Lauran Hartley

Educational Background

BA: Northwestern University (’85)
MA: Indiana University (’98)
PhD: Indiana University (’03)

Classes Taught

ASCE UN1365  Introduction to Asian Civilization: Tibet
EAAS GU4553  Survey of Tibetan Literature
EAAS GU4565  Tibet in the World: Cultural Production and Social Change
EAAS GU4615  Tibetan Rivers and Roads: Infrastructure, Environment, and Urban Lives

Research Interests

Tibetan Literature and Cultural Production, Translation Studies, Social Theory

Lauran Hartley is an Associate Research Scholar and Director of the Modern Tibetan Studies Program at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute. In addition to co-editing the book Modern Tibetan Literature and Social Change (Duke University Press, 2008) and serving as Inner Asian Book Review Editor for the Journal of Asian Studies, she has also published several literary translations and articles on Tibetan intellectual history. Her research interests include literary production and discourse from the eighteenth century to present, as well as contemporary cultural production and society. From 2007-2021,  she served as Tibetan Studies Librarian for the C.V. Starr East Asian Library and taught previously at Rutgers University and Indiana University. From 2019-2022, Hartley served on the advisory board of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, and for more than six years on the Board of Directors of the Buddhist Digital Resource Center.

Selected Publications

Co-editor, Modern Tibetan Literature and Social Change (Duke University Press, 2008)

“The Advent of Modern Tibetan Free-Verse Poetry in the Tibetan Language” in A New Literary History of Modern China (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2017)

“Self as a faithful public servant: The autobiography of Mdo mkhar ba Tshe ring dbang rgyal (1697–1763)” in Mapping the Modern in Tibet. Proceedings of the 11th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, 2006 (Andiast, Switzerland: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies GmbH, 2011)

“Ascendancy of the Term rtsom-rig [literature] in Tibetan Literary Discourse” in Contemporary Tibetan Literary Studies. Proceedings of the 10th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, 2003 (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2007)

“Tibetan Publishing in the Early Post-Mao Period.” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 15 (2005)