FYI: New Book on Tibetan Identity, Culture, Society, & Religion , is now available

[Mittal Sushil]

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CONSTRUCTING TIBETAN CULTURE: Contemporary Perspectives

Edited by Frank J. Korom

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_Constructing Tibetan Culture_ provocatively explores the numerous
ways in which Tibet has been represented to the outside world in the
past and present. The volume attempts to move away from earlier
colonial and romantic descriptions of Tibet as either an utopian
paradise or a degenerated wasteland. By interrogating such dichotomous
representations generated by foreigners in both historical and modern,
ethnographic contexts, the authors demonstrate that culture-building
is an ongoing and dialectic process involving a number of different
cultural groups, both indigenous and foreign.
   Through an examination of a wide variety of themes ranging from the
terminology we use to describe Tibet, its people, religion, and
culture to the virtual exclusion of Tibet from the literature on global
diasporas, _Constructing Tibetan Culture_ attempts to relocate modern
Tibetan studies squarely within the realms of anthropology and cultural
studies. By addressing such theoretical problems as the foreign
appropriation of Tibetan artifacts and religious practices, as well as
the emergence of newly created or renegotiated expressive traditions in
exile, the contributors to the volume share a common concern for moving
away from essentialist understandings of Tibetan culture in favor of
more critical approaches within an interdisciplinary academic context.
   With its extended set of case studies about Tibetan culture and
worldview, _Constructing Tibetan Culture_ suggests that the concept of
"authenticity" is not easily defined in the modern world, for it
becomes a contested concept when it enters the world marketplace of
culture. In this global arena, many communities bring their own
interpretive agendas to bear on matters relating to Tibet and its people,
forcing Tibetans themselves to enter into a densely layered conversation
about their own identities, cultural traditions, and religions.

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CONTENTS:

Introduction
        Frank J. Korom

PART I: IMAGINING TIBETAN CULTURE AND RELIGION

1. "Lamaism" and the Disappearance of Tibet
        Donald S. Lopez, Jr.

2. A Landscape for Dying: The Bardo Thodol and Western Fantasy
        Peter Bishop

3. Old Age Tibet in New Age America
        Frank J. Korom

4. Reading Negotiations in the Tibetan Diaspora
        Steven Venturino

PART II: UNBOUND CANONS: AESTHETICS IN FLUX

5. When Tibetan Refugees Rock, Paradigms Roll: Echoes
   from Dharamsala's Musical Soundscape
        Keila Diehl

6. Struggling with Shangri-La: A Tibetan Artist in Exile
        Clare Harris

7. Grids and Serpents: A Tibetan Foundation Ritual
   in Switzerland
        Mary Van Dyke

Index

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SUBJECT AREAS:

Anthropology / Cultural Studies / Tibetan Studies / South Asian Studies

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ABOUT THE EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTORS:

Frank J. Korom is curator of Asian and Middle Eastern Collections
  at the Museum of International Folk Art, New Mexico

Peter Bishop is associate professor of Communications and
  Information Studies at the University of South Australia

Keila Diehl recently completed her doctorate in Anthropology at
  the University of Texas, Austin

Clare Harris is lecturer in the School of World Art Studies and
  Museology at the University of East Anglia

Donald S. Lopez, Jr. is professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies
  at the University of Michigan

Mary Van Dyke received her doctorate in the Art History and
  Archaeology Department of the School of Oriental and African
  Studies at the University of London

Steven Venturino is a doctoral candidate in the Department of
  English at Loyola University, Chicago

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PRAISE for _Constructing Tibetan Culture_

"The first book to explore the entire range of international
representations of Tibetan culture. In one brilliant sweep, the
contributors examine such diverse phenomena as orientalist ideas about
Shangri-La, romantic conceptions of Lamaism, the influence of the Tibetan
Book of the Dead on Western literature, and the role of exile art in the
contemporary development of Tibetan culture. Fascinating!"

                                        Andre Gingrich
                                        University of Vienna


"This is the first book to take a serious look at...the refiguring of
Tibet in Western consciousness and of the complex and ambiguous position
of Tibetan refugees....[The contributors] examine Tibetan issues with the
full range of theoretical resources of contemporary scholarship. This is
an important book for Tibetan studies and is likely to interest many in
the wider fields of cultural studies and postmodern studies."

                                        Geoffrey Samuel
                                        Lancaster University

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BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION:

A volume in the "World Heritage Studies on Transnationalism and
Multiculturailsm" for which Mohammed A. Bamyeh serves as Series Editor.


Publication date: September 29, 1997            240 pp
1-896064-12-4 paperback                         US$19.95

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