Join us for an event with Zhao Zhong, the Director of Green Camel Bell, on Nature Conservation and Public Participation in the Tibetan Plateau. He will share his work titled "Nature Conservation and Public Participation: Practices of a Grassroots Environmental NGO on the Tibetan Plateau." This event is open to faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students from CU and THI.

• Date: February 7, 2025
• Location: Gugg 201E
• Time: 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM

Abstract: 

The grasslands of the Tibetan Plateau serve a special function in protecting the ecological function of this region at the headwaters of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River. However, natural grasslands in this region are degraded to various degrees, due to human, socioeconomic, climate change, and threats from overpopulation of some species. Enhancing public participation in ecological conservation can be a feasible bottom-up solution for grassland degradation. The presentation will demonstrate how environmental NGOs work with local herders, government, schools, and enterprises to relieve the stocking pressure on grassland and improve the ecological environment through public participation.

About Zhao Zhong:  

Zhao Zhong is the founder and director of Green Camel Bell, a grass-root environmental NGO in Northwest China. He has done work within environmental education, water pollution monitoring, and community-based eco-agriculture and sustainable development and investment. He was a Yale World Fellow in 2022. From 2015-16, as a Hubert H. Humphrey fellow, Zhong completed a year of course work and professional affiliation at the University of California, Davis on Natural »ĆąĎĘÓƵ Management and Climate Change. 

For more information about Zhao Zhong, please visit his profile at and his work through the .

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Date: December 5, 2024
Time: 12:15 PM - 1:45 PM
Location: Gugg 201E

Join us for an event featuring Nepalese scholar Nabraj Lama, who will share his research titled "Indigenous Affairs of Nepal through a Political and Economic Lens." This event is open to faculty, graduate and undergraduate students from CU and THI.

About Nabraj Lama

Nabraj Lama is currently a faculty and research scholar at Lumbini Buddhist University. He is an accomplished research scholar specializing in Himalayan Studies, International Political Economy, Indigenous Affairs, and Sustainable Development. Holding advanced degrees in Economics and Development Studies, he has significantly contributed to academic and public discourse through various publications and op-ed articles.

His career is marked by advocacy for marginalized communities, climate action, and world peace, as well as collaborations with leading organizations and the co-founding of influential think tanks.

Nabraj Lama has extensive experience in the fields of water resources, international affairs, political economy, and indigenous nationalities. His research background includes academic and developmental projects, with collaborations involving: The World Bank Nepal, India China Institute (ICI) at The New School University, Durham University, UK, Helvetas/Swiss Inter-cooperation Nepal, Heifer International Nepal, and Central Department of Anthropology at Tribhuvan University

Having traveled to more than 55 districts of Nepal, Nabraj Lama is deeply passionate about preserving the socio-cultural aspects of indigenous nationalities, various ethnic communities, castes, and other groups.

For more information about Nabraj Lama, please visit his profile at Lumbini Buddhist University: .

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Professor Dan Hirshberg is offering the following courses in the Spring term of 2025:

• ASIA 1700: Introduction to Tibetan Civilization
• ASIA 4700: Enlightened Visionaries, Dirty Tricksters, and Warrior Heroes
• RLST 3550: Tibetan Buddhism

Additionally, a second semester of Tibetan is being offered through the Rangjung Yeshe Institute in Nepal. Please email Professor Daniel A. Hirshberg for more details.

For more information, you can visit his webpage: Dan Hirshberg | Center for Asian Studies.

Brief Bio of Professor Dan Hirshberg: 

Dan Hirshberg, Ph.D. is a Visiting Scholar for the Tibet Himalaya Initiative and Lecturer for the Center for Asian Studies and the Religious Studies Department. Much of his research centers on cultural memory, the narrative of Tibet’s 8th ce. conversion to Buddhism, and the apotheosis of its protagonist, Padmasambhava, in both literature and iconography. The former is the focus of his monograph, Remembering the Lotus-Born (Wisdom SITB, 2016). He has repeatedly collaborated on the latter with the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art in NYC. Dan has held year-long fellowships at UC Santa Barbara, LMU Munich, and UVa’s Contemplative Sciences Center. Before returning to Boulder, he was associate professor of Asian religions at the University of Mary Washington, where he founded one of the first Contemplative Studies programs for undergrads, established a Japanese-style garden, and led study abroad programs to Nepal and Japan. He also serves as Editor and Chair for the Journal of the North American Japanese Garden Association.

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The Tibet Himalaya Initiative invites you to a film screening event featuring Tibetan filmmaker Tenzin Sedon. In collaboration with the Dairy Arts Center, we will screen her documentary film A Road of Prayer (98 minutes) on February 21, 2025, at 5:30 PM, followed by a Q&A session with the filmmaker.

About the Filmmaker:

Tenzin Sedon is a documentary filmmaker based in Lhasa. In August 2023, she arrived in New York City to begin the MFA program in Graduate Film Production at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

Her films include A Taste of Life (2014), A Road of Prayer (2014–2016), and Taikui Alley (2017–2019). These films have received numerous awards, including the Hot Docs Best Canadian Short Documentary, recognition in the News and Short Feature category of the RTS Students Television Awards, and the Golden Mountain Award for Best Documentary Short Film at Zhenjiang. Her documentary A Road of Prayer was nominated for the Hot Docs Crosscurrents Doc Fund, the CCDF, and Docs Port Incheon. Another film, Echo (2019–present), has been nominated for Fresh Pitch and is currently in the post-production stage.

About the Film:

A Road of Prayer (2014–2016) is a 98-minute documentary that chronicles the filmmaker Tenzin Sedon’s return to her hometown of Lhasa, Tibet, after a long absence. Through her camera, she sought to connect with her homeland and the people—both familiar and unfamiliar—to her. In the film, three narratives intertwine through place, time, and urban change. By capturing the lives of ordinary people on the prayer road (Kora), she embarked on a journey to reconnect with her hometown.

Event Details:

• Date: February 21, 2025, at 5:30 PM
• Location: Dairy Arts Center, 2590 Walnut St., Boulder, CO 80302
• Cost: This event is open to the public. You can purchase the ticket through the A special discount code will be available for students who are attending for extra credit for a class. 

This event is sponsored by the Tibet Himalaya Initiative with support from the Dairy Arts Center. For more information, please contact tibethimalaya@colorado.edu

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Date: Sunday, October 27 at 6 pm

Location: The Trident Cafe, Pearl Street, Boulder

The Tibet Himalaya Initiative invites you to a special evening with poet, writer, and publisher Bhuchung D. Sonam. He will be reading from his new book The Other Side of Blue Skies and join CU Professor Carole McGranahan in a conversation about writing as resistance in the Tibetan exile community.

About the Poet: 

Bhuchung D. Sonam is an exile Tibetan poet, writer, translator and publisher. His books include Songs from Dewachen and Yak Horns: Notes on Contemporary Tibetan Writing, Music and Film & Politics. He has edited Muses in Exile: An Anthology of Tibetan Poetry, and has compiled and translated Burning the Sun’s Braids: New Poetry from Tibet. He is a founding member and editor of TibetWrites and its imprint Blackneck Books, which promotes and publishes the creative works of Tibetans. His writings are published in the Washington Post, Asahi Weekly, Journal of Indian Literature, HIMAL Southasian and Hindustan Times among others. He was recently the subject of a New York Times article – “”

About the Event: 

This event is free and open to the public. For information about the event, please contact Professor Carole McGranahan carole.mcgranahan@colorado.edu

This event is sponsored and hosted by the Tibet Himalaya Initiative in conjunction with the Trident Bookstore and Cafe, and with thanks to our co-sponsors the CU Center for Asian Studies and Department of Anthropology.

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A panel discussion on Indigenous climate futures with filmmaker Subash Thebe Limbu, Phurwa Gurung (CU Geography), Clint Carroll (CU Ethnic Studies), Jennifer Fluri (CU Geography), and Shae Frydenlund (CU Center for Asian Studies), will take place on Zoom on Monday, October 14th at 9:30am. The Q&A session will follow the panel discussion.

Event: Ningwasum Film and Indigenous Climate Futurism

Date: Oct 14, 2024, at 9:30am on Zoom

Zoom link for Panel Discussion:

https://cuboulder.zoom.us/j/ 4474063892

If you are interested in watching the film Ningwasum, please email shae.frydenlund@colorado.edu

About the Film

Directed by Subash Thebe Limbu, Ningwasum follows two time travellers – Miksam and Mingsoma – to a futuristic Himalayas where indigenous sovereignty and technology meet a new climate reality. The film weaves together Yakthung folk tales, music, and language to foreground indigenous perspectives and challenge typical portrayals of indigenous backwardness.

This event is sponsored by the Center for Asian Studies, and the Tibet Himalaya Initiatives.

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The Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) comes to town this weekend, September 21–23, 2023. There are two Tibet-related panels we would like to invite you to attend. Register here: 

The Tibet Himalaya Initiative (THI) is sponsoring the session with Tsering Yangzom Lama, whose debut novel We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies has received much critical acclaim, in conversation with CU’s own Dawa Lokyitsang and Natalie Avalos.

And THI faculty Holly Gayley will be in conversation with Andrew Quintman about the lives of Yeshe Tsogyal and Milarepa and their ongoing influence and presence in ritual, pilgrimage, visual arts and more. 

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In 2011, the Dalai Lama stepped down as political leader of the Tibetan exile government. For the first time ever, the Tibetan community democratically elected a new political leader: Mr. Lobsang Sangay. He served two terms as Sikyong (President) from 2011-2021. As Sikyong, Mr. Sangay traveled the world on behalf of the exile government and the Dalai Lama. In his talk at CU, he shares these experiences, asking what makes a good leader. 

Political Leader of an Exile Government: An Evening with Lobsang Sangay 

Old Main Chapel 

Tuesday, April 11 

7:00 pm 

Sponsored by the Tibet Himalaya Initiative together with the Center for Asian Studies and Department of Anthropology

Free and Open to the Public

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            The documentary (2022, Journeyman Pictures) explores the phenomenon of tukdam, in which advanced Tibetan Buddhist meditators display unusual characteristics, such as remaining upright in a meditative posture, warmth around the heart area, and not showing signs of decomposition, after clinical death.  According to the Tibetan understanding the practitioner’s consciousness remains in a state of awareness in deep meditation. The documentary explores both Tibetan analyses of tukdam and follows the work of a team of neuroscientists trying to measure and understand it from a scientific perspective.

            The film screening was part of a two day visit to CU Boulder by Donagh Coleman, who has also directed several other documentaries about the Tibetan cultural world, including A Gesar Bard’s Tale (2013), shot in Jyekundo, about the story of a young nomad who became a bard able to recite the Epic of Gesar, the world’s longest and last living epic, and Stone Pastures (2008), about nomads living in the Changthang of Ladakh, India, who rear pashmina goats.   In addition to the screening, Donagh also participated in the Rene Crown Wellness Institute’s Mindful Campus speaker series on the topic of “a good death,” met with Tibet & Himalaya Initiative graduate students, and visited a graduate documentary lab.  

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ལོ་སར་བཀྲ་ཤིས་བདེ་ལེགས་ཞུ།།

You are cordially invited to celebrate the new year of the water rabbit in the 2150th year of the Tibetan calender. 

Date: February 24th, 2023

Location: ALTEC, Hellems Room 159

Time: 5:00pm - 7:00pm

Light snacks and entertainment provided. 

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