Religion in globaler Gegenwart

BA/MA Seminar: Resistance Movements & Proxy Wars: Tibet and the CIA during the Cold War Period

Mittwoch, 20.03.2024

Do you know that the CIA supported the Tibetan resistance movement? Do you know that some Tibetan resistance fighters preferred to commit suicide rather than lay down their arms when the Dalai Lama demanded it? This seminar revisits an overlooked chapter in the recent history of Tibet: the armed struggle that erupted in response to the Chinese military aggression which then became entangled in global geopolitics when the CIA got involved in 1956. Code-named ST Circus, it was one of the CIA’s longest covert operations until it was abandoned in the late 60s. In this seminar we will return to this period and ask: What kind of global political processes Tibet became involved in and what role did it play? What cultural conflicts and moral dilemmas emerge when armed resistance is confronted with the Buddhist ethics of non-violence? How did the Dalai Lams’s attitude towards it evolve? What impact does his attitude have on writing (and forgetting) history and on those involved in it? We will read academic and non-academic texts, autobiographies of participants in (also women!) and eye-witnesses to the Tibetan armed resistance movement, studies by informed/scholarly outsiders, and more journalist documentation. We will also watch rare documentaries from the period. Our main area of interest is Tibet, but we will look for parallels in other parts of Asia and test our observations from Tibet as well as theoretical knowledge in other regions that have become the arena of proxy wars in the past or which are today. Alle Interessierten der Studienprogramme Religionswissenschaft, Zentralasiatische Kulturwissenschaft & Religion in globaler Gegenwart sind herzlich willkommen!

Dozierende(r):	Dr. Emilia Roza Sulek
20.03.2024:	14:15 - 16:00
Ort:	1. UG, F-112 Unitobler Lerchenweg 36

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