Conference report: authoritative speech in the Himalayan region

Abstract

On 25-26 November 2011, Marie Lecomte-Tilouine and Anne de Sales held a conference on “Authoritative Speech in the Himalayan Region”. Sales and Lecomte-Tilouine, both accomplished anthropologists of Nepal, are affiliated with the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), in Paris. For the two days of the conference, whenever participants played audio-visual recordings, the urgent strains of shamanic drumming and chants punctured the tranquility of the Maison Suger, a quiet haven in the bustling centre of Paris, where the proceedings occurred. The conference included papers on both the Nepalese and Tibeto-Burman oral traditions of the Himalayan region, including Nepal itself, Tibet, Northern India, and Southwest China.