Modern Tibetan Studies Program, Spring 2016
Lectures
“Skirmish Season: Border Practices in the Sino-Indian Himalayas”
Tina Harris, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam with a PhD from the City University of New York’s Graduate Center and a pioneer in the study of trans-Himalayan trade and cultural history. Author of Geographical Diversions: Tibetan Trade, Global Transactions.
Thursday, January 28
12:00 – 1:30PM
International Affairs Building, Room 918
No registration required. Presented with the Inner Asia Curriculum Project.
“Modern Women in Local Tibetan History: The View from Biographical Sources”
Sarah Jacoby, Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Northwestern University, discusses her innovative work on Tibetan women’s writing and biographies.
Friday, February 5
1:30PM – 3:00PM
International Affairs Building, Room 918
No registration required.
“The Colonial Practices of the Postcolonial State: China in Tibet, India in Kashmir”
Dibyesh Anand, Associate Professor and Head of Department in International Relations at the University of Westminster, London. Author of the monographs Geopolitical Exotica: Tibet in Western Imagination, Tibet: A Victim of Geopolitics and Hindu Nationalism in India and the Politics of Fear.
Thursday, March 31
12:00PM – 1:30PM
International Affairs Building, Room 918
No registration required.
Talks and Interviews
“The Tibetan Monastery Today and its Relations with Local Communities”
Khenpo Jamyang, a leading lama from Larung Gar monastic academy in Kham, and founder of the charitable foundation Byams brtse (Loving Kindness), will talk about social life and relations in the local community, offering a unique window into everyday life in Tibetan rural communities.
Tuesday, March 29, evening.
At Columbia. Time and Location to be confirmed.
Registration required.
“Social Questions Facing a Contemporary Monastery in Tibet”
Khenpo Tsultrim Lodroe, senior abbot of Larung Gar in Kham, the largest monastic institution in the world, and the leading lama seeing the introduction of Buddhist ideas and morals into the wider community.
Tuesday, May 10, evening.
At Columbia. Time and Location to be confirmed.
Registration required.
Workshops
“Money and Toil in Inner Asia: Local to Transnational”
Grace Zhou (Stanford); Igor Rubinov (Princeton); Rune Steenberg (Columbia); Arienne Dwyer (Kansas); Tina Harris (Amsterdam); Devon Margaret Dear (Kansas); Hasan H. Karrar (Lahore); François Godement (European Council on Foreign Relations); and Rebecca Clothey (Drexel). Sponsored by the Inner Asia Curricular Development Initiative, the Weatherhead Institute and Harriman Institute, Columbia University.
Friday, January 29
9:45 AM – 5:30PM
International Affairs Building, Room 918
No registration required. Jointly presented with the Inner Asia Curriculum Project.
Panels
“Diplomatic (Mis)translations and Empire: Misreading and Manipulation in Sino-British Dealings with Tibet”
Ryosuke Kobayashi, postdoctoral scholar at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute specializing in 20th Century Tibetan history; Amanda Cheney, doctoral candidate at Cornell’s Department of Government researching international system change and Tibet before 1959.
With discussant Joseph MacKay, postdoctoral scholar at the Harriman Institute.
Tuesday, February 2
12:00PM – 1:30PM
International Affairs Building, Room 918
No registration required. Jointly presented with the Inner Asia Curriculum Project.
Film Screening
“Qaranghu Tagh: The Villages Afar”
Documentary directed by independent Uyghur filmmaker Saipulla Mutallip on the memories of a 1934 massacre in a remote village in Xinjiang.
Includes screening of a fiction short by the same director, Bogha: The Donkey-pad.
Followed by Q&A with the director Saipulla Mutallip and producer Dr Jessica Yeung (Hong Kong Baptist University).
Tuesday, February 9
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
International Affairs Building, Room 918
No registration required. Jointly presented with the Inner Asia Curriculum Project.
