie Pons).

Sacred Texts and Iconographies Relating the Life of the Buddha: Contradictions and Confusions. Colloque international, HiSAAR, The University of Strasburg.

2024

“Is the Yogācāra a Variant of Panpsychism?”

Panpsychism and Religion: Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Mind panel, Annual Meeting of the European Academy of Religion (EURAE2024), Palermo.

2023

“Text and Images Relation in Aśvaghoṣa’s Saundarananda: New directions.”

Borobuduer Summer Workshop, Department of Religion, Princeton University. Borobuduer Temple, Indonesia.

2023

“Buddhist Philosophy of the Emotions: Solitude (viveka).”

Numata Lecture in Buddhist Philosophy, Center for Buddhist Studies, University of California, Berkeley.

2023

"Practices for Transforming the Real: Language, Imagination, and Scholarly Modes of Engagement."

Roundtable Session at the Language, Poiesis, and Buddhist Experiments with the Possible Seminar, Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR), San-Antonio. Session organizer and presider

2022

“Meta-linguistic Considerations in Nāgārjuna’s Dispeller of Disputes (Vigrahavyāvartanī).”

In Skepticism: 4 Standpoints” International Workshop, a collaboration of the Freie Universität, University of Chicago, and Tel Aviv University. Tel Aviv University.

2022

“Intersubjectivity and Otherness.”

Sonam Kachru's Other Lives (Columbia University Press, 2021): A Roundtable Session, Yogācāra Studies Unit, Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR), Denver, November.

2022

‘Seeing As’: Metaphorical Perspectivism in Aśvaghoṣa’s Works.”

CRC 1475 Metaphors of Religion Cluster, Center for Religious Studies, Ruhr-Universität Bochum.

2022

“How to Approach Emotions: Aśvaghoṣa’s Works as a Case Study.”

The Ethical Framework for Buddhist Meditation Practice workshop. Numata Center for Buddhist Studies, Hamburg University.

2022

“Perspectivism and the Openness of Interpretation: Only in Buddhist Texts?”

Image – Text – Reality in Buddhism: Interrelation & Internegation, International Workshop, under the Typologies of Text – Image Relations Cluster; From the Ground Up Buddhism and East Asian Religions research network. Online.

2022

“Separation (viprayoga) in Aśvaghoṣa’s Life of the Buddha.”

Five College Buddhist Studies Faculty Seminar (US). Online.

2021

“Interdisciplinary Departmental Work.”

In "Roundtable on Buddhist Philosophy in Philosophy Departments: Training Students, Hiring, Teaching.” Buddhist Philosophy Unit, annual meeting of The American Academy of Religion (AAR), San-Diego.

2021

“Compassion in Hume’s Treatise on Human Nature” (with Ilit Ferber).

Philosophical Reverberations: in Memory of Professor Ben Ami Scharfstein. Symposium, Tel Aviv University.

2021

“Yogācāra philosophy of Language.”

Guest lecture at the Indian and Tibetan Yogācāra Graduate Seminar, Prof. Jay Garfield, Harvard Divinity School.

2021

“Liberative Metaphors: The Indian Buddhist Yogācāra Account.”

Religion and Metaphor Lecture series, Center for Religious Studies, Ruhr-Universität Bochum.

2020

“Roundtable on Roy Tzohar’s A Yogācāra Buddhist Theory of Metaphor (Oxford University Press, 2018).”

Buddhist Philosophy Unit and Hindu Philosophy Unit and Indian and Chinese Religions Compared Unit and Yogācāra Studies Unit, annual meeting of The American Academy of Religion (AAR).

2019

“On the Language, Authority, and the Role of Commentaries: Sthiramati's Use of Etymology as a Case Study.”

The Idea of Text in Buddhism,” an International Workshop, Hebrew University

2019

“What Metaphors Mean and Do within Buddhist Philosophical Text: A Yogācāra Perspective.”

Toshihide Numata Book Prize in Buddhism Special Lecture, Ryūkoku University, Kyoto.

2019

“A Buddhist Theory of Experience: Emotions as a Case Study.”

Consciousness Studies: The Question of Experience, and Implications, an Interdisciplinary Exchange. An International Joint Workshop, The Faculty of Education, University of Haifa.

2019

"On Being Alone: Solitude in Aśvaghoṣa's Beautiful Nanda (Saundarananda)."

"Meditation in the Clinic?,” an International Workshop. Department of Asian Studies, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, in collaboration with the Numata Center for Buddhist Studies, Hamburg University.

2018

"'Meaning in the World and in Texts’: Thoughts on Buddhist Philosophy of Language."

"The Toshihide Numata Book Award Symposium in Celebration of the Book A Yogācāra Buddhist Theory of Metaphor by Roy Tzohar (Oxford University Press)," The Center for Buddhist Studies, University of California, Berkeley.

2018

“The Paradox that is Language and What the Yogācāra Had to Say About it.”

The Lingyin Lectures in Buddhist Studies, Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, University of Oxford.

2018

"A Buddhist Yogācāra Theory of Meaning and Metaphor (upacāra) and its Philosophical Ramifications."

The 24th World Congress of Philosophy, Peking University.

2018

"Non-Conceptualism, Conceptual Inclusivism, and the Yogācāra View of Language as Skillful-Action."

"Conceptuality and Nonconceptuality in Buddhist Philosophy," International Workshop, Center for Buddhist Studies, University of California, Berkeley.

2018

"Motivating Arguments, Grounding Interpretations: Some Uses of Etymology in Ancient India and China" (co-authored with Wolfgang Behr).

“Ethical Reading: Philological Reflections," seminar, Faculty of Theology and Religion, Oxford University.

2017

"Reading Vasubandhu’s Triṃśikā and Its Commentaries."

Panel of the Yogācāra Studies Unit, annual meeting of The American Academy of Religion (AAR), Boston.

2017

“A Buddhist Philosophical Approach to Intersubjectivity.”

Center for Subjectivity Research, University of Copenhagen.

2016

"Lexicography in Indian Buddhist Thought."

"Thinking in Many Tongues," work group, The Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin.

2016

"Kinds of Buddhist Idealism."

Panel of the Philosophy of Religion Section and Yogācāra Studies Group, annual meeting of The American Academy of Religion (AAR), San-Antonio. Respondent.

2016

"Enjoy the Silence: The Relation between Non-Conceptual Awareness and Inexpressibility According to Some Yogācāra Sources."

"Conceptuality/Nonconceptuality in Buddhist Thought," international workshop, Center for Buddhist Studies, The University of California, Berkeley.

2016

"Sanskrit as a Koiné?."

"Thinking in Many Tongues," work group, The Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin.

2016

"Turning Earth into Gold: The Early Yogācāra Understanding of Experience Following Non-Conceptual Knowledge."

"Buddhist Philosophy of Consciousness: Tradition and Dialogue,” International workshop, National Chengchi University (NCCU), Taipei.

2015

"A Tree in Bloom or a Tree Stripped Bare: Ways of Seeing in the Buddhacarita."

Reading Aśvghoṣa Across Boundaries: International Conference, Tel Aviv University.

2015

"Imagine Being a Preta: Early Indian Yogācāra Approaches to Intersubjectivity."

Paper presented at "The Buddhist Philosophical Conception of Intersubjectivity," panel of the Buddhist Philosophy Group and Yogācāra Studies Group, annual meeting of The American Academy of Religion (AAR), Atlanta.

2015

"How Innovative Is Sthiramati: The Case of the Triṃśikā-bhāṣya's Theory of Meaning."

Paper presented at "Scholastic and/or Yogin? The Works Attributed to the Indian Medieval Scholar Sthiramati," The Tsukuba-Hamburg Universities Symposium Series, Hamburg University.

2015

"Secondary Meaning, Perceptual Error and Common Opinion (prasiddhi) in Bahrtrhari‘s Vākyapadīya (2.285-2.297)."

16th World Sanskrit Congress, Bangkok.


2014

"A Roundtable Discussion of Jonathan Gold’s Paving the Great Way: Vasubandhu's Unifying Buddhist Philosophy" (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015).

Annual meeting of The American Academy of Religion (AAR), San-Diego. Discussant.

2014

"Does Early Yogācāra Have a Theory of Meaning? The Case of Vasubandhu’s Triṃśikā and Sthiramati’s bhāṣya."

17th Congress of the International Association of Buddhist Studies (IABS), Vienna.

2014

“Where the Self and Other Meet: Buddhist Approaches to Inter-Subjectivity.”

The "Aspects of No-Self" lecture series, Numata Center for Buddhist Studies, University of Hamburg. Invited Talk.

2014

“The Pan-Metaphorical View of Early Indian Yogācāra.”

Khyentse Center for Tibetan Buddhist Textual Scholarship Seminar, University of Hamburg.

2013

"Sthiramati’s Critique of Signification and the Philosophical Role and Status of the Madhyāntavibhāga Language Use.”

"Reading the Madhyāntavibhāga-bhāṣya" panel, Yogācāra Studies Section, annual meeting of The American Academy of Religion (AAR), Baltimore.

2013

"Early Yogācāra Theory of Meaning and the Possibility of Intersubjective Discourse among Different Speech Communities."

The Harvard Buddhist Studies Forum, Harvard University.

Workshops, Symposia, and Panels Organized (Selection)

Workshops, Symposia, and Panels Organized 

2022–2027

"Language, Poiesis, and Buddhist Experiments with the Possible Five year Seminar."

Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion. Organizer and Co- chair (with Nancy Lin).

2023

“National Taiwan University, Tel Aviv University: Collaborative Workshop in Buddhist Studies.”

Conference organizer (with Meir Shahar, and Ching Keng).


2022

“Skepticism: 4 Standpoints: International Workshop.”

Tel Aviv, December. Conference co-organizer.

2015-2020

Yogācāra Studies Unit, annual meeting of The American Academy of Religion (AAR).

Co-chair.

2018-2020

The Rubin Forum Lecture Series.

The Zvi Yavetz School of Historical Studies, Tel Aviv University. Organizing Committee Member.

2019

"Mahatma Gandhi For Our Times: Yoga, Non Violence, and Civil Disobedience."

Symposium, Tel Aviv University, May. Organizer.

2019

"Israel-India Academic Dialogues: Political & Socio-Cultural Crossings.”

Joint International Conference, Tel Aviv University & OP Jindal Global University, India, January. Member of organizing committee.

2018

"Emotions Across Boundaries."

International Seminar and Workshop in the Philosophy and History of Emotions," Tel Aviv University, January. Conference organizer.

2018

"The Social Construction of the Self: International conference.”

The Zvi Yavetz School of Historical Studies, Tel Aviv University, January. Member of conference organizing committee.

2017

"Reading Vasubandhu’s Triṃśikā and Its Commentaries."

Yogācāra Studies Unit, annual meeting of The American Academy of Religion (AAR), Boston, November. Panel organizer.

2017

"Thinking in Many Tongues: Concluding Session."

International workshop held by Tel Aviv University in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin. December. Conference organizer.

2015

"Reading Aśvghoṣa Across Boundaries."

International Conference, Tel Aviv University, Israel, December. Conference organizer.

2015

"The Buddhist Philosophical Conception of Intersubjectivity."

The Buddhist Philosophy Group and Yogācāra Studies Group, annual meeting of The American Academy of Religion (AAR), Atlanta. Panel organizer.

2013

The Annual Conference of Asian Studies in Israel, Tel-Aviv University.

Member of conference organizing committee.

Contact

Department of East and South Asian Studies 

Tel-Aviv University, P.O.B. 39040, Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv 6997801, Israel

Email 

roytzo[at]tauex[dot]tau[dot]ac[dot]il

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