For millions of people around the world, Tibet is a domain of undisturbed tradition, the Dalai Lama a spiritual guide. By contrast, the Tibet Museum opened in Lhasa by the Chinese in 1999 was designed to reclassify Tibetan objects as cultural relics and the Dalai Lama as obsolete. Suggesting that both these views are suspect, Clare E. Harris argues in The Museum on the Roof of the World that for the past one hundred and fifty years, British and Chinese collectors and curators have tried to convert Tibet itself into a museum, an image some Tibetans have begun to contest. This book is a powerful account of the museums created by, for, or on behalf of Tibetans and the nationalist agendas that have played out in them. Harris begins with the British public’s first encounter with Tibetan culture in 1854. She then examines the role of imperial collectors and photographers in representations of the region and visits competing museums of Tibet in India and Lhasa. Drawing on fieldwork in Tibetan communities, she also documents the activities of contemporary Tibetan artists as they try to displace the utopian visions of their country prevalent in the West, as well as the negative assessments of their heritage common in China. Illustrated with many previously unpublished images, this book addresses the pressing question of who has the right to represent Tibet in museums and beyond.

For millions of people around the world, Tibet is a domain of undisturbed tradition, the Dalai Lama a spiritual guide. By contrast, the Tibet Museum opened in Lhasa by the Chinese in 1999 was designed to reclassify Tibetan objects as cultural relics and the Dalai Lama as obsolete. Suggesting that both these views are suspect, Clare E. Harris argues in The Museum on the Roof of the World that for the past one hundred and fifty years, British and Chinese collectors and curators have tried to convert Tibet itself into a museum, an image some Tibetans have begun to contest. This book is a powerful account of the museums created by, for, or on behalf of Tibetans and the nationalist agendas that have played out in them. Harris begins with the British public’s first encounter with Tibetan culture in 1854. She then examines the role of imperial collectors and photographers in representations of the region and visits competing museums of Tibet in India and Lhasa. Drawing on fieldwork in Tibetan communities, she also documents the activities of contemporary Tibetan artists as they try to displace the utopian visions of their country prevalent in the West, as well as the negative assessments of their heritage common in China. Illustrated with many previously unpublished images, this book addresses the pressing question of who has the right to represent Tibet in museums and beyond.

The first authoritative volume on the totality of Buddhism in the West, Westward Dharma establishes a comparative and theoretical perspective for considering the amazing variety of Buddhist traditions, schools, centers, and teachers that have developed outside of Asia. Leading scholars from North America, Europe, South Africa, and Australia explore the plurality and heterogeneity of traditions and practices that are characteristic of Buddhism in the West. This recent, dramatic growth in Western Buddhism is accompanied by an expansion of topics and issues of Buddhist concern. The contributors to this volume treat such topics as the broadening spirit of egalitarianism; the increasing emphasis on the psychological, as opposed to the purely religious, nature of practice; scandals within Buddhist movements; the erosion of the distinction between professional and lay Buddhists; Buddhist settlement in Israel; the history of Buddhism in internment camps; repackaging Zen for the West; and women's dharma in the West. The interconnections of historical and theoretical approaches in the volume make it a rich, multi-layered resource.

Every day, over a million images are uploaded to flickr. This is a striking example of the so-called »flood« of images that emerged with the beginning of the digital age. A generation of adolescents has already been socialised with this flood of images and deals with it on a daily basis, both in their networks and elsewhere. Art education thus faces significant challenges: art is the only school subject that deals with the problems inherent in images as images, making them the focus of pedagogic activity. This volume presents both the foundations for engaging with the phenomenon of the »image« in a competent and historically informed manner as well as the perspectives for art education that arise from these foundations. It is based upon the conviction that providing orientation in a world defined by images does not mean following solely a technocratic, functionalist or even neoliberal »concept of education«. Quite the contrary: »providing an orientation« for how to deal with images in a world that is dominated by them is a crucial part of the holistic development of young people's personalities. The volume's main focus lies upon the new functions taken on both by the image and by art more generally. It takes into account aspects of globalisation and participation and also includes more unusual views (often from a cross-media perspective) of art and its historical repertory, which even current image creation is unable to dispense with. The volume also deals extensively with architecture and the images it conveys.

By following the stories of nine contemporary Chinese artists, The Phoenix Years shows how China's rise unleashed creativity, thwarted hopes, and sparked tensions between the individual and the state that continue to this day. It relates the heady years of hope and creativity in the 1980s, which ended in the disaster of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Following that tragedy comes China's meteoric economic rise, and the opportunities that emerged alongside the difficult compromises artists and others have to make to be citizens in modern China.Foreign correspondent Madeleine O'Dea has been an eyewitness for over thirty years to the rise of China, the explosion of its contemporary art and cultural scene, and the long, ongoing struggle for free expression. The stories of these artists and their art mirror the history of their country. The Phoenix Years is vital reading for anyone interested in China today.

Vision is more than looking or seeing. It is integral to all human action. Visual Sense presents a series of readings which offer a range of alternatives to conventional psychological and social scientific approaches to the study of the ocular. The book highlights the multitude of ways in which vision is linked to the other senses by virtue of being embedded in complex cultural processes.Visual Sense introduces students to the analysis of a wide range of ways of experiencing sight across time and across cultures: from Renaissance Italy, Aztec Mexico and early Christian Europe, to Tibet, West Africa, Aboriginal Australia and South America, amongst others. It is arranged around broad themes of visual experience, ranging from navigating the sacred and ordering knowledge about the world to thinking creatively, socially and beyond vision into cyberspace and daydream. This unique approach allows cross-cultural and thematic connections to be made. A Guide to Further Reading allows students to expand their learning independently, and section introductions place the readings in context.Visual Sense expands the field of visual studies and explores the place of vision in the sensory world.

* AWARDED BEST ANTHOLOGY BY THE ART ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND *How has Asia been imagined, represented and transferred both literally and visually across linguistic, geopolitical and cultural boundaries? This book explores the shifting roles of those who produce, critique and translate creative forms and practices, for which distinctions of geography, ethnicity, tradition and modernity have become fluid. Drawing on accounts of modern and contemporary art, film, literature, fashion and performance, it challenges established assumptions of the cultural products of Asia.Special attention is given to the role of cultural translators or 'long-distance cultural specialists' whose works bridge or traverse different worlds, with the inclusion of essays by three important artists who share personal accounts of their experiences creating and showing artworks that negotiate diverse cultural contexts.With contributions from key scholars of Asian art and culture, including art historian John Clark and anthropologist Clare Harris, alongside fresh voices in the field, Asia Through Art and Anthropology will be essential reading for students and scholars of anthropology, art history, Asian studies, visual and cultural studies.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The publication of the color plates of works by Phaptawan Suwannakudt and Savanhdary Vongpoothorn is funded by the Australian Government.

This is the first major publication in the West to study modernity and its impact on contemporary Tibet. Based on field work by researchers from the fields of anthropology, sociology, environmental science, literature, art and linguistics, it presents essays on education, economics, childbirth, environment, caste, pop music, media and painting in Tibetan communities today. The findings emerge from studies carried out in Ladakh, Golok, Lhasa, Xining, Shigatse and other areas of the Tibetan world. It will provide important and sometimes surprising results for students of Tibet, China, Himalayan studies, as well as an important contribution to our understandings of modernity and development in the modern world.

'Voices from Tibet' assembles essays and reportage in translation that capture many facets of the upheavals wrought by a rising China upon a sacred land and its pious people. With the TAR in a virtual lockdown after the 2008 unrest, this book sheds important light on the simmering frustrations that touched off the unrest and Beijing's relentless control tactics in its wake. The authors also interrogate long-standing assumptions about the Tibetans' political future. Woeser's and Wang's writings represent a rare Chinese view sympathetic to Tibetan causes. Their powerful testimony should resonate in many places confronting threats of cultural subjugation and economic domination by an external power.