Dear Vanessa,

I, too, am taking students to Nepal (and Bhutan) this coming year (in January). :-)

Of the various things you might check out, and which haven't yet been mentioned, I would recommend the work of Mark Liechty. His book, Out Here in Kathmandu, is great. He also has a short, accessible piece (with the same title) in the edited volume, Everyday Life in South Asia.

I can give you some further suggestions offlist, if you like.

Dave Fiordalis
Linfield College

On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 11:26 AM, Lubin, Tim <LubinT@wlu.edu> wrote:
Vanessa,

I am co-leading a four-week student class in Nepal this coming May.  The syllabus is not finalized yet, and it is interdisciplinary (I am doing it with an economist), but it will be presentable (if not quite finalized) shortly.  We are having them read from Levy, Höfer, Bennett, Gellner, and Michaels for the readings on social patterns, religion, and pre-20th-c. law.  Our course also gets into questions related to development (my colleague handles this) and laws and the current constitution-drafting.  On the latter, see the work of Mara Malagodi: https://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staff61759.php

Best, 

Timothy Lubin
Professor of Religion and Adjunct Professor of Law
Washington and Lee University
Lexington, Virginia 24450

http://home.wlu.edu/~lubint 

From: <Michaels>, "Michaels, Axel" <michaels@asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de>
Date: Wednesday, October 1, 2014 11:45 AM
To: Vanessa Sasson <V.Sasson@marianopolis.edu>, "indology@list.indology.info" <indology@list.indology.info>
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Nepal reading list

Dear Vanessa,

here is a short list of some additional reading (only titles in English, somewhat outdated but I do not have time to update it). I'll send you offline a more extended list. Hope this helps. I mark those with an asterisks which I find especially useful for your purpose: 
Best, Axel


Prof. Dr. Axel Michaels| Acting Director Excellence Cluster "Asia and Europe in a Global Context"  | Director Dept. of Classical Indology, South Asia Institute  | Director Research Unit "Historical Documents of Nepal" of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities |Contact |Universität Heidelberg, Südasien-Institut| Im Neuenheimer Feld 330, D-69120 Heidelberg |Tel. +49-6221-548917 / Fax +49-6221-546338 | sek-michaels@uni-heidelberg.de (SAI office) | Axel.Michaels@urz.uni-heidelberg.de (official and personal) | michaels@asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de (Cluster mail) | Websites | http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/de/startseite.html | http://www.sai.uni-heidelberg.de/abt/IND/index.php | http://www.haw.uni-heidelberg.de/forschung/forschungsstellen/nepal/projekt.de.html



History:
Burghart, Richard (1987), "Gifts to the gods: power, prosperity and ceremonial in Nepal", in: D. Cannadine and S. Price (eds.), Rituals of Royalty - Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 237-270.

Kumar, Satish (1967), Rana Polity in Nepal - Origin and Growth. London: Asia Publishing House.

Regmi, Mahesh Chandra (1976), Landownership in Nepal. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.

Stiller, Ludwig F. (1976), The Silent Cry - The People of Nepal 1816-1839. Kathmandu: Sahoyogi Press.

  --- 1989. Prithivinarayan Shah in the Light of Dibya Upadesh. Kathmandu: Himalayan Book Centre (reprint, 1st ed. Ranchi 1968).

Whelpton, John. 1983. Jang Bahadur in Europe. Kathmandu: Sahayogi Press.

* ---. 1992. Kings, Soldiers and Priests: Nepalese Politics and the Rise of Jang Bahadur Rana, 1830-1857. Kathmandu: Ratna Pustak Bhandar.


Society and Law

Bennett, Lynn (1983), Dangerous Wives and Sacred Sisters - Social and Symbolic Roles of High-Caste Women in Nepal. New York: Columbia University Press.

*Höfer, Andras. 1979. The Caste Hierarchy and the State in Nepal - A Study of the Muluki Ain of 1854. Innsbruck: Universitätsverlag Wagner (Khumbu Himal, 13/2).

Michaels, Axel. 1993 "Widow burning in Nepal", in: Gerard Toffin (ed.), Nepal, Past and Present. Proceedings of the Franco-German Conference Art-et-Senans, June 1990. Paris: CNRS Editions, pp. 21-34.

 ---. 1994a. "The Legislation of Widow Burning in 19th-Century Nepal. Edition and Trans­lation of the Chapter Satijānyako of the Mulukī Ain", Asiatische Stu­dien XLVIII.4: 1213-1240.

 ---. 1997a. "The King and the Cow. On a Crucial Symbol of Hinduization", in: David Gellner, Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka and John Whelpton (eds.), Nationalism and Ethnicity in a Hindu Kingdom: The Politics of Culture in Con­temporary Nepal. Amsterdam: Har­wood Academic Publishers, 79-100.

---. The Price of Purity: The Religious Judge in 19th Century Nepal. Containing the Edition and Translation of the Chapters on the Dharmādhikārin in Two (Mulukī) Ains. Torino: CESMEO, 2005 [erschienen/published 2006] (Comitato „Corpus Juris Sancriticum et fontes iuris Asiae Meridianae et Centralis”; vol. 6)


Art

Gutschow, Niels, The Nepalese Caitya - 1500 Years of Buddhist Votive Architecture in the Kathmandu Valley. With Drawings by Bijay Basukala and an Introductory Essay on Newar Buddhism by David Gellner, Stuttgart 1997.

---. Architecture of Nepal, 3 vols. 2012.

-- and Bernhard Kölver, Bhaktapur - Ordered Space, Concepts and Functions in a Town of Nepal. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1975.

*Michael Hutt: Nepal. A Guide to the Art and Architecture of the Kathmandu Valley, Gartmore 1994.

*Slusser, Mary Shepherd (1982), Nepal Mandala - A Cultural Study of the Kathmandu Valley. 2 Vols., Princeton: Princeton University Press. 


Religion

Anderson, Mary M. (1971), The Festivals of Nepal. London: Allen & Unwin.

*Gellner, David: Monk, Householder, and Tantrik Priest. Newar Buddhism and its Hierarchy of Ritual. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1992.

*Levy, Robert. (1990), Mesocosm - Hinduism and the Organization of a Traditional Newar City in Nepal. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.

Locke, John K. (1980), Karunamaya - The Cult of Avalokiteśvara- Matsyendranāth in the Valley of Nepal. Kathmandu: Sahayogi Prakashan.

Michaels, Axel. Śiva in Trouble – Festivals and Rituals at the Paśupatinātha Temple of Deopatan (Nepal). Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

---- (2005). (with Niels Gutschow) Handling Death. The Dynamics of Death and Ancestor Rituals Among the Newars of Bhaktapur, Nepal. With Contributions by Johanna Buss and Nutan Sharma and a Film on DVD by Christian Bau. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag (Ethno-Indology; 3).

---. 2008. (with Niels Gutschow) Growing Up – Hindu and Buddhist Initiation Rituals among Newar Children in Bhaktapur, Nepal. With a Film on DVD by Christian Bau. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag (Ethno-Indology; 6).

 ---. (2012) (with Niels Gutschow) Getting Married – Hindu and Buddhist Marriage Rituals among Newars of Bhaktapur and Patan, Nepal. With a Film on DVD by Christian Bau. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag (Ethno-Indology; 12).


Conference volumes:

Chr. von Fürer-Haimendorf (Ed.), The Anthropology of Nepal. Warminster: Aris & Philips, 1974

 Hitchcock, John T., and Rex L. Jone (eds.): Spirit Possession in the Nepal Himalayas. Warminster (Engl.): Aris and Phillips, 1976.

Allen, Michael, and S.N. Mukherjee (eds.), Women in India and Nepal. Canberra: ANU, 1982.

 Kölver, Bernhard (ed.). 1986. Formen kulturellen Wandels und andere Beiträge zur Erforschung desHimālaya. Sankt Augustin: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag.

 --- (ed.) 1992. Aspects of Nepalese Traditions. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.

 Gutschow, Niels; Michaels, Axel (eds.). 1987. Heritage of the Kathmandu Valley: Proceedings of an International Conference in Lübeck, 1987. Sankt Augustin: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag

 Kölver, Bernhard  (Ed.) (1992), "Seminar on German Research on Nepal" in Kathmandu, March 12-15, 1990.Kathmandu: Nepal research Centree.

 Brauen, Martin; Ramble, Charles (eds.). 1993. Anthropology of Tibet and the Himalaya. Zurich: Ethnological Museum of the University of Zurich

 Toffin, Gerard (ed). 1993. Nepal, Past and Present: Proceedings of the Franco-German Conference Art-et-Senans, June 1990. Paris: CNRS Editions, 21-34.

 Blondeau, Anne-Marie; Steinkellner, Ernst (eds.). 1996. Reflections of the Mountain. Essays on the History and Social Meaning of the Mountain Cult in Tibet and the Himalaya.Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.

 Michaels, Axel, Cornelia Vogelsanger, Annette Wilke (eds.), Wild Godesses in India and Nepal, Berne 1996.

 Lienhard, Siegfried (ed.). 1996. Change and Continuity: Studies in the Nepalese Culture of the Kathmandu Valley. Turin: Edizioni Dell'orso (CESMEO).

 Bickel, Balthasar; Gaenszle, Martin (eds.). 1999. Cultural Horizons and Practices in Himalayan Space. Zurich: Ethnological Museum of the University of Zurich.

 Gutschow, Niels, Axel Michaels, Charles Ramble, Ernst Steinkellner (Hrsg.),Sacred Landscape of the Himalaya. Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2003. 


From: Vanessa Sasson <V.Sasson@marianopolis.edu>
Date: Tuesday, September 30, 2014 8:44 PM
To: "indology@list.indology.info" <indology@list.indology.info>
Subject: [INDOLOGY] Nepal reading list

Dear colleagues,

This coming January, I will be making the adventurous move of bringing 15 students to Nepal. I have not been in 20 years, so there is a lot of catching up to do!

The students will each be bringing at least one book about Nepal with them (aside from the research they will be doing before we leave), and the books will serve as a kind of on-site library at the hotel for them.  I am trying to put together a good reading list for them to choose from - anything from history of Nepal, to the environment, and of course religion, art and culture. I have already included a few of David Gellner's books, Todd Lewis' Popular Buddhism, and Whelpton's History of Nepal.

If any of you have recommendations to add, I would be most grateful. I am happy to circulate the results of this reading list after I am done putting it together. Of course, if you have great articles to include, I will happily to include those as well.

Best wishes,
Vanessa R. Sasson
Religious Studies
Marianopolis College

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