2022-2023 Courses
Fall 2022
UN1365: INTRODUCTION TO EAST ASIAN CIVILIZATIONS: TIBET
Faculty: Lauran Hartley
This course seeks to introduce the sweep of Tibetan civilization and its history from its earliest recorded origins to the present. The course examines what civilizational forces shaped Tibet, especially the contributions of Indian Buddhism, sciences and literature, but also Chinese statecraft and sciences. Alongside the chronological history of Tibet, we will explore aspects of social life and culture.
GU4312: TIBETAN SACRED SPACE IN COMPARATIVE CONTEXTS
Faculty: Gray Tuttle
Through interdisciplinary theoretical approaches (mostly in the fields of religion, anthropology, literature, and history), this course engages the genre of writing about sacred space in Tibetan Buddhist culture, addressing the micro (built environment) and macro (natural environment) levels of this important sphere of Tibetan literature. Through Tibetan pilgrimage accounts, place (monasteries, temples, etc) based guidebooks, geographically focused biographies, and pictorial representations of place, the class will consider questions about how place-writing overlaps with religious practice, politics, and history. For comparative purposes, we will read place based writing from Western and other Asian authors, for instance accounts of the guidebooks to and inscriptions at Christian churches, raising questions about the cultural relativity of what makes up sacred space.
GR6100: RULING INNER ASIA FROM BEIJING: LAMAS AND EMPERORS
Faculty: Gray Tuttle
Late imperial China was marked by a multi-ethnic tradition of rulership that built on the foundations of the so-called “conquest dynasties.” This course will survey the existing literature on the importance of Tibetan Buddhism as a religious ideology that was central to late imperial efforts at making China a multi-ethnic state. This ideology has served to link China with Tibetan and Mongolia regions of Inner Asia—through the imperial center at Beijing—for over seven hundred years. This tradition started with the Mongol Yuan empire and was adopted on and off during the Chinese Ming imperial period. The last emperors of China were ethnic Manchus who expanded the Qing empire to include Mongolia and Tibet. This class will also explore the connections between the imperial family and the Tibetan Buddhist lamas who were responsible for court rituals and diplomacy. There are no prerequisites to take the course.
UN1410: FIRST YEAR CLASSICAL TIBETAN I
Faculty: Sonam Tsering Ngulphu
This is an introductory course and no previous knowledge is required. It focuses on developing basic reading and translation skills. Students are also introduced to classical Tibetan through selected readings and guest lectures.
UN1600: FIRST YEAR MODERN COLLOQUIAL TIBETAN I
Faculty: Sonam Tsering
This is an introductory course and no previous knowledge is required. It focuses on developing basic abilities to speak as well as to read and write in modern Tibetan. Students are also introduced to modern Tibetan studies through selected readings and guest lectures.
UN2412: SECOND YEAR CLASSICAL TIBETAN I
Faculty: Sonam Tsering Ngulphu
This is the second year in the Classical Tibetan language progression. Students will work with faculty to read classical Tibetan texts from various genres and learn to read a variety of classical Tibetan scripts and seals. Prior completion of UN1410: First Year Classical Tibetan or the equivalent required.
UN2603: SECOND YEAR MODERN COLLOQUIAL TIBETAN I
Faculty: Sonam Tsering
Completion of UN 1600: First Year Modern Colloquial Tibetan or the equivalent required.
UN2710: ADVANCED LITERARY TIBETAN I
Faculty: Sonam Tsering Ngulphu
This two-semester class is designed to assist students who already have the equivalent of at least two-years of Classical Tibetan language study. The course is intended to build on this foundation so that students gain greater proficiency in reading a variety of classical Tibetan writing styles and genres, including texts relevant to their research.
The course readings will focus primarily on texts written during the Ganden Phodrang period up through the 19th century. Over the two semesters, the class will cover three sets of materials: 1) famous or otherwise influential classical works (mostly historical, some literary); 2) important historical texts that have come to light in recent years but are scarcely known in western scholarship; and 3) classical language texts that support the research needs of the enrolled students. Classical Tibetan grammar and other conventions will be identified and discussed in the course of the readings.
UN3611: THIRD YEAR MODERN COLLOQUIAL TIBETAN I
Faculty: Sonam Tsering
For those whose knowledge is equivalent to a student who’s completed the Second Year course. The course develops students’ reading comprehension skills through reading selected modern Tibetan literature. Tibetan is used as the medium of instruction and interaction to develop oral fluency and proficiency.
Spring 2023
GR6905: BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY
Faculty: Allison Aitken
Buddhist philosophers generally agree about what doesn’t exist: an enduring, unitary, and independent self. But there is surprisingly little consensus across Buddhist traditions about what does exist and what it’s like. In this course, we will examine several Buddhist theories about the nature and structure of reality and consider the epistemological and ethical implications of these radically different pictures of the world. We will analyze and evaluate arguments from some of the most influential Indian Buddhist philosophers from the second to the eleventh centuries, including Nāgārjuna, Vasubandhu, Dignāga, Candrakīrti, Śāntarakṣita, Śāntideva, and Ratnakīrti. Topics will include the existence and nature of the external world, the mind, and the self; practical and epistemological implications of the Buddhist no-self principle; personal identity; the problem of other minds; and causal determinism and moral responsibility.
GU4615: TIBETAN RIVERS & ROADS: INFRASTRUCTURE, ENVIRONMENT, & URBAN LIVES
Faculty: Lauran Hartley
This course examines the transformation of natural environments, rural and urban landscapes on the Tibetan Plateau in the 20th and 21st centuries, with a special emphasis on the material and social lives of rivers, roads and infrastructure. We will draw on primary source readings (in English) and maps, as well as secondary readings in anthropology and human geography, to examine the processes of infrastructure creation, national integration, urbanization and adaptation in the Tibetan regions of China.
GU4410: TIBETAN MONASTIC INSTITUTIONS
Faculty: Gray Tuttle
Through interdisciplinary theoretical approaches (mostly in the fields of religion, anthropology, and history), this course examines THE key institution in Tibetan culture, namely monasteries. We will address the monastery from many different angles, from the physical infrastructure and soteriological justification to its governing documents as well as economic and educational roles.
GU4735: CLIMATE HISTORY OF THE TIBETAN PLATEAU
Faculty: Gray Tuttle and Hung Nguyen
This course on climatological historiography of Tibet employs an interdisciplinary approach to bring together research findings from “the archives of nature” (statistical reconstructions of past climate from physical and natural processes) with studies from “the archives of society” (physical and written sources left by humans) to examine how historical changes in climate have effected human development and society on the Tibetan plateau. The class explores how climatic conditions and events might have triggered and contributed to socioeconomic, political, and cultural developments in Tibet and the Himalayas.
UN1410: FIRST YEAR CLASSICAL TIBETAN II
Faculty: Sonam Tsering Ngulphu
This is an introductory course and no previous knowledge is required. It focuses on developing basic reading and translation skills. Students are also introduced to classical Tibetan through selected readings and guest lectures.
UN1600: FIRST YEAR MODERN COLLOQUIAL TIBETAN II
Faculty: Sonam Tsering
This is an introductory course and no previous knowledge is required. It focuses on developing basic abilities to speak as well as to read and write in modern Tibetan. Students are also introduced to modern Tibetan studies through selected readings and guest lectures.
UN2412: SECOND YEAR CLASSICAL TIBETAN II
Faculty: Sonam Tsering Ngulphu
This is the second year in the Classical Tibetan language progression. Students will work with faculty to read classical Tibetan texts from various genres and learn to read a variety of classical Tibetan scripts and seals. Prior completion of UN1410: First Year Classical Tibetan or the equivalent required.
UN2603: SECOND YEAR MODERN COLLOQUIAL TIBETAN II
Faculty: Sonam Tsering
Completion of UN 1600: First Year Modern Colloquial Tibetan or the equivalent required.
UN2710: ADVANCED LITERARY TIBETAN II
Faculty: Sonam Tsering Ngulphu
This two-semester class is designed to assist students who already have the equivalent of at least two-years of Classical Tibetan language study. The course is intended to build on this foundation so that students gain greater proficiency in reading a variety of classical Tibetan writing styles and genres, including texts relevant to their research.
The course readings will focus primarily on texts written during the Ganden Phodrang period up through the 19th century. Over the two semesters, the class will cover three sets of materials: 1) famous or otherwise influential classical works (mostly historical, some literary); 2) important historical texts that have come to light in recent years but are scarcely known in western scholarship; and 3) classical language texts that support the research needs of the enrolled students. Classical Tibetan grammar and other conventions will be identified and discussed in the course of the readings.
UN3611: THIRD YEAR MODERN COLLOQUIAL TIBETAN II
Faculty: Sonam Tsering
For those whose knowledge is equivalent to a student who’s completed the Second Year course. The course develops students’ reading comprehension skills through reading selected modern Tibetan literature. Tibetan is used as the medium of instruction and interaction to develop oral fluency and proficiency.