An interview with
Anne-Marie Blondeau
Position & Affiliation: Director of Studies Emeritus, l’Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (School for Advanced Studies), Paris
Date: June 4, 2019 in Levallois, France
Interviewed by: Emanuela Garatti and Anna Sehnalova
Captions and excerpt by: Chandra Ehm
Cite this archive
Oral History of Tibetan Studies. (2021, December 2). An interview with Anne-Marie Blondeau. Retrieved 15 October 2024, from https://oralhistory.iats.info/interviews/anne-marie-blondeau/.
“An interview with Anne-Marie Blondeau.” Oral History of Tibetan Studies, 2 Dec. 2021, https://oralhistory.iats.info/interviews/anne-marie-blondeau/.
Oral History of Tibetan Studies. 2021. An interview with Anne-Marie Blondeau. [online], Available at: https://oralhistory.iats.info/interviews/anne-marie-blondeau/ [Accessed 15 October 2024]
Oral History of Tibetan Studies. “An interview with Anne-Marie Blondeau.” 2021, December 2. https://oralhistory.iats.info/interviews/anne-marie-blondeau/.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this interview are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Oral History of Tibetan Studies project.
Timestamps:
- 0:00 Intro
- 0:34 Where do you come from, where did you grow up?
- 12:33 Do you have any particular memories of things that particularly influenced you in your upbringing?
- 23:58 Are there also other women that inspired you in your youth such as your mother?
- 33:20 How could you keep up this passion when you were younger?
- 39:42 You had this thirst, this love, for adventures, the great spaces, the mountains, the countryside?
- 41:09 Did this love influenced your choice towards Tibetan studies?
- 55:09 Have the books by Fosco Maraini and Giuseppe Tucci illustrated to you a more concrete idea of what was feasible in the field?
- 57:14 What were then the information on Tibet that you had access to when you were young?
- 1:00:58 Did this family rekindle your curiosity? Did you have the chance to re-discuss with him your studies?
- 1:04:03 Was being a young woman prevent you from wanting to be a professor or being in a field of study that might have been considered suitable for a young woman?
- 1:08:10 Can you describe a bit the studies you did at university and at which university you undertook them?
- 1:13:45 Can I ask you about your co-students within Tibetan and Sanskrit studies?
- 1:14:07 In which year did you enroll into Tibetan and Sanskrit studies?
- 1:30:07 Why did you not study yet together with Dagpo Rinpoche?
- 1:38:23 What was the approach to Tibetan, by way of a manual?
- 1:42:31 And at the end of your studies, what was the access you had to the manuscripts? Did Mlle Lalou help you to get access to the texts?
- 1:51:42 Do you have some particular anecdotes on Mlle Lalou that you would like to share with us?
- 1:57:28 So, you did your initial work with her and then moved on with Rolf Stein?
- 2:15:47 Were there other Tibetans that you met in Paris at that time?
- 2:30:15 That was the moment where you started out your career as a teacher and researcher?
- 2:38:15 Your professional career began in 1959 as a trainee at the CNRS. Can you give me some more details about these first ten years of research at the CNRS?
- 2:45:05 What was the reason that you set up a research project on Tibet at the CNRS?
- 2:57:27 After your career at the CNRS, you were in charge of teaching at the INALCO?
- 3:02:08 How did you experience the transition from pure research to a teaching?
- 3:09:07 After your teaching career at INALCO, you then received the chair of director of studies at EPHE in 1975 where you spend the rest of your career?
- 3:18:12 Could you tell us a little bit about the students you had at the EPHE?
- 3:20:28 What were the general themes of your lectures and classes at the EPHE?
- 3:25:20 Since you mentioned the Bonpos, do you have any recollection of the first members of the Bonpo community who arrived for the first time in France or in Europe?
- 3:33:37 What were the relationships that the French Tibetologists had with Tibetan Tibetologists in Tibet, China and India?
- 3:44:59 What about collective projects with Tibetans in exile?
- 3:46:29 Were you forced as a woman to take decisions between your career and personal matters?
- 3:53:40 Can you say something about your work “Le Tibet est-il chinois?” (Authenticating Tibet)?
- 4:09:30 You first went to Tibet in 1991. When was the last time you visited a Tibetan cultural region?
- 4:13:16 You also mentioned visits to Bhutan?
- 4:17:04 Have you ever visited the exile communities, especially in India?
- 4:19:57 What are your memories of the previous IATS conferences?
- 4:28:44 What were the developments you could observe in the French Tibetology?
- 4:37:51 Could you say something about the development of your research interests, what where your thoughts behind it?
- 4:43:48 Did you have some students you consider particularly important? Or who are continuing your work?
- 4:52:42 Do you have some important memories of colleagues of yours such as Corneille Jest or Alexander McDonald, or Michael and Antony Aris?
- 5:14:12 Do you have advice for the young generations of Tibetologists to come?
- 5:22:19 Can you think of something Tibetology brought to your life?
- 5:27:02 What did you find the most interesting and the most challenging in your work?
- 5:34:31 What do you consider your most significant academic contribution?
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