Tibetan

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2020, Fall 2019
A beginning Tibetan class developing basic listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in modern Tibetan (Lhasa dialect). The course also helps students begin to acquire competence in relevant Tibetan cultural issues.
Elementary Tibetan: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2021, Spring 2020
A continuation of Tibetan 1A, Tibetan 1B develops further listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in modern Tibetan (Lhasa dialect), with a gradually increasing emphasis on basic cultural readings and developing intercultural competence.
Elementary Tibetan: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2014, Fall 2012
This course, a continuation of 1A-1B (elementary Tibetan), is designed to develop the student's skills in modern standard Tibetan. The emphasis is on communication skills in vernacular Tibetan, as well as grammar, reading, writing, and a familiarity with contemporary Tibetan culture more generally.
Intermediate Tibetan: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2016, Spring 2013, Spring 2010
This course, a continuation of 10A, is designed to develop further the student's skills in modern standard Tibetan. The emphasis is on communication skills in vernacular Tibetan, as well as grammar, reading, writing, and a familiarity with contemporary Tibetan culture more generally.
Intermediate Tibetan: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
The Freshman Seminar Program has been designed to provide new students with the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member in a small seminar setting. Freshman seminars are offered in all campus departments and topics vary from department to department and semester to semester. Enrollment limited to fifteen freshmen.
Freshman Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Sophomore seminars are small interactive courses offered by faculty members in departments all across the campus. Sophomore seminars offer opportunity for close, regular intellectual contact between faculty members and students in the crucial second year. The topics vary from department to department and semester to semester. Enrollment limited to 15 sophomores.
Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2013, Spring 2013, Fall 2012
This course is designed for advanced students of Tibetan language. Its goal is to provide an opportunity for advanced students to develop their colloquial Tibetan conversation skills. More sophisticated linguistic forms are used and reinforced while dealing with various socio-cultural topics, with a particular focus on Buddhist-related subjects toward the end of the term. Primary emphasis will be on the Lhasa dialect of Tibetan, though some variant dialects may also be introduced.
Advanced Tibetan Conversation: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2018, Fall 2017, Fall 2016
This course is an intensive introduction to reading literary Tibetan literature. Following an introduction to basic grammar, the course moves quickly into selected readings from Buddhist texts in Tibetan. It typically builds on basic skills acquired in 1A-1B (elementary Tibetan), though with consent it may be taken independently.
Intensive Readings in Tibetan: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2019, Spring 2018, Spring 2017
A continuation of Tibetan 110A, this course provides an intensive introduction to a range of literary Tibetan literature. Assuming knowledge of basic literary Tibetan grammar, the course focuses on selected readings from Buddhist texts in Tibetan.
Intensive Readings in Tibetan: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2020
This course is a broad introduction to the history, doctrine, and culture of the Buddhism of Tibet. We will begin with the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet in the eighth century and move on to the evolution of the major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhist literature, ritual and monastic practice, the place of Buddhism in Tibetan political history, and the contemporary situation of Tibetan Buddhism both inside and outside of Tibet.
Tibetan Buddhism: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2017, Spring 2016
This course seeks to develop a critical understanding of contemporary Tibet, characterized as it is by modernity, invasion, Maoism, liberalization, exile, and diaspora. It explores the cultural dynamism of the Tibetans over the last 100 years as expressed in literature, film, music, modern art, and political protest. The core topics include intra-Tibetan arguments regarding the preservation and "modernization" of traditional cultural forms, the development of new aesthetic creations and values, the constraints and opportunities on cultural life under colonialism and in the diaspora, and the religious nationalism of the recent political protests.
Contemporary Tibet: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This class will explore Tibetan civilization throughout the pre-modern period with an emphasis on literature, the visual arts, ethnography, and the history of Tibet's important cultural exchanges on the broader Inner Asian and Himalayan stages. The overall lesson plan will cover a wide range of Tibetan cultural forms and regions, and highlights the many international links that so animated Tibet itself and were crucial to the politics of Asia for many centuries. Furthermore, the theme of "early modernities" will be prominent in the readings in the second half of the course.
Traditional Tibet: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2016
For over a hundred years, the political status of Tibet has commanded a level of attention on the international stage – and within China – seemingly disproportionate to the size of its population and economy, and in spite of its reputation as a remote periphery. This course will examine the historical, cultural, and economic assumptions underlying contemporary discourses of Tibetan politics, and relate them to discourses of global power and peripheries more generally. Grounding discussion in primary sources and critical works from across regions and disciplines, we will examine the roots of current conflict and the ways in which contending Buddhist, nationalist and internationalist projects have contributed to the making of modern Tibet.
The Politics of Modern Tibet: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course will investigate the theory, practice and development of Tibetan medicine or sowa rikpa, “the knowledge of healing.” Using Tibetan medicine as our lens, we will consider how all medical systems are based on ways of knowing that are culturally as well as biologically determined, and historically situated within linguistic, ecological, religious, and political frameworks. Drawing from primary sources as well as cross-disciplinary scholarship, we will examine issues of translation in canonical medical literature; traditions of ritual and practice; how medicine is taught; relationships between medicine and Buddhism; ideas about human bodies, subtle anatomy, cosmology, and gender norms; and aspects of modernization and globalization.
Tibetan Medicine in History and Society: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2020, Spring 2020, Fall 2014
Tibetan Buddhists view the moment of death as a rare opportunity for transformation. This course examines how Tibetans have used death and dying in the path to enlightenment. Readings will address how Tibetan funerary rituals work to assist the dying toward this end, and how Buddhist practitioners prepare for this crucial moment through tantric meditation, imaginative rehearsals, and explorations of the dream state.
Death, Dreams, and Visions in Tibetan Buddhism: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2018, Fall 2012
This course provides a place for graduate-level seminars in Tibetan Buddhism that rely primarily on secondary sources and Tibetan texts in translation. Content will vary between semesters but will typically focus on a particular theme. Themes will be chosen according to student interests, with an eye toward introducing students to the breadth of available western scholarship on Tibet, from classics in the field to the latest publications.
Seminar in Tibetan Buddhism: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023
This seminar provides an introduction to a broad range of Tibetan Buddhist texts, including chronicles and histories, biographical literature, doctrinal treatises, canonical texts, ritual manuals, pilgrimage guides, and liturgical texts. It is intended for graduate students interested in premodern Tibet from any perspective. Students are required to do all of the readings in the original classical Tibetan. It will also serve as a tools and methods for the study of Tibetan Buddhist literature, including standard lexical and bibliographic references, digital resources, and secondary literature in modern languages. The content of the course will vary from semester to semester to account for the needs and interests of particular students.
Readings in Tibetan Buddhist Texts: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
Special tutorial or seminar on selected topics not covered by available courses or seminars.
Directed Study for Graduate Students: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007

Thesis Preparation and Related Research: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Individual study for the comprehensive or language requirements in consultation with the graduate adviser. Units may not be used to meet either unit or residence requirements for a master's degree.
Individual Study for Master's Students: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Individual study in consultation with the major field adviser, intended to provide an opportunity for qualified students to prepare for various examinations required of candidates for the Ph.D.
Individual Study for Doctoral Students: Read More [+]