As part of our expanded third season, “Tibetan and Himalayan Studies Dissertation Reviews” will bring you friendly, non-critical overviews of recently defended, unpublished dissertations in this dynamic field. If you are interested in reviewing for the new site, or having your dissertation reviewed, please contact tibhim@dissertationreviews.org.
Introducing Our New Field Editors
Nicole Willock is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Denver. Her primary research interests are in Sino-Tibetan relations, and the dynamic processes of state-driven secularization and Tibetan ethno-religious identity in 20th century China. She is currently revising the manuscript, “A Tibetan Buddhist Polymath in Modern China,” for publication and is in the final stages of writing a bilingual primer on Tibetan poetics co-written with Indiana University lecturer Gedun Rabsal. Willock also began a new research project underwritten by a 2012 Columbia University Libraries Research Award on “Secularism and ‘Superstition’ in Tibetan Intellectual History”, using the Tharchin Collection at the C.V. Starr East Asian Library. At the University of Denver she teaches on politics and religion in modern China, religions of Tibet, and Buddhism in the USA from global and local perspectives. [Website here]
Nancy Lin is currently an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Religion and the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Program at Dartmouth College. In January 2013 she will start as Assistant Professor of Buddhist Traditions of South Asia in the Department of Religious Studies at Vanderbilt University. Her research interests are in the cultural history of Tibetan Buddhism during the early modern period, and include Buddhist hagiographical literature and art, the innovative interpretation of canonical tradition amidst social change, and Tibetan engagement with other courtly cultures of South and East Asia. Her current book project examines how Tibetan monastic and courtly culture intersected during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially through productions of the Wish-Fulfilling Vine (Skt. Avadanakalpalata, Tb. Dpag bsam ‘khri shing), Ksemendra’s Sanskrit anthology of Buddhist narratives. Professor Lin’s other research projects address Tibetan re-imaginings of the Buddha’s life and the development of classical Tibetan poetry and poetics from Sanskrit models in institutional, material, and ritual contexts. [Website here]
