Tibetan (TIBETAN)

This is an archived copy of the 2015-16 guide. To access the most recent version of the guide, please visit http://guide.berkeley.edu.

Courses

TIBETAN 1A Elementary Tibetan 5 Units

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2017, Fall 2016, Fall 2015
A beginning Tibetan class developing basic listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in modern Tibetan (Lhasa dialect). The course also helps students begin to acquire competence in relevant Tibetan cultural issues.

TIBETAN 1B Elementary Tibetan 5 Units

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Spring 2017, Spring 2016, Spring 2015
A continuation of TIBETAN 1A, TIBETAN 1B develops further listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in modern Tibetan (Lhasa dialect), with a gradually increasing emphasis on basic cultural readings and developing intercultural competence.

TIBETAN 10A Intermediate Tibetan 3 Units

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2014, Fall 2012
This course, a continuation of 1A-1B (elementary Tibetan), is designed to develop the student's skills in modern standard Tibetan. The emphasis is on communication skills in vernacular Tibetan, as well as grammar, reading, writing, and a familiarity with contemporary Tibetan culture more generally.

TIBETAN 10B Intermediate Tibetan 3 Units

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Spring 2016, Spring 2013, Spring 2010
This course, a continuation of 10A, is designed to develop further the student's skills in modern standard Tibetan. The emphasis is on communication skills in vernacular Tibetan, as well as grammar, reading, writing, and a familiarity with contemporary Tibetan culture more generally.

TIBETAN 24 Freshman Seminar 1 Unit

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Prior to 2007
The Freshman Seminar Program has been designed to provide new students with the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member in a small seminar setting. Freshman seminars are offered in all campus departments and topics vary from department to department and semester to semester. Enrollment limited to fifteen freshmen.

TIBETAN 84 Sophomore Seminar 1 Unit

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Sophomore seminars are small interactive courses offered by faculty members in departments all across the campus. Sophomore seminars offer opportunity for close, regular intellectual contact between faculty members and students in the crucial second year. The topics vary from department to department and semester to semester. Enrollment limited to 15 sophomores.

TIBETAN 100S Advanced Tibetan Conversation 1 Unit

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2013, Spring 2013, Fall 2012
This course is designed for advanced students of Tibetan language. Its goal is to provide an opportunity for advanced students to develop their colloquial Tibetan conversation skills. More sophisticated linguistic forms are used and reinforced while dealing with various socio-cultural topics, with a particular focus on Buddhist-related subjects toward the end of the term. Primary emphasis
will be on the Lhasa dialect of Tibetan, though some variant dialects may also be introduced.

TIBETAN 110A Intensive Readings in Tibetan 4 Units

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2017, Fall 2016, Fall 2010
This course is an intensive introduction to reading literary Tibetan literature. Following an introduction to basic grammar, the course moves quickly into selected readings from Buddhist texts in Tibetan. It typically builds on basic skills acquired in 1A-1B (elementary Tibetan), though with consent it may be taken independently.

TIBETAN 110B Intensive Readings in Tibetan 4 Units

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Spring 2010, Spring 2009, Spring 2008
A continuation of TIBETAN 110A, this course provides an intensive introduction to a range of literary Tibetan literature. Assuming knowledge of basic literary Tibetan grammar, the course focuses on selected readings from Buddhist texts in Tibetan.

TIBETAN C114 Tibetan Buddhism 4 Units

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2017, Fall 2016, Fall 2014
This course is a broad introduction to the history, doctrine, and culture of the Buddhism of Tibet. We will begin with the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet in the eighth century and move on to the evolution of the major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhist literature, ritual and monastic practice, the place of Buddhism in Tibetan political history, and the contemporary situation
of Tibetan Buddhism both inside and outside of Tibet.

TIBETAN 115 Contemporary Tibet 4 Units

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Spring 2017, Summer 2016 Second 6 Week Session, Spring 2016
This course seeks to develop a critical understanding of contemporary Tibet, characterized as it is by modernity, invasion, Maoism, liberalization, exile, and diaspora. It explores the cultural dynamism of the Tibetans over the last 100 years as expressed in literature, film, music, modern art, and political protest. The core topics include intra-Tibetan arguments
regarding the preservation and "modernization" of traditional cultural forms, the development of new aesthetic creations and values, the constraints and opportunities on cultural life under colonialism and in the diaspora, and the religious nationalism of the recent political protests.

TIBETAN 116 Traditional Tibet 4 Units

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2015, Summer 2015 Second 6 Week Session
This class will explore Tibetan civilization throughout the pre-modern period with an emphasis on literature, the visual arts, ethnography, and the history of Tibet's important cultural exchanges on the broader Inner Asian and Himalayan stages. The overall lesson plan will cover a wide range of Tibetan cultural forms and regions, and highlights the many international links that
so animated Tibet itself and were crucial to the politics of Asia for many centuries. Furthermore, the theme of "early modernities" will be prominent in the readings in the second half of the course.

TIBETAN 118 The Politics of Modern Tibet 4 Units

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2017, Fall 2016
For over a hundred years, the political status of Tibet has commanded a level of attention on the international stage – and within China – seemingly disproportionate to the size of its population and economy, and in spite of its reputation as a remote periphery. This course will examine the historical, cultural, and economic assumptions underlying contemporary discourses of Tibetan politics, and relate
them to discourses of global power and peripheries more generally. Grounding discussion in primary sources and critical works from across regions and disciplines, we will examine the roots of current conflict and the ways in which contending Buddhist, nationalist and internationalist projects have contributed to the making of modern Tibet.

TIBETAN 119 Tibetan Medicine in History and Society 4 Units

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Not yet offered
This course will investigate the theory, practice and development of Tibetan medicine or sowa rikpa, “the knowledge of healing.” Using Tibetan medicine as our lens, we will consider how all medical systems are based on ways of knowing that are culturally as well as biologically determined, and historically situated within linguistic, ecological, religious, and political frameworks. Drawing from primary sources
as well as cross-disciplinary scholarship, we will examine issues of translation in canonical medical literature; traditions of ritual and practice; how medicine is taught; relationships between medicine and Buddhism; ideas about human bodies, subtle anatomy, cosmology, and gender norms; and aspects of modernization and globalization.

TIBETAN C154 Death, Dreams, and Visions in Tibetan Buddhism 4 Units

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2014, Spring 2013, Fall 2010
Tibetan Buddhists view the moment of death as a rare opportunity for transformation. This course examines how Tibetans have used death and dying in the path to enlightenment. Readings will address how Tibetan funerary rituals work to assist the dying toward this end, and how Buddhist practitioners prepare for this crucial moment through tantric meditation, imaginative rehearsals, and explorations
of the dream state.

TIBETAN C214 Seminar in Tibetan Buddhism 2 or 4 Units

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2012
This course provides a place for graduate-level seminars in Tibetan Buddhism that rely primarily on secondary sources and Tibetan texts in translation. Content will vary between semesters but will typically focus on a particular theme. Themes will be chosen according to student interests, with an eye toward introducing students to the breadth of available western scholarship on Tibet, from classics in the field
to the latest publications.

TIBETAN C224 Readings in Tibetan Buddhist Texts 2 or 4 Units

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2017, Spring 2017, Fall 2016
This seminar provides an introduction to a broad range of Tibetan Buddhist texts, including chronicles and histories, biographical literature, doctrinal treatises, canonical texts, ritual manuals, pilgrimage guides, and liturgical texts. It is intended for graduate students interested in premodern Tibet from any perspective. Students are required to do all of the readings in the original
classical Tibetan. It will also serve as a tools and methods for the study of Tibetan Buddhist literature, including standard lexical and bibliographic references, digital resources, and secondary literature in modern languages. The content of the course will vary from semester to semester to account for the needs and interests of particular students.

TIBETAN 298 Directed Study for Graduate Students 1 - 8 Units

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2017, Spring 2017, Fall 2016
Special tutorial or seminar on selected topics not covered by available courses or seminars.

TIBETAN 299 Thesis Preparation and Related Research 1 - 8 Units

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2017, Spring 2017, Fall 2016

TIBETAN 601 Individual Study for Master's Students 1 - 8 Units

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2017, Spring 2017, Fall 2016
Individual study for the comprehensive or language requirements in consultation with the graduate adviser. Units may not be used to meet either unit or residence requirements for a master's degree.

TIBETAN 602 Individual Study for Doctoral Students 1 - 8 Units

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2017, Spring 2017, Fall 2016
Individual study in consultation with the major field adviser, intended to provide an opportunity for qualified students to prepare for various examinations required of candidates for the Ph.D.

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