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Penn State Asian Studies Summer Institute: "Trans-Asian Indigeneity," June 18-24, 2017, Co-directors: Neal Keating, Pasang Yangjee Sherpa, and Charlotte Eubanks. Institute participants spend a week reading and thinking about the annual theme, as well as significant time workshopping their work in progress. Particularly strong work may be considered for publication in the “Indigeneity” special issue of Verge: Studies in Global Asias.

Contemporary Global Issues

Cultural processes that many would label progress has brought humanity to major turning points many times. From the first use of tools, food production, social stratification to urbanization, state organization, and now the dominance of global commercial economies, they have all been decisive ones with critical implications for the future. At this point, however, with the orders-of-magnitude increases in the scale of societies, global population, resource consumption rates, and the concentration of wealth and power associated with growth in the commercial economy have dramatically intensified the problems created by earlier developments and significantly reduced the resilience of both human and natural systems. Pacific Lutheran University (Spring 2020)

Sacred Himalaya

Himalayan sacredness can be understood in multiple ways. Through various reading materials, this course explores: what is sacred about the Himalaya; who is it sacred to; and how is sacredness maintained? When there is no one to continue the project of maintaining and advancing sacredness, does it expire? Can Himalayan sacredness be forgotten? University of Pittsburgh (Fall 2018)

Climate Change in the Himalayas

This course examines how climate change is unfolding in the Himalayas. Students explore perception, vulnerability, adaptation, and resilience as thematic instruments to gain a better understanding of the phenomenon of climate change. University of Pittsburgh (Fall 2018)

Destination Nepal: ethnography of encounter and cultural resilience

Students explore historical and contemporary frictions of encounter between tourists and Nepali communities, researchers and shamans, nomadic hunter-gatherers and development. Considering the precipitated changes through such encounters, students will explore notions of cultural resilience and holding on to origins. University of Washington (Winter 2018)

Sacred Himalayas: people, livelihoods, and climate change

This course explores diverse culture, geography and contemporary issues in the Himalayas. It discusses human-mountain relationships to understand how the melting Himalayas are reimagined as sacred entities. Through a survey of contemporary socio-cultural and environmental challenges Himalayan people face, it examines temporal, spatial, and situational evolution of the notion of sacredness. University of Washington (Spring 2017)

Sacred Boundaries: faith, ecology, and the politics of the Himalayas

This course will explore sacred sites that cross international boundaries. It looks specifically at the Kailash Sacred Landscape (KSL) that spans the borders of China, India and Nepal, and how it becomes a unique global space in which ecology, economy, and politics converge in unexpected ways. Hindus and Buddhists consider Mount Kailash the holiest of mountains. For thousands of pilgrims who make the arduous journey to this mountain every year, it is the closest place on Earth to heaven, where ordinary humans are spiritually transformed. The New School (Fall 2016)

Area Studies

Peoples of South Asia, Pennsylvania State University (2014, 2015)

Natives of North America, Washington State University (2010)

General Anthropology

Anthropology of Gender

Anthropology of Religion

Introduction to Anthropology

Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (face-to-face and online)

Climate Change
Development
Religion
Environment
Nepal and the Himalayas