Tibetan

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Translation of The Division of Heaven and Earth – on the peaceful revolution of the Earth Rat year by Shokdung, Xining (unpublished yet, 2008)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

Sonam Tsering Ngulphu

Sonam Tsering Ngulphu

Lecturer in Tibetan

Office: 502-G Kent Hall

Office Hours: By appointment
Email: st2855@columbia.edu

Educational Background

PhD: Columbia University
MTS: Harvard University
MA: Central University for Tibetan Studies

Research Interests

Tibetan Studies, Religion, and Buddhist Studies

Sonam Tsering Ngulphu has taught topics on religion, Buddhist philosophy, and Tibetan language and literature at monasteries and modern educational institutions in India and the US. He had previously worked as the managing editor of Tibet Journal, an academic quarterly on Tibetan studies, where he also co-edited thematic series on Tibet and British Raj, Tibetan monuments, and a fourteen-issue history of Tibetan art.

Sonam’s doctoral dissertation examined the eighteen-volume Collected Works of Je Tsongkhapa (1357–1419) to assess the role of the texts in the formation of Geluk School in Tibet during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It studied the significant roles that Je Tsongkhapa’s writings have played in establishing doctrinal authority, defining philosophical boundaries, postulating intellectual identity, and reorienting monastic education for Tibet’s largest school of thought and philosophy.

Trained in several languages, Sonam specializes in translation and interpretation with a focus on classical Tibetan Buddhist texts.

Selected Publications

Precious Garland: Buddhist Polity on Life and Liberation (Rājaparikathāratnāvali, Trans & Annot. LTWA, 2014)

Verses of Naga King Drum (Nāgarājabherīgāthā, Trans. 8400, 2020)

“The Sixth Ling Rinpoche Thupten Lungtok Namgyal Trinlé (1903–1983),” “Emchi Khyenrab Norbu (1883–1962),” “Tuksé Tubten Lhundrub (1906–1955),” and other biographies under National Endowment of Humanities (NEH) Grant (Biographical Encyclopedia of Tibet, Inner Asia, and the Himalaya, http://www.treasuryoflives.org/) 

Tibet Journal (Managing Editor, 2001–2004)

Tshan rig dus deb (Assistant Editor, 2001–2003)