བོད་རིག་པའི་ངག་རྒྱུན་ལོ་རྒྱུས།
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Conference Report — Tibetan studies in France (20th century): Testimonies and Memories

2 years ago
News, Report
Celebratory event on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Société Française d’Études du Monde Tibétain (SFEMT), 23 September 2022 at the Maison de l’Asie in Paris.

Writ­ten by Chandra Ehm, mem­ber of OHTS pro­ject and a co-organ­iser of the SFEMT event

This gath­er­ing to cel­eb­rate the ten-year anniversary of the French Soci­ety for Tibetan Stud­ies was excep­tion­al in its format. The out­look of this event was to remem­ber, learn, dis­cuss, and explore Tibetan stud­ies in France through­out the 20th cen­tury. The con­fer­ence not only suc­ceeded in bring­ing togeth­er stu­dents, early career research­ers, fac­ulty, and emer­it­us research­ers around their pas­sion for Tibetan cul­tures and reli­gions, but also in reunit­ing the dif­fer­ent dis­cip­lines with­in Tibetan stud­ies. It was a joy­ful for­um of learn­ing, exchange, and inspir­a­tion which the speak­ers and par­ti­cipants alike agreed should hap­pen more frequently.

The SFEMT’s pres­id­ent, Françoise Robin, intro­duced the even­ing, fol­lowed by brief intro­duct­ory remarks, from among oth­ers, the pres­id­ent of the INALCO (Insti­tut nation­al des langues et civil­isa­tions ori­entales) Jean-François Huchet, the pres­id­ent of the East Asi­an Civil­iz­a­tions Research Centre, Sylvie Hur­eau, as well as by the dir­ect­or of the CNRS (Centre nation­al de la rechere scientifique)-Centre for Him­alay­an Stud­ies, Nic­olas Sihlé.

Before launch­ing into round table dis­cus­sion, Samuel Thé­voz gave a short yet rich present­a­tion, map­ping out the begin­nings of Tibetan stud­ies in France. He retraced the devel­op­ments of the field, from its begin­nings in philo­lo­gic­al and tex­tu­al research, spear­headed by Jaques Bacot and Mar­celle Lalou, to what we under­stand as mod­ern Tibetan stud­ies in France today.

The roundtable con­ver­sa­tion was undoubtedly the heart of this Parisi­an soirée, hos­ted in the grand salon of the Mais­on de L’Asie, just a stone-throw away from the Eif­fel tower. Each of the invited speak­ers con­trib­uted in a very unique way to the inter­act­ive dis­cus­sion. The con­ver­sa­tion with Anne-Mar­ie Blon­deau, Katia Buf­fet­rille, Pas­cale Doll­fus, Amy Heller, Samten Karmay, Fernand Mey­er, Françoise Pom­maret, Charles Ramble, Heath­er Stod­dard, was elo­quently mod­er­ated by Nic­ola Schneider. She guided the speak­ers along six key themes.

Katia Buffetrille, Heather Stoddart, and Amy Heller. © Olivier Adam
Katia Buf­fet­rille, Heath­er Stod­dart, and Amy Heller. © Olivi­er Adam

The first top­ic addressed was the learn­ing pro­cess of the Tibetan lan­guage. Both Madame Blondeau’s and Fernand Mayer’s rather per­son­al accounts vividly described their exper­i­ences of study­ing Tibetan in the early days, seem­ingly noth­ing like what we know today. Tibetan was read as though it was Lat­in and there were no dic­tion­ar­ies or study materials.
The second ques­tion focused on how they star­ted their careers and what obstacles there were, Charles Ramble and Amy Heller took up the mantle here. Both reflec­ted on how there was no field of Tibetan stud­ies as we know it today when they star­ted their careers. Dis­cip­lines such as eth­no­graphy, philo­logy, his­tory, and art his­tory would not com­mu­nic­ate between them­selves. The ulti­mate focus lay on tex­tu­al study, rather than on Tibetan social his­tory, mater­i­al­ity, and oth­er frames of Tibetan cultures.

Madame Blondeau and Charles Ramble. © Olivier Adam
Madame Blon­deau and Charles Ramble. © Olivi­er Adam

The third theme, devel­op­ments with­in the field, was taken on by Katia Buf­fet­rille, Pas­cale Doll­fuss, and Françoise Pom­maret. They unan­im­ously agreed that both the field and work with­in the field had under­gone a meta­morph­os­is. They illus­trated that we had not only changed cen­tury, but that digit­al access had changed everything in the field.
The fourth and fifth themes on Tibetan stud­ies as a field and its future out­look high­lighted from fur­ther per­spect­ives the devel­op­ments Tibetan stud­ies have gone through since its beginnings.
The roundtable found its end in each speak­er shar­ing her or his most not­able per­son­al memory from their long careers in Tibetan stud­ies. (For those who speak French this event has been recor­ded and can be watched here in its entirety)

A French-Tibetan buf­fet and a con­vivi­al aperó roun­ded off the even­ing. Dur­ing this inform­al part of the event, many of the speak­ers and guests expressed to the organ­isers what a rare oppor­tun­ity this event presen­ted to meet col­leagues from all career stages and col­leagues from all dis­cip­lines in Tibetan studies.

 

Group picture of the speakers. © Olivier Adam
Group pic­ture of the speak­ers. © Olivi­er Adam
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