The event will be BSL interpreted and the venue is wheelchair accessible. If you have any other access requirements please contact the organisers.
To register please send an email with your name and affiliation to: theresia.hofer@bristol.ac.uk or Prof. Elisabeth Hsu elisabeth.hsu@anthro.ox.ac.uk. The event is free.
This workshop is a cross-disciplinary exploration of the relationships between gesture and language, and the role of signifying embodied movements more broadly, in culturally Tibetan and related linguistic areas of the Himalayas.
Presenters will explore two main topics. One is how Tibetan repertoires of gesturing, speaking and signing are related to patterns of visual and bodily communication in everyday life and other domains. The other is the use of gesture, in its own right, in the everyday, and how it relates to other forms and functions of speech and text, in markets, in dance, Buddhist debate and ritual in the region of the Tibetan plateau and the Himalayas. How do such forms of expressions create social relations, distinct ways of being and forms of knowledge? How do they relate to written and/or visual historical records? Spanning these topics is an exploration of the various affordances of the visual-gestural modality for communicative purposes, and how they are modified to accommodate diverse sets of meanings and recreate asymmetrical relations, as our aim is not to lose sight of the wider social processes and political history of the region.
The workshop comprises three parts, each with two presentations and discussion; and the keynote lecture will be given by Prof. Mara Green, Barnard College, NYC, on the shared linguistic resources between deaf and hearing people in Nepal. The forum will open up to a wider audience through the public screening of the ethnographic film “Ishaare”, by Dr. Annelies Kusters, Hariot-Watt University, on gesture and communication between familiar and unfamiliar deaf, deaf-blind and hearing vendors and customers in Mumbai markets, at 18:30 in the Leonard Wolfson Auditorium. The film features English subtitles. The Leonard Wolfson Auditorium is wheelchair accessible. If you have any other access requirements please contact the organisers.
