24 - 30 JUNE 2000
LEIDEN, THE NETHERLANDS
The Ninth Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies
The Ninth Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies was held in Leiden, the Netherlands, from 24 to 30 June of this year. Both the convener, Henk Blezer, and a participant, Peng Wenbin, present their views on the conference below.
The Convener Reports
By HENK BLEZER
The ninth seminar of the IATS has undergone some changes in the format followed by its predecessors, the (de)merits of which need to be carefully considered. I encouraged participants to propose alternative formats towards achieving a more focused academic exchange, like panels and round-table discussions. From the 23 proposals, thirteen panel-like meetings materialized. Half the papers were presented in such specialized gatherings. The great majority of the 'panels' turned out to be of very fine quality and will have separate proceedings.To enable participants to survive a week-long intensive seminar of over two hundred academic presentations, I attempted to create more 'space' in the schedule by installing six to eight parallel sessions. As a result, the average amount of papers went down to seven per room, per day. Each could then last 45 minutes (30+15), instead of the usual ten of 30 minutes (20+10; for practical reasons the latter format was occasionally still preferred by organizers of large [read: long] 'panels').
For this seminar we made extensive use of Internet web pages and an e-mail forum. All relevant information and circulars were posted on the Internet (including much used on-line registration facilities). The IATS discussion forum was designed to accommodate academic exchange outside seminar time.
I actively approached sponsors who have a vested interest in the areas covered to present their work and expertise to the scholarly community in a special non-academic and non-IATS section of the programme. I understand that the opportunity to establish relationships of mutual benefit during the seminar was put to good use. Several other non-academic (and non-political) organizations active in Tibet and the Himalayas also presented their work and interests. This special section also featured a brief introduction to the Bon bKa' 'gyur and brTen 'gyur, which we have newly acquired for the library of the Kern Institute in Leiden (with generous subventions from the Gonda Fonds and the IIAS), and a preliminary report on the Bon Virtual Library - a more elaborate report is scheduled for the IIAS Newsletter 24 (in the Tibetological Collections & Archives Series).
The cultural programme included three exhibitions: photographs pertaining to the areas covered in the seminar (Wim Isphording), paintings inspired by Tantric Tibetan motifs (Lidie Bossen), and samples of the important, but unfortunately not-so-widely-known, Johan van Manen Tibetological collection in Leiden; four workshops: thanka painting (Tharphen Lingtsang and Lakshmi Fransen), Mongolian mask-making (Sukhee), Tibetan medicine (Tenzin Dakpa and Nel de Jong), and South Siberian throat-singing (Gherman Popov); several musical performances; and a film-cycle on Tibet.
Proceedings
Brill Academic Publishers are interested in publishing the proceedings in the form of a series, which will include one or two large volumes of proceedings for papers from the (general) sessions. The deadline for submission is January 2001. Articles for the separate panel-proceedings need to be submitted to their respective panel organizers. Articles from sessions and panels that will become part of the general proceedings need to be sent to the convenor. A circular regarding the proceedings has been sent out in August 2000. *
SPONSORS OF THE NINTH SEMINAR OF THE IATS
CNWS, Research School of Asian, African, and Amerindian Studies; Curzon Press; Eco-Himal (Austria & Italy); Stichting Eco-operation; Gonda Fonds (at KNAW); Ms. van Gulik; Ms. Barbara Hines; Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture (Oslo, Norway); International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS); Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO); Network for University Co-operation Norway-Tibet (Oslo, Norway); Oost-Europa Fonds (at Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds); Prins Claus Fonds; Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences (KNAW); Trace Foundation.
Henk Blezer was convenor of the Ninth Seminar of the IATS and is an Independent Research Fellow at the IIAS, Leiden.
E-mail: blezer@let.leidenuniv.nl
A Participant's View
What could be taken as a 'successful and productive' conference certainly rests upon participants' performances and co-operation. It also emerges, perhaps more importantly, as a product of the organizer's craftsmanship, namely, the ways in which he or she artfully handles various kinds of 'impossibles' to enhance the conference's quality. A case in hand would be the Ninth Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies (IATS) held in Leiden in June this year.
By PENG WENBIN
One thorny issue, as Dr Henk Blezer, Convenor of the Ninth Seminar, noted in his preview of the organizational process (IIAS Newsletter 22), was to work out a conference format that could both contain a more focused academic exchange, and yet retain the informal character of the IATS seminars for dialogue among the large number and large diversity of scholars. The organizational work in this direction was not simple--it involved strategic planning to move beyond some perceived boundaries of academic cultures, i.e., the 'European' small expert meeting vs. the 'American' large-scale academic convention. Needless to say, the steady increase in the number of participants of the IATS seminars in recent years is an encouraging sign, reflecting a dynamic growth in the field of Tibetan Studies as a whole. This year, close to three hundred participants attended the seminar in Leiden for a week-long conference with over two hundred academic presentations.As a first-time attendee of the IATS seminar series, I find it difficult to comment on the organization of this year's seminar as a whole. Yet, as a panel participant, I shared tremendous satisfaction with other panelists regarding the way in which the panels had been arranged, particularly the amount of time (30 + 15 = 45) allocated to each presenter this year. The format worked pretty well. It offered much relaxation in the course of presenting papers and in subsequent discussion and exchange with the audience.
This focused and relaxed experience was, of course, comparable to those of small, specialized gatherings, such as the conference on the Tibetan pilgrimage, hosted by the IIAS in September 1996. My satisfaction with this year's schedule also stemmed from its juxtaposition to those of the large-scale conventions I have attended in the US, in particular, the annual meetings of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS). Given the large number of panels and participants (with more than two hundred formal panels and two thousand attendees each year over the past two years), the organizational aspects of the AAS annual meetings have been indisputably impressive. Yet, at times, one does wish, however unrealistically, that the stringent timing policy (15+5=20) for each panel presenter could be loosened up a bit to allow for a more relaxed discussion and exchange.
Organizational issues aside, the Ninth Seminar of the IATS also brought to light some on-going topical or methodological expansions in the field of Tibetology. I explored these academic advances through my limited observation and some casual chatting with colleagues and friends during the seminar. Admittedly, even these limited experiences were not quite unbiased, but had been largely filtered through a vested interest in anthropological matters.
Remarkable trend
With its remarkable trend towards multi-dimensional development in recent years, the field of Tibetan Studies could be better described as becoming increasingly 'discursive'. Research topics and the temporal and spatial framework underlying them are rapidly expanding. Although classical textual scholarship, especially the study of ancient history, philosophy, religion, literature, and the like, continues to be 'a firm foundation of Tibetological academic work', there has recently been a strong presence of anthropological approaches in the Tibetological field.
The panel on 'Tibetan Social and Cultural Revival in Amdo, Post-1980,' organized by Dr Toni Huber, better illustrates this point. Among the thirteen panels at the seminar, this one was, by far, the most comprehensive of all. Focusing on contemporary issues, this panel investigated the creative revitalization of Tibetan social and cultural identity in the post-Mao reform period, traversing a large number of areas, such as religious revitalization, Tibetan schooling and language education, artistic innovation, gender relations, Tibetan literature and publishing, social organization, economic development, etc. As one might have anticipated, the panelists' presentations on these diverse areas were largely grounded upon their specific fieldwork experiences. We were fortunate to listen to papers of fine ethnographic quality. The panel was undoubtedly unique and fascinating in its ethnographic orientation.
As a final comment, I wish tentatively to explore an important perspective taking shape in this and a few other panels. Discussions of the socio-cultural revival in Amdo, local histories in Kham, and on issues of self-presentation in the modern Tibetan Diaspora (organized respectively by Drs Toni Huber, Lawrence Epstein, and Christaan Klieger) marked some concerted efforts in recent Tibetological fields to expand our topical-cum-geographical attention to areas previously conceived 'peripheral' to the 'core' of Tibetan history and culture. Working on the axis of power, space and identity, the 'regional' (Amdo or Kham) and 'Diaspora' approaches, were built upon a set of inquiries concerning tradition and modernity, history and culture, nationalism and ethnicity. Such a critical interrogation would be conducive to the 'increasingly less essentialized approaches in the field of Tibetology', as Dr Epstein commented. By bringing into focus the plurality and diversity of the 'voices of the margins', it helps unfix some perceived homogeneity of Tibetan culture and history. Difference surely matters here. *
Peng Wenbin is a PhD candidate at
the Department of Anthropology, University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, USA.
E-mail: peng@u.washington.edu