Program Overview

Students spend the first six weeks of the program living in Kathmandu, Nepal’s political and cultural center and home to a large Tibetan exile community. During their time in Kathmandu, students live with a homestay family and attend lectures both at the program house and throughout the city. Students may experience a discussion on the Bon religion at a learning institute halfway up a mountain on the edge of the Valley; hear a lecture delivered by a traditional Ayurvedic doctor, in the heart of the city's old town; or talk with the caretaker of one of Kathmandu's ancient pagoda shrines. The Nepal base for the program facilitates exploration of Tibetan and related groups living in high altitude mountain villages elsewhere in Nepal and beyond.

Program Focus

Examine the diversity of Himalayan societies across the South Asian sub-continent, with special emphasis on the Tibetan experience and identity. Through thematic lectures and field work, students explore issues of cultural preservation, religious revival, and sub-regional geopolitics and are challenged to consider the contemporary and historic linkages connecting different Himalayan communities. Questions of self-identification and recognition, as well as issues of diaspora, exile, and migration, are important topics for analysis in this program.

From the program base in Nepal, students gain access to a rich array of academic resources throughout the Kathmandu Valley and beyond, learning from prominent Tibetan and Newar Buddhist scholars, as well as regional, ethnic (Sherpa and Tamang), and community experts.