Events

Current and Upcoming

Book Talk: High Lands, Pure Earth: Place Making, History, and Urban Transitions on the Tibetan Plateau

October 7, 2026
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
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School of International and Public Affairs, 420 West 118th Street, Room 918, New York, NY 10027

For non-Columbia affiliates, registration is required to access the Morningside campus. After registering you will receive an email with a QR code that must be presented along with a valid government-issued ID (your name must match exactly the name registered for the event) at either the 116th Street & Broadway or 116th Street & Amsterdam gates for entry. Please register using a unique email address (one email address per registrant) by 4:00 pm on Oct. 6 for campus access.

Names will be submitted for QR codes 1-2 days prior to the event. Registrants will receive an email from CU Guest Access with the QR code before or on the day of the event. NOTE: You cannot access campus using the QR code from Eventbrite.

Speaker: Eveline Washul, Assistant Professor, Department of Central Eurasian Studies, Indiana University

Discussant: Palden Gyal, Postdoctoral Research Scholar, University Committee on Asia and the Middle East; and Lecturer, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University

Moderator: Lauran Hartley, Associate Research Scholar and Director, Modern Tibetan Studies Program, WEAI; and Adjunct Assistant Professor, EALAC, Columbia University

In the twenty-first century, China's accelerated urbanization has transformed the Tibetan Plateau. Yet Tibetan urban experiences continue to be profoundly shaped by senses of being in the world that long predate Tibet's subjugation into the modern Chinese nation-state. Combining novel analysis of Tibetan textual sources, ethnographic research, and Indigenous studies frameworks, Washul’s book explores how Tibetans actively engage history, peoplehood, and place to build belonging and community even in urban spaces characterized by intense state-led development and assimilation. 

Speaker's Bio: Dr. Eveline Washul is a sociocultural anthropologist and historian of Tibet. She is an assistant professor of anthropology and Tibetan studies in the Central Eurasian Studies Department at Indiana University.  Her research focuses on the intersections of place-making, peoplehood, and various forms of state power, examining how these processes shape the contours of social, geographic, and intellectual mobility and boundedness in specific historical and contemporary periods of Tibet. 

This event is hosted by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and cosponsored by the Studies of the WEAI Book Series and Modern Tibet Studies Program.

Registration: To attend this event in-person, please register HERE.

Contact Information

Julie Kwan