Learn about Tibetan medicine Friday at WWU

Sienna Craig, associate professor and chair of Anthropology at Dartmouth College, will visit the Western Washington University campus Friday. May 9, to deliver a special presentation “Healing Elements: Defending and Transforming Tibetan Medicine in the 21st Century.”

The presentation will take place at 4 p.m. in the Wilson Library Reading Room (4 Central). This event is free and open to the public.

Craig will explore how Tibetan medicine circulates through diverse settings in Nepal, China and beyond as commercial goods and gifts and as targeted therapies and panacea for biophysical and psychosocial ills. She will consider what it means to say that Tibetan medicine “works” and what the stakes are in such discussions. Her talk is based upon more than a decade of anthropological research.

Prior to her talk, Craig will visit with faculty and students interested in Mongolian and Tibetan Studies, and she will also tour Western Libraries’ internationally recognized collections. Western’s Mongolia collection has several features rarely found in other academic libraries, specifically its broad and balanced nature. At the time of its establishment in 1971, the Center for East Asian Studies at Western Washington University developed programs for the two major countries of the region, China and Japan. The creation and maintenance of a noteworthy collection of books has been one part of Western’s Mongolia Program’s activities.

These activities have been supported since 1997 by the Henry G. Schwarz Endowment Fund for Mongolian Studies, which provides in perpetuity scholarships, money for purchasing Mongolian books for this university’s libraries, and travel grants to assist scholars to come to Bellingham and use our library resources. A teacher and scholar of East Asian Studies, specializing in the history, political development, ethnic minorities, and languages of China and Mongolia, Schwarz joined the WWU faculty in 1969, where he soon established the Center for East Asian Studies and served as its first director. A prolific contributor to the literature of East Asian Studies, Schwarz also held many leadership positions and served as member of several governing bodies. In 1994, on the occasion of Dr. Schwarz’s retirement, thirty-three scholars around the world presented him with the volume Opuscula Altaica: Essays in Honor of Henry Schwarz (Bellingham: Center for East Asian Studies, Western Washington University), and in 2006, in recognition of Dr. Schwarz’ thirty years of promoting Mongolian Studies in the United States, the President of Mongolia awarded him the nation's highest honor for foreigners, the Order of the Polar Star.

This event is made possible through the generous support of The Schwarz Mongolian Endowment. If you would like more information about how you can support Mongolian and Tibetan Studies at Western, please contact Dean of Libraries Mark I. Greenberg at mark.greenberg@wwu.edu.