Reading Gsan yig/Thob yig Literature from the Tibetan Frontiers of Late Imperial China
January 26-27, 2018 • 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM • UC Riverside

Funded by a Henry Luce Foundation/ACLS Program in China Studies Collaborative Reading-Workshop grant, this two-day workshop will host an interdisciplinary and international team of scholars to read together a widespread but neglected Tibetan autobiographical genre known as “records of teachings received” (Tib. gsan yg/thob yig). Select participants will direct readings of selections of gsan yig texts, explore associated visual culture, and together with the workshop participants, identify, translate, and interpret sections from each text where the author discusses their work as literature (i.e. reflections on style, rhetorical devices, and gsan yig as literary self-stylization). Participants will also discuss future collaborative digital humanities projects that could better map and share the mass data points described in these texts (person, places, transmission).

The workshop is free and open to the public but space is limited. To inquire about participating, contact event organizer, Matthew King (matthew.king@ucr.edu).

Schedule

Friday, January 26: Workshop Day 1
 10am: Welcoming remarks
10:15-12pm: SESSION I: Orientation Session (Ryan Jones and Matthew King)  and Zawa Damdin on the Purpose of Writing Gsan Yig (Matthew King)
1pm-3pm: SESSION II: Medicine and the Gsan Yig of the Fifth Dalai Lama (Stacey Van Vleet)
3:15pm-5pm: SESSION III: Genre Structures, Transmission Knowledge Models, and Lineal Matrices in Tibetan Gsan yig Literature (Michael Sheehy)

Saturday, January 27: Workshop Day 2 
10am-12pm: SESSION IV: Transmission into Mongol Lands -Zanabazar, Zaya Paṇḍita, Lamyn Gegeen (Agata Bareja-Starzyńska and Sangseraima Ujeed)
1pm-3pm: SESSION V: Visualizing Transmission, Transmitting Visuality (Uranchimeg Tsultem and Sarah Richardson)
3:15pm-5pm: SESSION VI: Response by Dr. Lisa Raphals (Professor, Comp Lit & Foreign languages, UC Riverside); Concluding discussion, future plans

Participants
Agata Bareja-Starzyńska (Professor, Dept. of Oriental Studies, University of Warsaw)
Sangseraima Ujeed (Doctoral Candidate, Dept. of Tibetan and Himalayan Studies, Oxford)
Uranchimeg Tsultem (UC Berkeley)
Kunga Sherab (Doctoral Student, Dept. of Religious Studies, University of Toronto)
Michael Sheehy (Program Director Ming & Life Institute, Faculty Member Dept. Religious Studies, University of Virginia)
Stacey Van Vleet (Postdoctoral Fellow, Dept. of History, UC Berkeley)
Vesna Wallace (Professor, Dept. of Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara)
Sarah Richardson (Faculty Member, Department of Historical Studies, University of Toronto, Mississauga)
Erdene Baatar Erdene-Ochir (Doctoral Candidate, Dept. of Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara)
Ryan Jones (Doctoral Candidate, Dept. of Religious Studies, McGill University)
Matthew W. King (Assistant Professor, Dept. of Religious Studies, UC Riverside)
Elizabeth Miller (Masters Student, Buddhist Studies, University of California, Riverside)
Steven Quach (Doctoral Student, Buddhist Studies, University of California, Riverside)

Location
UCR Center for Ideas and Society, College Building South.
Parking permits required in Lot 3 (red). Nearby lots include Lot 8 (blue) and Lot 6 (yellow).
Inquire about permits for non-UCR workshop participants at cis@ucr.edu

Sponsors
Henry Luce Foundation/ACLS Program in China Studies Collaborative Reading-Workshop Grant
UCR Center for Ideas and Society
Department of Religious Studies