REGISTRATION NOW CLOSED. Please contact Michelle Maciejewska if you are interested in attending the event.

Convenor:    Mark Turin (Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge) 

Programme and Registration
Please use the links at the right hand side of the page to see the programme and register online. The fee (which includes lunch on both days) is £30, with a concessionary rate of £15 for students or unwaged. The deadline for registration is Thursday 10 December.

Summary
This two-day workshop, organised by the World Oral Literature Project at the University of Cambridge, is designed to bring together established scholars, early career researchers and graduate students with indigenous researchers, museum curators, archivists and audio-visual experts to discuss strategies for collecting, recording, preserving and disseminating oral literatures and endangered narrative traditions. In view of the diversity of current research initiatives on the oral literatures of the Asia-Pacific, and the geographical strengths of Cambridge-based scholars, the workshop will broadly focus on this region. Specific sessions on the Himalayas (India and Nepal), High Asia (China, Mongolia and Tibet) and the Pacific are planned.

The workshop will provide a collaborative environment for scholars to present, discuss and be exposed to new techniques and fieldwork methodologies. Topics include the ethical responsibilities of researchers, their engagements with local communities as partners, the place of western universities as archival repositories of living traditions and sites of interaction for indigenous communities, and the role of local digital archives or community cultural centres as sites of knowledge transfer, teaching and research.

In parallel, we are pleased to host the second meeting of the ‘Ritual Speech in the Himalayas’ working group, participants of which will present on their research and publishing projects to those attending the World Oral Literature Project workshop.

Confirmed participants include:
Professor Peter Austin (SOAS)
Katey Blumenthal (University of Virginia)
Dr Lissant Bolton (British Museum)
Sir Charles Chadwyck-Healey (Publisher and Archivest)
Professor Ruth Finnegan (Open University)
Professor Martin Gaenszle (University of Vienna)
Dr Stephen Hugh-Jones (King's College, University of Cambridge)
Dr Christopher Kaplonski (MIASU, University of Cambridge)
Professor Alan Macfarlane (King's College, University of Cambridge)
David Nathan (Director, Endangered Languages Archive, SOAS)
Professor Michael Oppitz (University of Zürich)
Dr Carole Pegg (University of Cambridge)
Dr Judith Pettigrew (University of Limerick)
Gerald Roche (Griffin University/Qinghai Normal University)
Dr Anne de Sales (CNRS, Paris)
Dr Sara Shneiderman (St Catharine's College, University of Cambridge)
Elin Stangeland (DSpace, University of Cambridge)
Alban von Stockhausen (University of Zürich)
Professor William Sutherland (Zoology, University of Cambridge)
Yarjung Kromchai Tamu (Chief Advisor, Tamu Pye Lhu Sangh)
Professor Nicholas Thomas (Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology)

This workshop has been made possible by generous support from:

C-SAP
The Onaway Trust
The Firebird Foundation for Anthropological Research

Please note that  part of the proceedings may be filmed by the University Office of External Affairs and Communications for a series of  short video podcasts on research projects.

Please address  administrative enquiries to mm405@cam.ac.uk.