Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Kultur-, Sozial- und Bildungswissenschaftliche Fakultät - Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften

For the next edition of the Histories and Cultures of Central Asia lecture series on 11 February 2026, Jarmila Ptackova (Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague) will give a talk on:

"ROADS TO THE ROOF OF THE WORLD: PRC'S TERRITORIALISATION OF THE TIBET-NEPAL FRONTIER"

Since this is a public lecture, we will be pleased to welcome you in person at:

Invalidenstr. 118, 10115 Berlin
Central Asian Seminar, Room 507
Institute for Asian and African Studies
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

... or on Zoom!

Please note, the talk will start at 6.15 p.m., the Zoom room opens at 6.00 p.m.

Since the occupation of Tibet by the People’s Republic of China in the 1950s Tibetan place names have gradually been rendered and replaced by Chinese names. Tibetan maps have become virtually impossible to find. Google Maps and Chinese map-applications only provide Chinese versions of Tibetan place names in Chinese characters and/or in Pinyin transcription and many Tibetan places are no longer displayed. As we have become reliant on such web-based map applications, the day-to-day use of Chinese names for Tibetan places has exponentially increasing and seemingly become solidified. Tibet University (TU) as of summer 2025 was re-named in English as Xizang University (XU) and the TAR (Tibet Autonomous Region) as Xizang Autonomous Region (XAR). Even international maps have begun adopting Chinese colonial place naming practices and notable European museums, such as the Musée Guimet in Paris and the British Museum in London, have started renaming Tibet as “Tibetan plateau” and as “Xizang Autonomous Region”. What is going on? Will the term “Tibet” be erased? Will Tibetan place names disappear?

The proposed workshop hopes to bring scholarly debates on colonial practices of place naming and critical place names studies in other parts of the world (Williamson 2022) to Tibetan and Himalayan Studies, especially to think about the Chinese colonial context of Tibet. Place names have often developed over centuries and are deeply linked to local cultural practices, religious beliefs, geographical knowledge, indigenous science, political ambitions, language and language change, and are intimately related to indigenous ontologies (Hazod 2009, Hofer 2022, Huatse Gyal 2021, Jabb 2015, Lange & Lhendup 2024, Monet 2024, Washul 2024). Furthering existing empirical work, we invite papers that go beyond presentations of historical “facts” and changing etymologies of place names and offer a deeper theoretical engagement and analysis of the related contestations, negotiations and consequences of deliberately controlled place-naming policies and practices in Tibet and the Greater Himalaya.

We invite both scholarly papers as well as creative contributions (such as poems, radical cartography interventions, photography projects etc.) on the everyday social rela1ons, practices and struggles around landscapes and place names, both historical and contemporary. The workshop will provide a platform for discussing the naming and renaming of places by political authorities in Tibet and beyond from different disciplinary and research perspectives. We look forward to exchanging ideas among specialists from fields such as, but not limited to, social and cultural anthropology, mapping and cartography, human geography, place naming history, museum studies, linguistics.

Interested participants are invited to submit an abstract of no more than 250 words (excluding references)
in English to diana.lange@hu-berlin.de

The deadline for all abstract submissions is January 31, 2026.

Limited funding will be made available for junior colleagues without other sources of funding and based on one-on-one application basis.

Download the full CfP here.

Reframing Tibetan and Mongol Mapmaking Practices (pre-20th century)

26-28 November 2026, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin

Organizers: Diana Lange (HU Berlin), Anne-Sophie Pratte (Georgetown University in Qatar), Antje Ziemer (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin)

Over many centuries, numerous manuscript maps were made of the Mongol steppe and Tibetan highlands. These maps constitute a rich repertoire of geographical knowledge and spatial representation, documenting how local actors conceptualized territory, environment, and administrative space across Central Asia. Despite their similarities in mapping style and Buddhist cosmographic influences, Mongol and Tibetan maps are rarely examined together in scholarly studies. This conference brings together Mongol and Tibetan mapping practices under a single scholarly framework, creating a comparative space for examining shared visual conventions, as well as the political, religious, and administrative contexts in which these maps were produced. This will contribute to existing discussions on mapping practices in 18th- and 19th-century Mongolia and Tibet, cartographic changes over time, materiality and transregional exchanges. More broadly, we want to contribute to reframing the scholarly discussions on historical map making before the 20th century, a field that is traditionally centered on European works or East Asian mapping traditions. 

This conference will be organized in partnership with the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, which holds a significant collection of Mongol manuscript maps comprising 182 items. Participants will engage with this collection through hands-on map viewing sessions at the Library, which will complement the scholarly contributions. We invite contributions that engage with a wide variety of topics connected to Tibetan and Mongol maps, such as materiality, cosmology, linguistics, colors, figurative elements, symbology, architecture, toponyms and textual inscriptions. Topics may also go beyond the maps themselves and touch on how such maps can be used as historical sources to shed light on various relevant questions from di erent research fields. We look forward to exchanging ideas among specialists from across multiple disciplines, such as history, area studies, art history, anthropology, geography, museum studies, and linguistic.

Limited funding may be available upon request for junior scholars and for participants who do not have access to institutional research or travel funds.

Find a PDF version of the call for papers here.

Please send a title, abstract, and short bio to tibetmongolmaps@gmail.com before March 1st.

For the next edition of the Histories and Cultures of Central Asia lecture series on 03 December 2025, Prof. Dr. Julian Dierkes (University of Mannheim) will give a talk on his research in Mongolia:

"The Mongolian State and the Magnetism of Natural Resources"

Since this is a public lecture, we will be pleased to welcome you in person at:

Invalidenstr. 118, 10115 Berlin
Central Asian Seminar, Room 507
Institute for Asian and African Studies
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

... or on Zoom!

Please note, the talk will start at 6.15 p.m., the Zoom room opens at 6.00 p.m.

For the next edition of the Histories and Cultures of Central Asia lecture series on 03 December 2025, our postdoctoral researcher Björn Reichhardt will give a talk on his research in Mongolia:

"Ferments and Fences: (Re)Sources of Wealth in Rural Mongolia"

Since this is a public lecture, we will be pleased to welcome you in person at:

Invalidenstr. 118, 10115 Berlin
Central Asian Seminar, Room 507
Institute for Asian and African Studies
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

... or on Zoom!

Please note, the talk will start at 6.15 p.m., the Zoom room opens at 6.00 p.m.