An interview with
Michael Oppitz
Position & Affiliation: Anthropologist, formerly affiliated with the University of Zurich and the Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zurich
Date: September 21–22, 2019 in Berlin, Germany
Interviewed by: Anna Sehnalova
Cite this archive
Oral History of Tibetan Studies. (2021, December 2). An interview with Michael Oppitz. Retrieved 18 January 2025, from https://oralhistory.iats.info/interviews/michael-oppitz/.
“An interview with Michael Oppitz.” Oral History of Tibetan Studies, 2 Dec. 2021, https://oralhistory.iats.info/interviews/michael-oppitz/.
Oral History of Tibetan Studies. 2021. An interview with Michael Oppitz. [online], Available at: https://oralhistory.iats.info/interviews/michael-oppitz/ [Accessed 18 January 2025]
Oral History of Tibetan Studies. “An interview with Michael Oppitz.” 2021, December 2. https://oralhistory.iats.info/interviews/michael-oppitz/.
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
- 0:35 Where do you come from? How do you remember your childhood?
- 05:16 What was your mother’s background?
- 08:58 Were your parents of German origin?
- 10:30 What kind of child were you? What did you like to do as a child?
- 12:25 Some other important childhood memories?
- 14:44 How do you remember Edmund Hillary and Tenzin Norgay?
- 21:20 When you were in high school, did you maintain your interest in Asia?
- 24:10 How do you remember your studies at Berkeley?
- 27:18 How do you remember these two? Gary Snyder and Jack Kerouac?
- 46:45 Speaking about the Dalai Lama in Zurich. How do you remember his visits?
- 58:48 How did you do fieldwork among the Sherpas?
- 1:21:44 You mentioned Claude Lévi-Strauss. Could you say more about your relationship and interaction with him?
- 1:41:33 There is a variety of ethnological work done on Tibetan cultures, very often Tibetan exile groups. Also, in local contexts. Have you been to Tibet in 1965?
- 1:45:43 How do you remember Alexander MacDonald?
- 1:46:50 You were visited Oxford in the 1960–70s, How do you remember the scene there and meeting Edward Evans-Pritchard?
- 1:53:41 How do you remember Corneille Jest?
- 1:55:41 How do you remember your time in Bonn and Cologne?
- 1:59:04 How did the classes look like?
- 2:12:07 We have not touched on most of your fieldwork sites. Can you say something about them? You have worked on a spectacular array. How did you navigate all of it?
- 2:28:09 Could you speak about your work in Zurich?
- 2:34:10 Which courses did you teach?
- 2:41:35 Why do you think visual art and material culture are an important part of culture? How do you think these dimensions are special?
- 2:51:55 When you were in Nepal in the 1960’s and 70’s, did you have any relationships with the hippie scene there?
- 2:54:31 What has your career given to you? How has it changed your life?
- 2:54:57 What did you find the most interesting and the most challenging in your work?
- 2:55:39 What do you consider your most significant contribution and why?
- 2:56:29 Are there things you would still like to do?
- 2:57:49 As we are conducting this project for contemporary and future researchers and students in Tibet, do you have a message to them?