30. June, 5:30 pm, seminar room 1, Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies
With a lecture by Axel Michaels: "Nepal zwischen Indien und China. Neue Überlegungen zur Transkulturalität" and contributions by Verena Widorn and Alban von Stockhausen.

Afterwards, ISTB and CIRDIS invite to a small reception in honor of Martin Gaenszle, which will include a closing speech by Klaus-Dieter Mathes.

Please take a look at the program for detailed information.

10. November, 18 Uhr, Aula am Campus, AAKH
Christian Luczanits (SOAS, London),
Markus Viehbeck (ISTB, Universität Wien)
Moderation: Verena Widorn (CIRDIS, Universität Wien)

In einem gemeinsamen Vortrag und anschließender Diskussion mit der Kunsthistorikerin und Archivarin Verena Widorn (CIRDIS, Universität Wien) werden die beiden Autoren verschiedene Aspekte ihrer Arbeit mit tibetischen Manuskripten beleuchten und über die Bewahrung von gefährdetem buddhistischen Kulturerbe im Himalayaraum diskutieren. (mehr Info)
Die Veranstaltung ist frei zugänglich, es gelten die aktuellen COVID19-Regelungen.
Um Voranmeldung per Email (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) wird gebeten.

We congratulate Deborah Klimburg-Salter, founder and former director of CIRDIS, for receiving the highest research award for Humanities and Social Sciences of the Austrian Academy of Sciences!

Article at »Die Presse«
Announcement at the OEAW website
Media portal Vienna University
Video of the acceptance speech of Prof. Klimburg-Salter (Youtube)

The project "Trans-Border Religion: Re-composing Limbu rituals in the Nepal–Sikkim borderlands"
(P 29805; 11/2016–10/2020) is going to host a workshop on 23rd of July 2021.

Convener: Mélanie Vandenhelsken
Venue: Vienna, 23 July 2021, University campus - Alte Kapelle, Uni Campus, Hof 1, Spitalgasse 2–4, 1090 Wien

The presentation schedule is available here.

Lecture: THE IMPERIAL POLITICS OF SLAVERY IN THE NAGA HILLS
by Roderick Wijunamai (Royal Thumphu College, Bhutan)

Please join us in Vienna for a CIRDIS presentation of Roderick Wijunamai's paper.
It will be streamed via zoom:
Friday 26 March 2021, 2:00pm (Vienna), 6:30 pm (India), 7:00pm (Bhutan)

CIRDIS organised a 2 hour QGIS mini-workshop for its staff and members. Jürgen Schörflinger gave an introduction to the basics of GIS software and then focused on working through a selection of hands on examples of the productive use of GIS software in our fields of research.

Due to the developments in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic we will unfortunately have to postpone our conference. It will now take place from 26 to 29 July 2021.

Further information can be found at the website of the 26th European Conference on South Asian Studies (ECSAS).

„Louis Dumont und der Zusammenfluss von Ethnologie und Indologie“

The lecture will is postponed due to the current developments in the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak. We will inform you about the new date as soon as possible.

When and Where:

Wednesday 25 March 2020, 5:30 pm
Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, University of Vienna

In diesem Vortrag möchte ich zeigen, wie Louis Dumonts berühmte Behauptung, dass "the first condition for a sound development of a Sociology of India is found in the establishment of the proper relation between it and classical Indology", obsolet geworden und von Anfang an ein problematisches Postulat war. Ich entwickle zunächst den historischen Hintergrund der Verunglimpfung anthropologischer Ansätze in Indien vor dem Hintergrund des Aufstiegs einer idealisierenden Indologie als philologischer Disziplin. Dann erörtere ich die strukturellen, methodischen und ideologischen Probleme, die es schwierig machten, Dumonts Rat zu folgen und den Punkt des Zusammenflusses von Soziologie und Indologie zu suchen. Schließlich stelle ich Dumonts ganzheitlichen Ansatz in Bezug auf die holistische Struktur der akademischen Disziplinen, die im 19. Jahrhundert auf der Grundlage des Nationalstaatsmodells entstanden sind, und argumentiere, dass es irreführend und reduzierend ist zu denken, dass "the construction of an Indian Sociology rests in part upon the existence of Indology".

Unfortunately the Event had to be cancelled on short notice today due to the newest restrictions enforced by the Austrian Government in response to the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak.

"Ashimsa: Gandhi – The Power of the Powerless" a film by Ramesh Sharma (runtime: 103 minutes)

When and Where:

Registration:

Limited seating, please register at: https://hist-kult.univie.ac.at/veranstaltungen/ahimsa-gandhi-the-power-of-the-powerless/

Abstract:

In honor of Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th anniversary, the prize-winning film director Ramesh Sharma documents how Gandhi’s philosophy inspired political leaders on three continents to strive for freedom, justice and human rights through non-violent protest. The global im- pact of Gandhi’s philosophy is portrayed through the narratives of Martin Luther King, Lech Walesa, Vaclev Havel and Nelson Mandela.

Throughout global history social and political movements attempt- ing to challenge and overcome oppression often lead to violent resis- tance and sometimes revolution, until Mahatma Gandhi introduced the political philosophy of Ahimsa (non-violence). A short version of this film was premiered during the celebrations honoring Peace Day at the United Nations, New York.

A cooperation of:

The Austrian Academy of Sciences, CIRDIS and the University of Vienna

The Paper Submission for the 26th European Conference on South Asian Studies (ECSAS), coorganised by CIRDIS, the Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies (ISTB) and the Institute for Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia (IKGA) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences has been extended to Sunday 24 November 2019 UTC.

The abstracts of the accapted panel proposals are available at https://ecsas2020.univie.ac.at/panels.

Please also note: we have set up an FAQ-section on our conference website. Have a look, it should answer most questions related to the submission and our conference in general.

Martin Gaenszle, Jürgen Schörflinger and Verena Widorn participated at the "2nd Joint Workshop Kyoto University — University of Vienna" that took place between 24 and 25 October 2019 at the Kyoto University.

The workshop was the second one in this series after last year's joint workshop held at the University of Vienna and the first one members from CIRDIS participated in. It followed only two weeks after both Universities signed a Memorandum of Understanding detailing the efforts to enhance the existing collaborations between both Universities.

CIRDIS was part of the "Asian Studies" Session and elaborated on it's long lasting cooperations with members from the Kyoto University Institute for Research in Humanities (in particular Prof. Minoru Inaba). At the same time the workshop was used to extend the collaboration to the Central Himalayan Regions and plans for the exchange of researchers and joint seminars have been discussed and outlined.

Program of the Asian Studies Session

Afghanistan and Art History

• Between Vienna and Kyoto via Bamiyan (Minoru Inaba, Kyoto University)
• Research and Documentation of Afghanistan and the Adjacent Areas: an Overview of the Kyoto-Vienna Co-operation (Verena Widorn)
• Individual Archives, Unified Retrievability: Archiving and Connecting Research Data on Afghanistan in Kyoto and Vienna (Jürgen Schörflinger)
• The Hindu Šāhi kings in al-Bīrūnī's account (Noémie Verdon)

Tibetan and Himalayan Studies

• Documenting Himalayan Borderland Cultures: CIRDIS and Ethnographic Archiving (Martin Gaenszle)
• Future of Tibeto-Himalayan Studies: a Joint Project between the University of Vienna and Kyoto University (Seiji Kumagai, Kyoto University)
• Body and Mind in the Tibetan and Himalayan Cultural World: Research Interests and Possible Collaborations (Marc-Henri Deroche)

The presentations were followed by a discussions on the future collaboration and exchange programs between both universities.

Symposium: "Exploring Himalayan Textual Heritage: Symposium in memoriam René Nebesky-Wojkowitz (1923–1959) and his text collections at the Weltmuseum Wien"

Save the date:

Thursday and Friday 14-15 November 2019; Weltmuseum Wien

Registration:

Kindly register your participation by 11 November 2019 with an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Abstract:

This two-day symposium is organised in memory of the Czech-Austrian ethnographer and Tibetologist René Nebesky-Wojkowitz, honouring the 60th anniversary of his untimely and unexpected death, by focusing on different aspects of his long forgotten text collection housed at the ethnographic museum in Vienna, the Weltmuseum Wien.

In 1949 René Nebesky-Wojkowitz received his doctoral degree in Tibetan and Mongolian languages at the Oriental Institute at the University of Vienna and became qualified as professor in 1956 at the Department of Ethnology with his seminal book 'Oracles and Demons of Tibet', a milestone in the study of Tibetan religion and iconography.

Three research trips to West Bengal, Sikkim and Nepal in the years between 1950 and 1959 served as the basis of more than 20 publications that he produced in his short but intense academic life. During his ethnographic and philological studies René Nebesky-Wojkowitz acquired a comprehensive collection of manuscripts and block prints. The corpus of his collection comes from different cultural contexts and is of great value for the study of Buddhist iconography, Tibetan medicine and ritual, the grammatical tradition and other topics.

Organisation:

Uwe Niebuhr, Verena Widorn, Pascale Hugon, Markus Viehbeck

Sponsors:

• FWF-Project P 31570-G32 "The Scientific Legacy of René Nebesky-Wojkowitz"
• Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Documentation of Inner and South Asian Cultural History (CIRDIS), University of Vienna
• Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia (IKGA), Austrian Academy of Sciences
• Weltmuseum Wien, Vienna
• Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, University of Vienna

The Paper Submission for the 26th European Conference on South Asian Studies (ECSAS), coorganised by CIRDIS, the Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies (ISTB) and the Institute for Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia (IKGA) at the Austrian Academy of Scienceswill are open until Sunday 17 November 2019.

The abstracts of the accapted panel proposals are available at .

The abstracts of the accapted panel proposals for the 26th European Conference on South Asian Studies (ECSAS), coorganised by CIRDIS, the Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies (ISTB) and the Institute for Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia (IKGA) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences are now online. The Paper Submission will open Friday September 4.

Symposium: "Mirabehn After Gandhi: Launch of the Mirabehn Archive at the Library, Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies"

Wednesday 3 July 2019, 2:00pm s.t.; Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies (seminar room 1)

Lecture: "Lakṣmaṇ Rekhā, or a (Thin) Boundary not to be Crossed" by Danuta Stasik (Faculty of Oirental Studies, University of Warsaw)

Monday 24 June 2019, 3:00pm s.t.; Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies (seminar room 1)

CIRDIS is proud to announce that the Namchi Government College awarded Mélanie Vandenhelsken for her valuable contribution towards the Limbu community and society. The award was presented to her on the occasion of the 12th annual Limboo Literary Meet of the Limboo department, Namchi college.

Lecture: "As Many Pebbles, So Many Shivas: Encountes and Reflections at Lakhamandal" by Nachiket Chanchani (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA; Forum Transregionale Studien, Humboldt-Universität Berlin)

Tuesday 14 May 2019, 4:00pm c.t.; Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies (seminar room 1)

Lecture: "Classification of Limbu Mundhum in Sikkim" by Buddhi L. Khamdhak (Namchi Govt. College, Sikkim, India)

Friday 29 March 2019, 3:00pm c.t.; Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies (seminar room 1)

Deborah Klimburg-Salter, Jürgen Schörflinger and Verena Widorn participated at the International Workshop "Towards the Comprehensive Image Database on Bamiyan Buddhist Sites" organized by Minoru Inaba from the Institute for Research in Humanities (Zinbun), Kyoto University.

The workshop was part of a long lasting affiliation between members of CIRDIS (and its predecessors) and Kyoto University's Institute for Research in Humanities.
Besides the ongoing cooperations ("Kabul Museum Project", FWF-Project "Cultural Formation and Transformation: Shahi Buddhist Art and Architecture from Afghanistan to the West Tibetan Frontier at the Dawn of the Islamic Era" both by Deborah Klimburg-Salter) the possibilities for a future in-depth collaboration on a digital archiving initiative and image database dedicated to the extensive research documentation from Japanese missions to Afghanistan in the 1970s was in the focus of the workshop and the following meetings.

Program

• Archaeological Missions of Kyoto University and Bamiyan (Minoru Inaba, Kyoto University)
• Discovering the Past and Documenting for the Future: The Story of an International Collaboration (Deborah Klimburg-Salter)
• Opportunities and Challenges on Economic Development through Mineral Extraction and Cultural Property Preservation in Mes Aynak, Afghanistan (Masanori Nagaoka, UNESCO)
• CIRDIS and the Himalayan Archives Vienna: A Brief Historical and Technical Overview with Insights into Ongoing Development (Verena Widorn and Jürgen Schörflinger)

The submission for panel proposals for the 26th European Conference on South Asian Studies (ECSAS), coorganised by CIRDIS, the Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies (ISTB) and the Institute for Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia (IKGA) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences is now open. ECSAS2020 will taking place 29 July – 1 August 2020 at the University of Vienna Campus.

Lecture: "Shrines in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction: Reflections on Gonkar Gyatso's »Buddha's Picnic«" by Melissa Kerin (Washington and Lee University, Lexington, USA)

Tuesday 22 Januarry 2019, 6:30pm; Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies (seminar room 1)

Happy Holidays and best wishes for a prosperous New Year 2019.

Martin Gaenszle and the CIRDIS Team

The ORF (Austrian Broadcasting Corporation) documentation format "Religionen der Welt" was featuring Martin Gaenszle on the "gāi jātrā" festival in Bhaktapur, Nepal. The short clip was available in the "ORF TVthek" for seven days after the its airing.

Aus Trümmern lernen
The ORF (Austrian Broadcasting Corporation) online section "science" is featuring an article about Robin Coningham's keynote lecture "Seismic safety" which was opening the symposium "After the Earthquake" organized by Nina Mirnig (IKGA), CIRDIS and the UNESCO.

Rituals for a reason
The University of Vienna's "uni:view" magazine is featuring an article about Mélanie Vandenhelsken's research project: "Trans-Border Religion: Re-composing Limbu rituals in the Nepal–Sikkim borderlands".

Lecture: "Bodies, Bandits and Badmashes: reading recalcitrance, resistance and governance through allegories of violence in the WWII Indo-Burma frontiers" by Aditya Kiran Kakati (Junior Visiting Fellow, Institute of Human Sciences, Vienna)

Thursday 19 October 2018, 3pm c.t.; Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies (seminar room 1)

It is our pleasure to welcome Melissa Kerin as guest research at our center. She will stay with us until February 2019 and work on finishing a manuscript, Bodies of Offerings: The Materiality and Vitality of Tibetan Shrines, which received an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship (2014-15) and Howard Foundation Fellowship (2018-19).

Melissa Kerin is an associate professor of art history at the Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virgina (USA).
Her primary field of research is the art and material culture of South Asia from the medieval and modern periods. Along with a number of articles and chapters, Kerin has authored two books. Her third book project, under contract with Oxford University Press, is an edited volume analyzing the ethical treatment of cultural heritage in the U.S., South Asia, the Middle East. Since joining the faculty of Washington and Lee’s Art and Art History Department in 2011, Kerin has taught a range of courses related to the interconnections among art, religion, memory, and identity. Kerin holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School.

It is our pleasure to welcome Buddhilal Subba from Sikkim University as guest researcher at CIRDIS. He will be staying with us for the coming months and work in close cooperation with Mélanie Vandenhelsken. He will furthermore give an introductory course to the Limbu language at the Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies.

A short introduction has been kindly provided by Buddhilal Subba himselfe and is available >here<

International Symposium: "Manuscript, print and publication cultures in South Asia: From the 19th century to the present"

Thursday-Friday, 20-21 September 2018; Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies (ISTB) (SR 1); Spitalgasse 2, entrance 2.7, 1090 Vienna

Organisation: Johanna Buß (ISTB), Alaka Chudal (ISTB), Cristina Pecchia (IKGA)

In collaboration with:

Austrian Academy of Sciences, Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia (IKGA)
University of Vienna, Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies (ISTB), and
Dean’s Office of the Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies
Österreichische Forschungsgemeinschaft (ÖFG)
Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Documentation of Inner and South Asian Cultural History (CIRDIS)
The De Nobili Research Library

Registration:

Kindly register your participation by 12 September 2018 with an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

International Symposium: "After the earthquake: Research, protection and preservation of Nepal’s cultural heritage"

Monday-Tuesday, 22-23 October 2018, Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia (room 2.25)

Organisation: Nina Mirnig (IKGA)

In collaboration with:

Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia (IKGA), Austrian Academy of Sciences
UNESCO Chair on Archaeological Ethics and Practice in Cultural Heritage, Department of Archaeology, Durham University, UK
Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Documentation of Inner and South Asian Cultural History (CIRDIS)

Registration:

Kindly register your participation by 14 October 2018 with an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Lecture: "The View from the Palace: The Sikkim Royal Archives by Alex McKay

Thursday 05 May 2018, 5pm; Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies (seminar room 1)

"Palmyra-Gespräche in Wien"
The Austrian newspaper "Kurier" featured a story entitled "Buddhas in Afghanistan: Aufbauen oder nicht?" in reference to the 6. ICOM Palmyra-Talks that took place on April 4th and that have been co-organized by the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the "European Year of Cultural Heritage" and CIRDIS.

"Palmyra-Gespräche in Wien"
The "Ö1 Kulturjournal" featured a short report on the 6. ICOM Palmyra-Talks that took place on April 4th and that have been co-organized by the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the "European Year of Cultural Heritage" and CIRDIS.

Opening: "Introduction to the National Museum of Afghanistan Today" by Fahim Rahimi (Director of the National Museum of Afghanistan, Kabul)
Keynote: "Protection of the Cultural Landscapes at the Bamiyan World Heritage site in Afghanistan" by Dr. Masanori Nagaoka (Chief of Culture Unit, UNESCO Kabul Office):

The 6. ICOM Palmyra Talks ar co-organized by CIRDIS, the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Kabul Museum Project

Wednesday 04 April 2018, 6pm; Austrian Academy of Sciences (historical festive hall)

"Rituale – Spielregeln des Lebens"
An "Ö1 City Science Talk im Ringturm" about the ritual of land diving (Gol) as performed on the Pentecost Island (part of the South Pacific nation of Vanuatu).
Discussion with CIRDIS' Martin Gaenszle, Elke Mader (KSA, University of Vienna) and Hannah Monyer (Medical Faculty and German Cancer Reserch Center Heidelberg).

Monday 19 March 2018, 6pm; Ringturm, Schottenring 30, 20th floor, 1010 Vienna

A summary of the discussion was aired on Ö1 at 9pm on Wednesday 4 April.

Lecture: "An insider doing local history in Arunachal Pradesh. Dealing with ethics among the Apatani" ( Rimi Tadu, Fellow at the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, University of Erfurt)

Thursday 15 March 2018, 3pm; Department of South-Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies

Lecture: "The De-Facto Special Economic Zone in the Eastern Himalaya. Liberalisation and Transformation in Sikkim" ( Mona Chettri, Aarhus University, Denmark)

Friday 10 November 2017, 3pm; Department of South-Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies (Seminar room 1)

Friday 28 April 2017, Department of History of Art (Seminar room 1)

Book Presentation "Discovering Tibet" (Deborah Klimburg-Salter (ed), Discovering Tibet: The Tucci Expeditions and Tibetan Paintings) and Exhibition Opening "Discovering the Western Himalayas"

Opening by Martin Gaenszle and lectures by John Clark (Victoria & Albert Museum) and Hildegard Diemberger (University of Cambridge)

Thursday 16 March 2017, Department of History of Art (Seminar room 1)
Exhibition: 16 March – 7 April

We have prepared a hands-on workshop about tibetan altars for this year's  Kinderuni. And we all had A LOT of fun! See for yourself… :)

Date & Location: 18.7.-30.7.2016 at the ISTB, University of Vienna
Teacher: Laxmi Nath Shrestha
Fee: 200€
Application Deadline: 30.06.2016
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.