THI

CU Boulder Tibetan Losar 2023 Celebration— A Big Hit

Anonymous — Mon, 27 Feb 2023 21:41:22 +0000

CU Boulder Tibetan Losar 2023 Celebration— A Big Hit Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 02/27/2023 - 14:41

On February 24^th, 2023, the University of Colorado Boulder ushered in the new Tibetan year of the Water Hare with Losar celebrations. Losar (ལོ་གསར་) meaning New Year in Tibetan is celebrated widely across the Tibetan Plateau and in the Himalayan regions of Nepal, India, and Bhutan. Taking place on CU Boulder campus for the second time, this year’s Losar cultural program was jointly organized by the Center for Asian Studies (CAS), the Tibet Himalaya Initiative, Department of Anthropology, and the Anderson Language and Technology Center.

The event started with the serving of the ceremonial sweet rice (dresi) – an auspicious food symbolizing prosperity and good fortune— Tibetan butter tea, chai, and Tibetan Losar cookies (khabsey). The khabsey was prepared by the CU Tibetan students with the support and sponsorship of the local Boulder-based Tibetan-owned Cafe, Little Lama Cafe located at Naropa University.

CAS Tibetan Teaching Professor Tenzin Tsepak commenced the Losar celebrations by giving a brief background of Losar and its importance in Tibetan culture. This was followed a simultaneous Tibetan and English reading of a short Tibetan story titled ‘The Hero of the Grassland’ by Gavin Shoew, a first-year Tibetan language student. Aidan Euler, an intermediate Tibetan language student presented on the meaning of the ubiquitous Tibetan mantra Om Mani Padme Hun (ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ། ). David Kwei, an intermediate Tibetan language student, presented a short biography of Tibetan writer and poet Gungthang Dawei Lodro, followed by a short poetry reading.

Following the presentations by the Tibetan language students, Samdup, a CU Tibetan student, gave an emotive performance of the Tibetan song titled ‘Samten Lhundup.’ A jovial group performance by the CU Tibetan students through the unity song ‘Ngatso De La Zom Zom’ recharged much enthusiasm into the audience. The event was emceed energetically by Tsering, another CU Tibetan student.

After the closing remarks from Professor Emily Yeh, who encouraged CU students to continue their pursuit of Tibetan and Himalayan studies, the Losar program concluded with dinner catered from Little Lama Café and gorshey (Tibetan circle dance). In the last thirty minutes of the program, students and faculty alike filled the dance floor to learn and bond through Tibetan dance. The evening ended with footsteps beating to the rhythm of the communal dance, sounds of vibrant laughter, and smiling faces. This cultural event brought together CU students, faculty, and the Tibetan community to celebrate and learn about Tibetan and Himalayan culture. The event was attended by 70-80 people, more than double that of last year.

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We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies | Reading and Dialogue with Tsering Yangzom Lama on Thursday, March 2nd at 6pm

Anonymous — Fri, 17 Feb 2023 18:37:16 +0000

We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies | Reading and Dialogue with Tsering Yangzom Lama on Thursday, March 2nd at 6pm Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 02/17/2023 - 11:37

Join us for an extraordinary event, a book reading and dialogue with Tsering Yangzom Lama about her award-winning debut novel, We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies.

When: Thursday, March 2
5:30 Reception, Meet the Author | 6pm Book Reading and Dialogue

Where: Chancellor’s Auditorium
CASE Building 4th Floor 725 Euclid Ave, CU Boulder

Breathtaking in scope and powerfully intimate, We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies is a gorgeously written meditation on colonization, displacement, and the lengths we’ll go to remain connected to our families and ancestral lands. Told through the lives of a family across three generations, this beautifully lyrical debut novel provides a nuanced portrait of the world of Tibetan exiles. We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies, won the 2023 New Writers Award for Fiction from the Great Lakes Colleges Association. A New York Times Summer Reads pick, her novel was shortlisted for The Scotiabank Giller Prize and longlisted for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and The Toronto Book Awards.

“We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies showcases a writer of rare talent and uncompromising vision. In these pages that speak of exile and loss, of longing and sorrow, Tsering Lama also manages to remind us–with startling beauty and compassion – how much can still survive. This novel is a testament to a people’s resolve to love, no matter what. A triumph.”
—Maaza Mengiste, Booker Prize shortlisted author of The Shadow King

“[A] heartfelt and magical saga of a Tibetan family’s love, sacrifice, and heritage … Lama imbues this mesmerizing tale—informed by her own family fleeing Tibet for Nepal in the 1960s—with a rich sense of history, mysticism, and ritual.” —Publishers Weekly

Tsering Yangzom Lama holds an MFA in Writing from Columbia University where she was a TOMS Fellow, Writing Fellow, and Teaching Fellow. She earned her BA in Creative Writing and International Relations from the University of British Columbia. A lifelong activist, she is a Storytelling Advisor at Greenpeace International, where she guides and trains people around the world in narrative strategy. A recipient of grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Tsering has been a resident at the Jan Michalski Foundation, Banff Center for Arts and Creativity, Hedgebrook, Willapa Bay AiR, Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Lillian E. Smith Center, Art Omi, Catwalk Institute, WildAcres, and Playa Summerlake. She was selected as a 2018 Tin House Novel Scholar. Tsering’s writing has appeared in The Globe and Mail, The Malahat Review, Grain, Kenyon Review, Vela, LaLit, and Himal SouthAsian, as well as the anthologies Old Demons New Deities: 21 Short Stories from Tibet; House of Snow: An Anthology of the Greatest Writing About Nepal; and Brave New Play Rites. Tsering is also a co-founder of LhakarDiaries, a leading English-language blog among Tibetan youth in exile. Born and raised in Nepal, she currently splits her time between Vancouver, Canada and Sweden.

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"Save the date! Thursday March 9, 6pm. Join us for a film screening and Q&A with film-maker and anthropologist Donagh Coleman."

Anonymous — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 01:27:28 +0000

"Save the date! Thursday March 9, 6pm. Join us for a film screening and Q&A with film-maker and anthropologist Donagh Coleman." Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 01/23/2023 - 18:27

Tukdam: Between Worlds, is a brand new feature documentary that explores the phenomenon of tukdam, where deceased mediators show no signs of death for days and weeks.

Synopsis

We tend to think of death as something clear-cut, and that medical science has it neatly figured out. This feature documentary explodes such assumptions through its exploration of a phenomenon that blurs life and death to an unprecedented degree. In what Tibetan Buddhists call tukdam, advanced meditators die in a consciously controlled manner in meditation. Though dead according to our biomedical standards, they often stay sitting upright in meditation posture; remarkably, their bodies remain fresh and lifelike, without signs of decay for days, sometimes weeks after clinical death. The film follows the first ever scientific research into tukdam by neuroscientist Richard Davidson’s team, juxtaposed with intimate death stories of tukdam meditators and Tibetan understandings of the death process – which include ideas about consciousness and the mind-body connection that are very different to those of mainstream science. Unfolding in cinematic dialogue between scientific and Tibetan perspectives, the film unravels our certainties about life and death, and shows how differently death can be construed in different cultural contexts. In this encounter between worlds, the scientists' methods and views are challenged by a civilization where death has been a central preoccupation for centuries.

Biography

Finnish-Irish-American filmmaker Donagh Coleman holds degrees in Philosophy and Psychology and Music and Media Technologies from Trinity College Dublin, and a MA in Asian Studies from UC Berkeley. Previous award-winning films with wide international festival and TV exposure include A Gesar Bard's Tale (2013) and Stone Pastures (2008). Donagh's films have also been shown at museums such as MoMA and the Rubin Museum of Art in New York, and by the European Commission. Besides films and TV-docs, Donagh directs radio documentaries for the Finnish and Irish national broadcasters. His Radio Feature Gesar! was Finland’s entry for the 2012 Prix Italia competition, and his feature Do I Exist? was Finland’s entry for the 2015 Prix Europa competition. Donagh has also worked as a TV journalist and presenter for the Finnish broadcaster YLE News. He is currently doing a PhD in medical anthropology at UC Berkeley, continuing the research conducted for his 2022 feature documentary on meditative Tibetan Buddhist tukdam deaths.

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Photo Essay on Ladakh’s Artificial Glaciers by Sierra Gladfelter and Eben Yonnetti

Anonymous — Sun, 11 Mar 2018 23:39:30 +0000

Photo Essay on Ladakh’s Artificial Glaciers by Sierra Gladfelter and Eben Yonnetti Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 03/11/2018 - 17:39

This photo essay captures the dreams and realities surrounding artificial glaciers in Ladakh. Informed by three months of preliminary research, it presents some visual evidence to accompany the authors’ reflections while on Fulbright-Nehru Student Research grants in India.

The authors, Sierra Gladfelter and Eben Yonnetti, are alumni of the Tibet Himalaya Initiative and University of Colorado Boulder in Geography and Religious Studies, respectively.

Visit the full photo essay: "Ladakh’s Artificial Glaciers, Ice Stupas, and Other Attempts to Survive a Warming Planet" here.

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Photo Essay on Tibetan Folk Music in Nepal by Mason Brown

Anonymous — Mon, 22 Jan 2018 02:46:58 +0000

Photo Essay on Tibetan Folk Music in Nepal by Mason Brown Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 01/21/2018 - 19:46

Doctoral student in ethnomusicology, Mason Brown, shares vignettes of his dissertaton fieldwork on Tibetan folk music in Nepal.

Visit the full photo essay, "Folk Songs in Nubri" here.

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Photo Essay on the Tibetan festival of Lurol by Andrew Grant

Anonymous — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 19:19:59 +0000

Photo Essay on the Tibetan festival of Lurol by Andrew Grant Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 12/05/2017 - 12:19

THI Visiting Scholar, Andrew Grant, shares his experiences between 2010-2017 at the Tibetan festival of Lurol in the village of Sadjye (Sa dkyel ས་དཀྱིལ) near to the heart of Rebgong (རེབ་ཀོང་།) in Qinghai Province / Amdo Tibet.

Visit the full photo essay here.

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Rupak Shrestha, PhD student in Geography, awarded NSF-DDRI grant

Anonymous — Tue, 05 Sep 2017 19:11:23 +0000

Rupak Shrestha, PhD student in Geography, awarded NSF-DDRI grant Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 09/05/2017 - 13:11

Rupak Shrestha, PhD student in Geography, was awarded a National Science Foundation - Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement (DDRI) grant by the Geography and Spatial Sciences Program. The award will support his dissertation research project titled "Extra-Territorial Sovereignty, Nationalism, and the Politics of Development".

His doctoral dissertation project will explore emerging questions in geopolitics about interactions among extra-territorial sovereignty (the power nation-states exert over people and places outside their borders), state-building, ethnic nationalism, and multi-ethnic contestations over space, place, and political expression. Through an ethnographic case study of Chinese economic and political influence in Nepal, he will investigate the following set of core questions: (1) How do the seemingly banal, everyday, and gendered practices of Tibetan nationalism and place making in one part of Kathmandu reveal the messy intricacies of Chinese extra-territorial politics of development in Nepal? (2) How do Chinese extra-territorial sovereignty and Nepali ethnic nationalism produce Tibetan refugee subjectivities in Nepal? (3) How do place based identity politics and Nepali ethnic nationalism produce contestations between Tibetan refugees and members of other ethnic groups in Nepal? Rupak will examine how everyday interactions, events, and practices reveal the intricacies of macro-scale geopolitics. In doing so, this dissertation will provide additional linkages between feminist political geography and geographies of sovereignty and territory.

For more information on the grant, see the NSF award page.

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THI �鶹��Ժ Awarded Summer Language Funding

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Mar 2016 05:22:11 +0000

THI �鶹��Ժ Awarded Summer Language Funding Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 03/16/2016 - 23:22

Mason Brown (R), PhD candidate in Ethnomusicology, and Eben Yonnetti (L), MA student in Religious Studies, have both been awarded Summer Langauge Fellowships from the University of Colorado's Center for Asian Studies (CAS). CAS, a regional center whose mission it is to advance knowledge of Asia through undergraduate and graduate education, faculty research, and outreach programs for the broader community, awards only a select few fellowships annually. Eben was awarded additional funding from the Department of Religious Studies for his language program. In the summer of 2016, Mason will be studying Nepali in Kathmandu, Nepal and Eben will be studying Mandarin Chinese in Taipei, Taiwan.

For more information on the Center for Asian Studies, visit their website here.

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