This workshop interrogates the notion of Himalayan Studies writ large, foregrounding connections between academic disciplines, local geographies, and trajectories of study over time. Our collective considerations will highlight links across the landscapes of Himalayan research while considering the often-contested nature of "Himalaya" as an analytical category. We hope this attention to the diverse interests that comprise contemporary Himalayan Studies will lead to new insights and...

How have different disciplines recognized, or not, the importance of political histories for understanding dynamics of change across the Himalaya? When have investigations of specific polities yielded productive inquiries and when have such boundaries been limiting? How have people, ideas, and goods moved across boundaries over time, and what kind of scholarly frameworks do we need to understand such movements? Is there value in considering an unbounded trans-regional Himalaya as a unit of...

What do we see when we look at the Himalaya? What kinds of strategies and techniques have people in the Himalaya used over time to represent themselves, their aspirations, beliefs, identities, etc? How have different disciplines emphasized specific forms of self-representation in their own processes of scholarly representation? What kinds of materials and objects come to the fore and shape both scholarly and popular understandings of the region? What kinds of links or gaps exist between...

How and why is the study of the Himalaya relevant to non-specialists, particularly other Asian Studies scholars engaged in debates over the nature of borders, center/periphery dynamics, and transregional connections? Moderator: Mark Turin (Yale University) Charles Ramble (EPHE, Sorbonne) James Scott (Yale University)

How has the notion of "Himalayan identity," broadly defined, been understood across the disciplines? What specific forms of identity have been at the forefront of disciplinary investigations: gender, political, national, religious? How are identities understood within particular sub-regions or communities? What forms of subjectivity are these linked to? How does transnational mobility in the past and present challenge understandings of ethnic and national identity as commonly defined?...

Opening Remarks: Andrew Quintman (Yale University), Sara Shneiderman (Yale University) Panel 1 Disciplinary Histories: How has the study of the Himalaya been guided by disciplinary concerns; how have those concerns changed over time? How have institutional configurations shaped scholarly production? How have these disciplinary and institutional arrangements affected our knowledge of sub-regions of the Himalaya? How have you seen these conditions change over the course of your career and how...