Papers by Kati Fitzgerald
Tibetan Opera in and outside the Tibet Autonomous Region
Asian Theatre Journal, 2014
This article examines common misconceptions in the field of Tibetan opera (lhamo) studies that ar... more This article examines common misconceptions in the field of Tibetan opera (lhamo) studies that arise out of analysis of performances conducted in and outside the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). Dichotomies propagated by contextual and environmental elements of performance disallow clear analysis of the core characteristics of performance. An ingrained political and aesthetic prejudice leads to an oversimplification of the merits of lhamo performances inside the TAR and in exile. This article attempts to clarify some of the root reasons for these distortions and posits a new line of future research.
Critique, Reform, and Ethical Innovation: Buddhist Philosophies in Contemporary Tibetan Hip Hop
The Oxford Handbook of Lived Buddhism, Mar 21, 2024
This chapter looks to Tibetan Hip Hop artists as contemporary Buddhist theologians—religious prac... more This chapter looks to Tibetan Hip Hop artists as contemporary Buddhist theologians—religious practitioners who make, critique, and break down doctrines within a particular religious tradition. What are contemporary Buddhist artists saying about Buddhism? How are they critiquing Buddhist systems of power? How are they expressing suffering in particularly Buddhist ways? After providing a brief overview of the emergence of Tibetan Hip Hop and the ways in which early artists have contended with and reformulated their Buddhist traditions, the chapter focuses largely on the corpus of Tibetan rapper Uncle Buddhist aka SCARK!D and his 2018 album City Tibetans (གྲོང་ཁྱེར་བོད་པ). This artist, through lyrics, music videos, documentary work, and interviews, makes theological interventions into Buddhist ethics, critiquing the power of the monastery and reincarnation systems, calling out corruption, proposing new ethical frameworks on environmentalism and world peace, and positioning himself and his generation of misfits as fitting within the Buddhist trope of crazy wisdom. This chapter considers how Hip Hop artists are contributing to the changing landscape of Buddhist reform movements in Tibet.
Korean Journal of Buddhist Studies, 2021
This paper uses an ethnographic approach to understand the place of sacred geography in contempor... more This paper uses an ethnographic approach to understand the place of sacred geography in contemporary Tibetan Buddhist practice. Utilizing a theoretical model suggested by a monastic leader from Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, this paper posits sacred space as agential.
This agency manifests as the ability to accumulate imprints of sacrality, similarly to how sentient beings accumulate karmic imprints throughout their lives. This paper analyzes two examples of sacred sites in contemporary Yushu, a rural, nomadic, high altitude area of
Qinghai Province, and looks at religious labor performed upon these sites - circumambulation, death rituals, murals, inscriptions and offerings. The religious activities that occur in geographic spaces outside the monastery are not exclusive to religious elites, but are also performed by lay communities. This lay population are themselves highly diverse in terms of
age, gender, class, literacy and religious training. Within the field of Buddhist Studies, there is a lacuna of data on these lay communities, despite the reality that they make up the majority of contemporary Buddhist practitioners. This paper focuses on both monastic and non-monastic
practitioners to highlight the porous nature of the lay / monastic divide and to highlight the importance of the average practitioner. By conceiving of sacred spaces as partially sentient, the theoretical model of sacred space outlined in this paper gives agency to both geographic spaces, as well as the populations who perform religious labor upon the sites. In contemporary Tibetan Buddhism, the ordinary practitioner and the land itself play pivotal roles in propagating and revivifying the sacrality of sacred geography
Religions, 2020
In this article, I explore the prostration accumulation portion of the Preliminary Practices of a... more In this article, I explore the prostration accumulation portion of the Preliminary Practices of a specific group of Tibetan Buddhist women in Bongwa Mayma, a rural area of Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai Province. I focus specifically on the nuns and lay women who utilize this set of teachings and practices. The Preliminary Practices not only initiate practitioners into a specific tradition (that of the Drikung Kagyu and more specifically the Amitabha practices of this lineage), but also more fundamentally into Vajrayāna Buddhism as it is practiced in contemporary Tibet. Although monks and male lay practitioners in this region also tend to perform the same Preliminary Practices, I focus specifically on women because of their unique relationship with bodily labor. I begin this article with a discussion of the domestic and economic labor practices of contemporary Tibetan women in rural Yushu, followed by an analysis of Preliminary Practices as understood through the Preliminary Practice text and oral commentaries utilized by all interviewees and interviews (collected from 2016-2020) with female practitioners about their motivations, experiences, and realizations during the Refuge and prostration accumulation portion of their Preliminary Practices. Women themselves view bodily labor as a productive and inevitable aspect of life. On the one hand, women state openly that their domestic duties impede upon their ability to achieve religious realization. On the other, they frequently extol the virtues of hard work, perseverance, patience, and fortitude that their lives of labor helped them to cultivate. Prostration is meant to embody the act of going for Refuge, of submitting oneself to the teachings of the Buddha, to the path of the dharma, and to the community of religious practitioners with whom they will study and grow. Prostrations are meant to embody the extreme difficulty of Refuge, to remove obscurations, to crush the ego, and to confirm a dedication to endure the hardships on the path to realization. Buddhist women, despite their ambiguous relationship with physical labor, see the physical pain of this process as a transformative experience that allows them a glimpse of the spaciousness of mind and freedom from attachment-filled desire promised in the teachings they receive.
Asymptote, 2020
Translation of Lhashamgyal's (lha byams rgyal) famous essay "pe cin gyi bod pa [Tibetans of Beiji... more Translation of Lhashamgyal's (lha byams rgyal) famous essay "pe cin gyi bod pa [Tibetans of Beijing]"
Asian Ethnology, 2019
This article explores the bibliographic history of Nangsa Ohbum (snang sa ’od ’bum), a Tibetan wo... more This article explores the bibliographic history of Nangsa Ohbum (snang sa ’od ’bum), a Tibetan woman born in the eleventh century, whose hagiography has been translated into many languages and continues to be performed as a Tibetan opera (a lce lha mo) for ever-changing audiences. This article traces textual changes in her story over time and highlights the ways in which ideologically laden translations have affected the story’s reception and interpretation. Utilizing English and Chinese language translations in comparison with Tibetan texts, this article calls attention to the importance of examining original source material when performing comparative or analytical work.
Revue d'etudes Tibétaines, 2017
ibetan opera (lha mo; a lce lha mo) is a performance form that utilizes a variety of didactic tec... more ibetan opera (lha mo; a lce lha mo) is a performance form that utilizes a variety of didactic techniques ranging from oral repetition to script use, from teacher-to-student long-term apprenticeship to contemporary, institutionalized courses. In this paper, I analyze didactic techniques of two different teaching centers, alongside interviews of Tibetan opera artists in Tibet and the United States. I examine the Nepal Tibetan Lhamo Association (bal yul bod kyi lha mo tshogs pa) located just outside Kathmandu, Nepal and Lhasa's Tibet University Arts Department's Tibetan Opera Performance Major 2010-2012. 2 While transmission has traditionally been concei-ved of as strictly hierarchical, with authority derived from the teacher, my findings suggest a more student-centered, defused model of lineage transmission. Peer-to-peer teaching models, advancement in communicative and reproductive technology and the centrality of the students in their own lineage narratives force us to re-conceptualize the material and imaginative conditions for transmission. It would be easy, perhaps, to point to increased commercialization of Tibetan opera and the increasing distribution of audio-visual material as responsible for the demise of the student-teacher relationship. Although new media and commercial interests are certainly affecting the transmission of Tibetan opera, contemporary practices escape simple categorization. 1 I would like to start off by thanking the Columbia University Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, the Columbia University Center for Ethnomusicology and the Rubin Foundation for the opportunity to participate in the conference from which these proceedings emerge. I would also like to thank Isabelle Henrion-Dourcy for editing this volume and for all her invaluable feedback. 2 bod ljongs slob grwa chen mo'i sgyu rtsal slob gling gi lha mo sde tshan; 西藏大 学艺术学院的藏戏表演系.
This article examines common misconceptions in the field of Tibetan opera (lhamo) studies that ar... more This article examines common misconceptions in the field of Tibetan opera (lhamo) studies that arise out of analysis of performances conducted in and outside the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). Dichotomies propagated by contextual and environmental elements of performance disallow clear analysis of the core characteristics of performance. An ingrained political and aesthetic prejudice leads to an oversimplification of the merits of lhamo performances inside the TAR and in exile. This article attempts to clarify some of the root reasons for these distortions and posits a new line of future research. Kati Fitzgerald received her BA in theatre from Barnard College in 2010. She spent four months in residency with the Nepal Tibetan Lhamo Association and three semesters with the Tibet University Senior Lhamo Class from 2010 to 2012.
Book Reviews by Kati Fitzgerald
Longing to Awaken: Buddhist Devotion in Tibetan Poetry and Song. Edited by Holly Gayley and Dominique Townsend. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2024. xii, 308 pp. ISBN: 9780813950693.
Journal of Asian Studies, 2025
Book Review
H-Buddhism, 2021
Review of Karma Lekshe Tsomo, ed. Buddhist Feminisms and Femininities. Albany: State University o... more Review of Karma Lekshe Tsomo, ed. Buddhist Feminisms and Femininities. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2019.
Yeshe: A Journal of Tibetan Literature, Arts and Humanities, 2021
Review of Gendun Chopel: Tibet’s Modern Visionary by Donald S. Lopez Jr.
Buddhist Studies Review, 2020
Le Théâtre Ache Lhamo, Jeux et Enjeux d’Une Tradition Tibétaine, by Isabelle HenrionDourcy, Mélan... more Le Théâtre Ache Lhamo, Jeux et Enjeux d’Une Tradition Tibétaine, by Isabelle HenrionDourcy, Mélanges Chinois et Bouddhiques, vol. 33. Peeters, 2017. 940pp. French. ISBN-13: 978-90-429-3339-2. Pb. €115.
Talks by Kati Fitzgerald
བོད་ཀྱི་སྲོལ་རྒྱུན་ལྷ་མོའི་གཞུང་སྐོར་ཉམས་ཞིབ། Researching Traditional Tibetan Opera
Radio Free Asia, 2024
An interview about my personal journey falling in love with and researching Tibetan opera with Te... more An interview about my personal journey falling in love with and researching Tibetan opera with Tenzin Wangmo. Tibetan language.
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Papers by Kati Fitzgerald
This agency manifests as the ability to accumulate imprints of sacrality, similarly to how sentient beings accumulate karmic imprints throughout their lives. This paper analyzes two examples of sacred sites in contemporary Yushu, a rural, nomadic, high altitude area of
Qinghai Province, and looks at religious labor performed upon these sites - circumambulation, death rituals, murals, inscriptions and offerings. The religious activities that occur in geographic spaces outside the monastery are not exclusive to religious elites, but are also performed by lay communities. This lay population are themselves highly diverse in terms of
age, gender, class, literacy and religious training. Within the field of Buddhist Studies, there is a lacuna of data on these lay communities, despite the reality that they make up the majority of contemporary Buddhist practitioners. This paper focuses on both monastic and non-monastic
practitioners to highlight the porous nature of the lay / monastic divide and to highlight the importance of the average practitioner. By conceiving of sacred spaces as partially sentient, the theoretical model of sacred space outlined in this paper gives agency to both geographic spaces, as well as the populations who perform religious labor upon the sites. In contemporary Tibetan Buddhism, the ordinary practitioner and the land itself play pivotal roles in propagating and revivifying the sacrality of sacred geography
Book Reviews by Kati Fitzgerald
Talks by Kati Fitzgerald