Here we list our talks, presentations, workshops, and events that we are involved in
2026
June 30
Berthe Jansen participated in a conference organized at the University of Oxford called “Asian-Global Networks and Relationships in the Modern Spread of Buddhism“. Her paper was titled “Ghoom Monastery between the 1880s and the 1950s: an Unparalleled but Forgotten International Hub for Tibetan Buddhism”.
May to June
Berthe Jansen went on a three week research trip to India during which she visited Gangtok, Kalimpong, and Darjeeling.
May 27
Nils Martin gave a public lecture entitled “The foundation inscription of the Alchi Gsum brtsegs, or the great deeds of the ’Bro clansmen in Ladakh” at the workshop “Textual and epigraphic sources in the Western Himalayas until the 15th century” organized by Marta Sernesi and Quentin Devers at the Collège de France, Paris. https://www.sfemt.fr/journee-detudes-textual-and-epigraphic-sources-in-the-western-himalayas-until-the-15th-century/
April 17
Berthe Jansen gave a paper at the conference “Buddhism and Law: Converging and Conflicting Buddhist Legal Frames: Secular Governances and Buddhist Transgressions” at York University, Toronto. The paper was titled “Legal Intervention as a Buddhist Practice? The Role of Mediation in Text and
Practice in Tibetan societies”
April 17
Nils Martin gave a public lecture entitled “Echoes from North Bengal in the Van Manen Collection” at the Centre for Himalayan Studies of North Bengal University, Siliguri. http://42.104.73.52:81//doc/event_file/AA//202604180001.pdf
March 23
Berthe Jansen gave a paper entitled “Recently Discovered and Rediscovered Lexicographical Manuscripts and the Making of the Tibetan First-English Dictionary” at the symposium “Asian languages in the history of lexicography”, in Montpellier.
March 13
Nils Martin gave a public lecture entitled “A View of Lhasa from Kolkata: The Van Manen Collection” at the Indian Museum, Kolkata. https://www.facebook.com/Indianmuseumkolkata/posts/on-march-13-2026-we-were-pleased-to-welcome-nils-martin-of-leiden-university-who/1614148930725464/
March to April
Nils Martin went on a six-week research trip to India and Nepal
January 29
Berthe Jansen gave a talk at the Tibetan Graduate Studies Seminar (TGSS) on “The Yeti in the Archives: Wild Men (mi rgod) as Oral Tradition in the Van Manen Collection”
2025
December 11 and 12
The team organized the international workshop Scholar, Trader, Collector, Spy: Alternative Networks in the Himalayas (1850-1950).
August 29 to 8 September
Samten Yeshi made a research trip to Gadenchokhor, a Buddhist Center located in Chur, Switzerland, to participate in the gcod (Tibetan Buddhist practice of severance) ritual practice, observe the practice process, and interact with the teacher and practitioners.
August 30 and 31
Berthe Jansen gave a paper named “Ghoom Monastery as a Tibetan Buddhist Contact-Zone: the Life and Legacy of the Mongolian Lama Sherab Gyatso.” at the Tung Lin Kok Yuen 90th Anniversary International Conference “Tracing the Threads – The Enduring Legacy of Buddhist Transmission”, Hong Kong University. (Invited speaker) https://www.buddhistdoor.net/tracing-the-threads-the-enduring-legacy-of-buddhist-transmission/
August 9 to August 16
The team organized and participated in the panel “Rare Texts and Popular Religion: Buddhism as Collected by Van Manen” at the 20th International Association of Buddhist Studies (IABS) in Leipzig, Germany. https://conference.uni-leipzig.de/iabs2025/academic-program/
Nils Martin gave a paper entitled “The Thangkas of the Van Manen Collection: A Mirror of the Greater Darjeeling Area?”
Samten Yeshi presented on “A Note on the Gelug gcod Tradition According to Manuscripts in the Van Manen Collection.”
Tenzin Tsepak participated with the presentation “Examining the Role of Himalayan Assistants in the Van Manen Collection.”
Berthe Jansen gave a paper named “Collecting as Practice: Van Manen as Theosophist, Buddhist, and Buddhologist.”
July 9
Nils Martin gave a talk “On the Earliest Painted Stupas of the Himalayas” during the Third Glorisun Annual Forum – Beyond Civilizational Clash: The Coalescence of Human Civilizations, Inalco, Paris. https://glorisunglobalnetwork.org/buddhism-and-art/
June 19
Nils Martin gave a public lecture entitled “Une porte ouverte sur le Tibet : les thangkas de la collection van Manen” at the musée Guimet (Hôtel d’Heidelbach, in person and on reservation only). https://www.guimet.fr/fr/activites-visites/une-porte-ouverte-sur-le-tibet-les-thangkas-de-la-collection-van-manen
June 9 – July 19
Tenzin Tsepak conducted fieldwork in India.
June 5-6
The team hosted Dr. Rachael Griffiths, post-doc in the ERC-funded project PaganTibet (EPHE), who gave a lecture entitled Shaping Space: Perception and Transformation in Tibetan Construction Rituals in the context of the IIAS/LIAS Buddhist Studies lecture series. The next day, Dr. Griffiths and the team discussed the application of digital humanities elements in Tibetan studies, and their potential for the Van Manen Project.
May
Berthe Jansen gave an invited talk: “In Eager Pursuit of Tibetan: Newly Discovered and Recovered Manuscripts and the Making of the First Tibetan-English Dictionary.” EPHE, Paris.
April 3
The team hosted Bernard Faure, emeritus professor at Columbia University, who gave a lecture entitled Taking a Walk on the Wild Side of Buddhism: The Cult of Kōjin in Medieval Japan in the context of the IIAS/LIAS Buddhist Studies lecture series.
March 24
Nils Martin attended Les mobilités en Asie au prisme des sources des Missions étrangères de Paris (XIXe -XXIe siècles), Paris, Missions étrangères de Paris. https://www.gis-reseau-asie.org/evenement/les-mobilites-en-asie-au-prisme-des-sources-des-missions-etrangeres-de-paris-xixe-xxie
March 16
Berthe Jansen gave her views on the reincarnation of the current Dalai Lama in the radio program OVT (in Dutch only).
March 7-15
Tenzin Tsepak conducted fieldwork at the Theosophical Society in Madras.
February 11-24
Samten Yeshi made preliminary fieldwork visits to Darjeeling, Kalimpong, and Sikkim in India.
February 4 – 6
Samten Yeshi participated in the 2nd conference of the International Society for Bhutan Studies at Kyoto University and presented on “the Royal Missives in the Van Manen Collection.”
January 29
Berthe Jansen gave a public lecture entitled Sacred Substances: How to Construct, Consecrate, and Collect Buddhist Images in Early 20th Century Darjeeling at Hamburg University.
January 15
The team hosted Dr. Mathilde Mechling, post-doc at the EPHE, to present the lecture Uncovering Ritual Traces in Javanese Bronze Mandalas in the context of the IIAS/LIAS Buddhist Studies lecture series.
2024
December 12-13-14, 2024
On Thursday 12 and Friday 13 the Van Manen project team organized and hosted the workshop Unboxing the Himalayas: On the Creation, Use, and Circulation of Sacred Things and Texts in Leiden.
Furthermore, on Saturday 14, our team organized the official farewell of Dr. Peter Verhagen, now retired university lecturer of Tibetan Studies at Leiden University.
December 6-8, 2024
Samten Yeshi gave a virtual presentation on Becoming a Buddhist Kingdom: Chronological Walk to the National Day of Bhutan as one of the speakers in the Knowledge Remittance Symposium scheduled from December 6-8 organized by Knowledge Remittance, a Bhutanese initiative to exchange knowledge.
December 3, 2024
Berthe Jansen gave an online presentation as part of the Light of Kailash Lecture series, entitled Himalayan Ritual Texts and Artefacts in Context: The Van Manen Collection, organized by Shangshung UK.
November 29, 2024
Berthe Jansen gave a talk entitled “Tibetan Studies in The Netherlands: Looking up from below”, in the context of the centenary celebrations of the VVIK (Celebrating Dutch Indology – 100 Years of Friends of the Kern Institute).
November 14th, 2024
Nils Martin gave a presentation on the vast corpus of Tibetan rock inscriptions included in the Himalayan Rock-Art Database at the closing event of the Himalayan Archaeology research program (November 13-14) in Paris (Campus Condorcet). . https://www.crcao.fr/2024/10/21/himalayan-rock-art-project/?lang=en
October 2024
Nils Martin gave a presentation on some of the earliest Tibetan dedicatory rock inscriptions in Western Tibet at the international workshop ‘Dedications on Tibetan Canonical Artefacts – Connecting Literature, Material Culture, and Social Context’ (October 24-26) at the University of Vienna. https://stb.univie.ac.at/en/news-events/detail/news/dedications-on-tibetan-canonical-artefacts-connecting-literature-material-culture-and-social-cont/.
October 2024
Berthe Jansen participated in the workshop “Tibetology: Present Research
and Future Perspectives” that took place between 6-10 October in Basel. Her paper was called The Making of the First Tibetan-English Dictionary: A Newly Discovered Manuscript from 1820.
September 2 to 6 2024
Samten Yeshi participated in the International Seminar of Young Tibetologists (September 2-6) at Wolfson College, Oxford University and presented on Motives and Methods in the Early Collection of Tibetan Materials: A Glimpse into Van Manen’s Curation and Conservation of Tibetan Textual Materials.
August 31 2024
Berthe Jansen and Tenzin Tsepak both presented on different aspects of the Van Manen collection at a conference at Cambridge University organized by Glorisun called When the Himalayas Encounter the Alps: The Past, Present and Future of Asia-Europe Buddhist and Other Religious Exchanges
May 18th 2024
Prof. Foxeus gave a talk within the Buddhist Studies lecture series on a Buddhist “Heresy” in Myanmar (jointly organized by LIAS and IIAS)
May 18th 2024
Prof. Foxeus gave a talk within the Buddhist Studies lecture series on a Buddhist “Heresy” in Myanmar (jointly organized by LIAS and IIAS)
April 19th 2024
Berthe Jansen gave a talk in the Sijthof lecture series on Buddhism in the Mountains (in Dutch)
March 28th 2024
Prof. Szántó gave a talk within the Buddhist Studies lecture series (jointly organized by LIAS and IIAS)
February 2024
Tenzin Tsepak gave a presentation on “Beginning Tibetan: Preserving Culture and Identity with OER” at the 2024 Language OER Conference hosted by the University of Kansas.
January 2024
Tenzin Tsepak gave a webinar on “Top Ten Things to Know about Tibet” for the National Consortium for Teaching About Asia.
2023
October 2023
Berthe Jansen taught a Buddhist Philosophy seminar: Order and Chaos in Tibetan Buddhism at the School for Comparative Philosophy in Antwerp
October 2023
Berthe Jansen gave a paper on the notion of Yama as a judge at the SEECHAC conference in Warsaw
September 2023
Berthe Jansen gave a paper on the Tibetan legal imaginaire at the Buddhism and Law conference at SUNY, Buffalo
August 2023
Berthe Jansen gave a lecture on the Van Manen Collection at RYI in Kathmandu
February 2023
Berthe Jansen gave a LIAS lunch talk on the Van Manen Project
January 2023
To listen to a very brief interview held in Tibetan on this project click here