Category Archives: Conference

A visual history of the army, Conference, Events, Home, Paris

CYCLE DE CONFERENCES / Archives photographiques du monde tibétain pour la recherche en sciences humaines

Organisé tous les jeudis du mois de janvier 2023, pour accompagner l’exposition “L’armée tibétaine en vues : photographies historiques (1895-1959)”

à l’Auditorium de l’Humathèque

Campus Condorcet – 10 Cours des Humanités – 93322 Aubervilliers (métro : Front Populaire)

Jeudi 5 janvier 2023, 17h30 à 19h00 (CET)

Pr. Clare HARRIS FBA (School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography and the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford)

Unpacking and Animating the Archive: Some reflections on ways of working with Tibet photographs

Format hybride/ Also on Zoom 

Jeudi 12 janvier 2023, 17h00 à 18h30

Pr. Fernand MEYER (Centre d’Études Himalayennes) et Rémi CHAIX (Centre d’Études Himalayennes)

Fonds perdus ou archives visuelles pour la recherche en anthropologie sur le monde tibétain ?
À travers l’exemple de la documentation photographique produite par C. Jest (1930-2019)

La conférence de Kunsang Namgyal Lama initialement prévue le jeudi 19 janvier est déplacée au 26 janvier à 15h30 en raison du mouvement social annoncé.

Jeudi 26 janvier 2023, 15h30 à 17h00

Kunsang NAMGYAL LAMA (Centre d’Études Himalayennes)

La documentation photographique dans la pratique de l’historien de l’art du monde tibétain

En présentiel

Jeudi 26 janvier 2023, 17h00 à 18h30

Samuel THÉVOZ (THALIM)

« Une infinité d’images » ? Visions du Tibet et usages du médium photographique au début du XXe siècle (à partir des fonds d’archives de Jacques Bacot et d’Alexandra David-Neel)

Format hybride / Also online

Télécharger le programme du cycle de conférences

Des visites guidées de l’exposition d’une durée de 30 mn par Alice Travers sont proposées les jeudis 12 janvier à 16h00 et 26 janvier à 14h30. RDV dans le hall d’entrée de l’Humathèque.

Plan d’accès

Conference, Events, Home, Others, TibArmy Monthly Seminar, TibArmy Seminar Cycle, Years 2020 - 2022

Book presentation: “Conflict in a Buddhist Society: Tibet under the Dalai Lamas”

Thursday 9 December 2021 – 5:30 pm –7:00 pm

Peter Schwieger (University of Bonn) presented his book “Conflict in a Buddhist Society: Tibet under the Dalai Lamas”

The presentation is now available online (see below).

Conflict in a Buddhist Society presents a new way of looking at Tibet under the rule of the Dalai Lamas (1642–1959). Although this era can be clearly delineated as a distinct period in the history of Tibet, many questions remain concerning the specific form of rule established. Author Peter Schwieger attempts to make transparent the complexity and dynamics of the Dalai Lamas’ domination using the work of sociologist Niklas Luhman (1927–1998) as his theoretical starting point. Luhman’s systems theory allows Schwieger to approach Tibetan history and culture as a remarkable effort to create—under times of great conflict and stress and using uncommon means—a stable social and political order. Such a methodology provides the distance needed to move beyond event-based narrative history and understand the structures that made social action possible in Tibet and the operations by which its society as a whole distinguished itself from its environment.

Schwieger begins by asking the crucial question of how Tibet’s society dealt with conflict. The chapters that follow answer this question from various perspectives: history and memory; domination; hierarchy; center and periphery; semantics; morality and ethics; ritual; law; and war. Each reveals a different avenue for cross-cutting discourses in the historical and social sciences. Together, they provide a comprehensive picture of how conflicts were portrayed in Tibet society and how the manner in which they were handled stabilized the country for a considerable time but were ultimately unsuccessful in the face of radical upheavals in its environment.

Situated at the intersection of systems theory, conflict theory, and Tibetan/Inner Asian history and society, Conflict in a Buddhist Society will be of considerable interest to students and scholars in these areas. Its theoretical rather than narrative-descriptive approach to the history of the three centuries of Dalai Lama rule will be welcomed as wide-ranging and insightful.

View the presentation in full screen mode

Conference, Events, Home, Years 2020 - 2022

PANEL CONFERENCE AT UCLA: BUDDHISM AND VIOLENCE IN ASIA

November 1st 2019, 14.00-16.00, conference by Alice Travers, Ryosuke Kobayashi and Federica Venturi, Charles E. Young Research Library Presentation Room UCLA

Schigatse, tibetisches Militär mit Dzong, Truppenparade (Shigatse, Tibetan Army with castle, military parade).

Alice Travers (CNRS, France), Ryosuke Kobayashi (Kyushu University, Japan), Federica Venturi (CNRS, France/ USA) are invited by UCLA Asia Pacific Center to a panel presentation which tackles the question of Buddhism and Violence in Asia through “The Case of the Military in Tibet during the Ganden Phodrang Period (1642 – 1959)”. The panel aims to examine the rapport between the Buddhist government of the Dalai Lama and its army from multiple viewpoints:

Alice Travers, CNRS, CRCAO: “TibArmy’s Recent Research Developments on the Theme of Buddhism and the Military in Tibet”

Ryosuke Kobayashi, Kyushu University: “Militarization of Dargyé Monastery: Contested Borders on the Sino-Tibetan Frontier during the Early Twentieth Century”

Federica Venturi, CNRS, CRCAO / UCLA: “His Holiness’ Army: Some examples from the Documents of the Fifth and Thirteenth Dalai Lamas”

To read more about the panel conference:
https://www.international.ucla.edu/apc/centralasia/event/13955

Conference, Events, Foreign influences on the Tibtan army, Home, Tibetan Military Culture : Interactions with Other Traditions - Conference 2018

Programme and abstract for TibArmy conference (June 18th, Oxford)

The conference “Military Culture in Tibet during the Ganden Phodrang Period (1642-1959): The Interaction between Tibetan and Other Asian Military Traditions” is the second conference organised in the context of the TibArmy project.

You can download the programme and the abstracts here.

The conference is open but registration is mandatory. You have until Wednesday 13th, June to register via our online platform. Seats are limited and will be attributed on a first come first serve basis.

The conference is hosted by the Wolfson College.

Conference, Events, Home, TibArmy Seminar Cycle

Seminar cycle: “Armed forces of the Ancient Kingdom of Dergé in the 18th Century: a preliminary study”

December 14th,  17.00-18.30, conference by Rémi Chaix, Maison de l’Asie – 4th floor – (22 avenue du Président Wilson)

© Jampa Phuntsok (?-1667), considered as the founder of the Kingdom of Dergé, in the Dergé Gyelrab

The making and the expansion of the territory of the Dergé (sDe dge) Kingdom, between the mid-17th and late 18th centuries, were partly achieved by military action. Yet, no archives related to the forces that were mobilised (their size, their organisation, their equipment, etc.) and their modalities of action are, to my knowledge, available to document this crucial aspect of the influence and the prestige of this kingdom across Kham and, more widely, the Tibetan world.

This paper will show how the biographies of the chaplains of the house of Dergé, particularly those of Situ Panchen and Palden Chokyong, allow us to glimpse some aspects of the engagement of the armed forces in the context of internal conflicts in the kingdom, against certain neighbours and also during large-scale conflicts, such as the Jinchuan wars, alongside the Manchu armies.

Conference, Events, Home, The Ganden Phodrang Army and Buddhism - Symposium 2017

Buddhism, both the Means and the End of the Ganden Phodrang Army. A State-of-the Field Review on Buddhism vis-à-vis the Military in Tibet

To quote this article:

Travers, Alice and Venturi, Federica, 2017. “Buddhism, both the Means and the End of the Ganden Phodrang Army. A State-of-the Field Review on Buddhism vis-à-vis the Military in Tibet” in https://tibarmy.hypotheses.org.

Detail, tangkha on the life of Gesar (Zhang Changhong (ed.), Sichuan Museum 2012. From the Treasury of Tibetan Pictorial Art: Painted Scrolls of the Life of Gesar/ Gesaer tang ka yan jiu/ Ge sar rgyal po’i sgrung thang skor gyi zhib ’jug. Sichuan Museum, Sichuan University Museum and Musée Guimet, Paris: Ke yan gui hua yu yan fa chuang xin zhong xin bian zhu.  Beijing: Zhonghua shu ju.)

The history of Tibet is full of warfare, and the period of the Ganden Phodrang (dga’ ldan pho brang)  is no exception. The aim of the TibArmy project’s first conference in Paris, held on 11 July 2017, was to explore the multi-faceted relationship between Buddhism and military affairs during this period. As an explicitly Buddhist state,  the protection of Buddhism was the avowed and ultimate aim of all military action undertaken on behalf  of the Ganden Phodrang– whether by its own army, by ad hoc militias or imperial forces. Buddhist monks often played prominent roles in Tibetan military affairs during this period. Also Buddhist doctrine and especially ritual liturgies of protection and destruction were used to support military action, and in Tibetan sources such methods were often portrayed as determining factors in the outcomes of armed conflict.

This blog-post offers some background to the subject by presenting an overview of prior scholarship on the relationship between Buddhism and the military in Tibet, which is adapted from the introduction presented at the conference by Alice Travers and Federica Venturi, and will appear in due course, in an extended version, as part of the introduction of our forthcoming volume, along with the collected papers of the conference (see the list of papers).

Continue reading Buddhism, both the Means and the End of the Ganden Phodrang Army. A State-of-the Field Review on Buddhism vis-à-vis the Military in Tibet →

Conference, Events, Home, The Ganden Phodrang Army and Buddhism - Symposium 2017

TibArmy Symposium – Call for Papers open until March 30th

The Call for Papers for the first TibArmy international symposium – The Ganden Phrodang Army and Buddhist – is open. The conference will take place in Paris, on July 11th. The Call is open until March 30th, all information – themes and submission process – is available on the website created for the conference: www.tibarmysymp2017.sciencesconf.org.

Kusung (bodyguard) unit in Norbu Lingka courtyard with Kathags (Photo by Tse Ten Tashi 2000.36.3.50, Newark Museum Collection