Faculty-Discipline

Dominique Townsend

Dominique Townsend

Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Department of Religion

Office: 480 Claremont Ave Ste, Suite 103, MC 9610, New York NY
Office Hours: Tuesdays, 11:00am – 1:00pm and by appointment
Phone: 212-853-5640
Email: dt80@columbia.edu

Background
Dominique Townsend is a scholar of Tibetan Buddhism whose research combines historical and literary methods. Her interests include Tibetan Buddhist cultural production, poetry, aesthetics, dreams, gender, and translation. Her research is rooted primarily in Classical Tibetan texts, with an emphasis on the seventeenth-twentieth centuries. She teaches courses on Tibetan Buddhism and history, Asian humanities, poetics, new media, dreaming, and Buddhist approaches to death and dying. Before joining the faculty at Columbia in July 2024, she was Associate Professor of Religion at Bard College, and prior to that she served as Head of Interpretation at the Rubin Museum of Art.
Research Interests

Currently Townsend’s research is focused on a book about dreams and dreaming in Tibetan Buddhism, All this is Dreamlike, forthcoming from Columbia University Press. Her previous books include A Buddhist Sensibility (Columbia University Press, 2021), and the co-edited, Longing to Awaken, (University of Virginia Press, 2024). She has also published a book of poems and a children’s book.

Sonam Tsering

Sonam_Profile_Picture_sm

Sonam Tsering

Senior Lecturer in Tibetan, Director of the Tibetan Language Program

Office: 502-A Kent Hall
Office Hours: T 2:30-5 PM
Phone: (212) 854-0596
Email: st2931@columbia.edu

Educational Background

BA: Social Anthropology, University of London

Classes Taught

TIBT UN1600 First Year Modern Colloquial Tibetan I
TIBT UN1601 First Year Modern Tibetan II
TIBT UN2603 Second Year Modern Colloquial Tibetan I
TIBT UN2604 Second Year Modern Tibetan II
TIBT UN3611 Third Year Modern Colloquial Tibetan I
TIBT UN3612 Third Year Modern Tibetan II

Research Interests

Tibetan Language

Sonam Tsering is the director of the Tibetan language program at Columbia. Sonam previously taught at the University of Michigan, where he also remotely taught students at Yale and Ohio State University, via live video technology. Originally from Rebgong (Qinghai, PRC), Sonam later lived in the Tibetan community in exile in India, founding and editing Bod kyi Dus bab (Tibet Times newspaper).

Online publications

Introduction” for the English Translation of The Division of Heaven and Earth – on the peaceful revolution of the Earth Rat year by Shokdung, Xining (unpublished yet, 2008)
“The Historical Polity of Repgong” (The Tibetan and Himalayan Library, 2011) http://places.thlib.org/features/23751/descriptions/1225
Translation: Clear Sky and Red Earth – A Himalayan Story by Sienna Craig, Illustrations by Tenzin Norbu, (Mera Publications, 2004)
“Ipolito Desideri” (Latse Library Newsletter, 2004)
“La dwags kyi ag bar and its background” (Latse Library Newsletter, 2005)
New York Regular contribution to Nyenchen Thanglha, Nor Od, Tibetan Review, Mangtso and Tibet Times, Dharamasala, India 1987 – 1993
Numerous Articles in Qinghai Zangwen Bao (Qinghai Tibetan Language Newspaper), Qinghai Fazhi Bao (Qinghai Law Magazine), Xining, PRC

Chikako Takahashi

Chikako Takahashi

Lecturer in Japanese

Office: 520 Kent Hall
Office Hours: Monday 11:00 – 12:00 & Wednesday 4:00 – 5:00

Phone: (212) 854-5502
Email: ct2423@columbia.edu

Educational Background
PhD: Linguistics, Stony Brook University
M.A: TESOL, Teachers College, Columbia University
Classes Taught
JPNS 1002 Introductory Japanese B
JPNS 1101 First Year Japanese I
JPNS1102 First Year Japanese II
JPNS2201 Second Year Japanese I
JPNS2202 Second Year Japanese II
Research Interests

Second Language Phonetics Learning
Pronunciation in Second Language Instruction
Japanese Information Structure

Chikako Takahashi holds a PhD in Linguistics from Stony Brook University. Her research focuses on how speakers’ pronunciation and perception of their first and second (or third) languages are influenced by their language learning experience. Prior to coming to Columbia, she has taught Japanese courses at Japan Society and Linguistic courses such as Phonetics and Phonology, Sociolinguistics, and Second Language Acquisition at the undergraduate and graduate levels at various institutions.

Publications

Journal Publications (Peer-reviewed) 

Takahashi, C. (2024). L1 Japanese Perceptual Drift in Late Learners of L2 English. Languages 9: 0.

Takahashi, C. (2023). L1 vowel perceptual boundary shift as a result of L2 vowel learning. Journal of Phonetics, 100.

Hwang, J., Takahashi, C., Baek, H. Baek, Yeung, A. HL., and E. Broselow (2022). Do L1 tone language speakers enjoy a perceptual advantage in processing English contrastive prosody?   Bilingualism: Language and Cognition.

Takahashi, C. (2019). No transposition in Harmonic Serialism, Phonology, 36, 4.

Takahashi, C. (2012). Impact of Dictionary Use Skills Instructions on Second Language Writing, Working Papers in TESOL and Applied Linguistics, Teachers College, Columbia University, 12 (2).

Proceedings Papers

Yeung, A., Baek, H., Takahashi, C., Buttner, S., Hwang, J., and E. Broselow (2020). Too little, too late: A longitudinal study of English corrective focus by Mandarin speakers. Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America, 5(1). 270-281.

Yeung, A., Baek, H., Takahashi, C., Duncan, J., Benedett, S., Hwang, J., and E. Broselow, (2019). Pitch range, intensity, and vocal fry in non-native and native English focus intonation. Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, 36, Acoustic Society of Americ

Takahashi, C. (2018). No Metathesis in Harmonic Serialism. In Gallagher, G., Gouskova, M., and S. Yin, (eds.), Supplemental proceedings of the 2017 Annual Meeting on Phonology. Washington, DC: Linguistic Society of America. http://dx.doi.org/10.3765/amp.v5i0.4232.

Takahashi, C., Kao, S., Baek, H., Yeung, A. HL., Hwang, J., and E. Broselow, (2018). Native and non- native speaker processing and production of contrastive focus prosody. Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America (Vol. 3)

Takahashi, C. (2017). Information Structure of Japanese Ditransitives. In Funakoshi, K., S. Kawahara, and C. Tancredi, (eds.), Japanese/Korean Linguistics, 24, Stanford; CSLI Publications

Kao, S., Hwang, J., Baek, H., Takahashi, C., and E. Broselow, (2016). International teaching assistants’ production of focus intonation. Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, 26, Acoustic Society of America

Recent Presentations

Kyoko Matsui Loetscher, Naoko Sourial, and Chikako Takahashi, Curriculum Reform to
Foster Multiliteracies, International Conference on Japanese Language Education – North
America, August 1-3, 2024, Wisconsin, Madison.

Kyoko Matsui Loetscher, Naoko Sourial, and Chikako Takahashi, Report on Blended-learning Model in Elementary Japanese Courses – toward fostering learning agency, AATJ Spring Conference, March 16, 2023, Boston.

Chikako Takahashi, Effect of second language learning factors on first language phonetic change. American Association for Applied Linguistics 2022 Conference, March 19-22, 2022 (Poster Presentation)

Chikako Takahashi, L1 vowel perceptual drift as a result of L2 vowel learning: L1 Japanese -L2 English bilinguals’ perception of high front vowels. The 96th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Jan. 6-9, 2022, Washington, DC.