Please join us for a special online session with writer Nyima Tso and translators Nicole Willock and Dhondup Tashi Rekjong. The event will begin with a reading of Nyima Tso's poem, ས་མཐའི་འཚོ་བ།, in both Tibetan and English. The reading will be followed by a discussion on Tibetan women's writing in general, and the poem and its translation process in particular.
Time: 10:00-11:30am Eastern Time, Friday, November 13, 2020.
Register here: https://denison.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcpfuysrTotHtejZI3OrS9u198nvePv9fb7
Download the poem in Tibetan: ས་མཐའི་འཚོ་བ།.
Download the translation in English: Life in Samtha.
About the speakers:
Nyima Tso ཉི་མ་འཚོ། was born in Bora village near Amdo Labrang, currently based in India since coming into exile in 1999. After completing high school, she continued her study at the Academy of Tibetan Culture, a higher Tibetan Studies Program at Norbulingka Institute in 2003. She completed her bachelor's egree in 2005 and master's degree in 2008. She has published collections of poetry and short stories, a series of children's books, as well as research reports. She is also the editor of Mayum, a quarterly publication with articles by Tibetan women writers in exile.
Nicole Willock is an associate professor of Asian religions at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, with a Ph.D. in Tibetan Studies and Religious Studies from Indiana University Bloomington (2011). Through her translations of writings by Tibetan polymaths, such as Tseten Zhabdrung (Tshe tan zhabs drung ’Jigs med rigs pa’i blo gros, 1910-1985), her research examines the intersections between moral agency, Tibetan literature, Buddhist modernism, and state-driven secularization projects in twentieth-century Tibet. She was a 2017 Research Fellow of The Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studies, administered by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), for her forthcoming book Lineages of the Literary: Tibetan Buddhist Polymaths of Socialist China, contracted with Columbia University Press. She served two terms on the steering committee of the Tibet and Himalayan Region Unit for the American Academy of Religion (2011-2017) and now serves as co-chair.
Dhondup Tashi Rekjong རིག་འབྱུང་དོན་གྲུབ་བཀྲ་ཤིས། is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Religious Studies, Northwestern University. He was born in Rebkong in the Amdo region of Tibet. When he was sixteen, he escaped Tibet, crossing the Himalayas on foot into Nepal. Since then, he has studied in India, Norway, the US and Canada. His research concentration lies at the intersections of religion, history, culture, and language. He is primarily interested in the life-writing literature of 20th century Tibet. He has edited several Tibetan literary blogs: Khabdha, Karkhung, and TibetWebDigest. He is one of the editors (with Carole, Lama Jabb, Nicole, and Dechen) of the forthcoming book “The Tibet Reader” by Duke University Press.
