Summer School on Campus
Monday 29 June – Friday 3 July 2026
Dr Jordan Quill
£695
Course Description:
Encircled by a ring of snowy mountains, the extreme high-altitude terrain of the Tibetan Plateau ensured the preservation of Buddhism and its arts while it disappeared in its birthplace of India. Despite this remoteness, Tibet and the Himalayas are home to artistic treasures directly informed by millennia of cross-cultural dialogue and artistic exchange.
We will embark on an immersive journey into visually stunning, materially rich, and spiritually meaningful religious and secular art and architecture from ‘the roof of the world’, spanning over a thousand years until the present day. This course will explore the political, cultural, and material history of this breathtaking region across space, media, and time, from the Tibetan Plateau to the Kathmandu Valley, to Bhutan and parts of modern-day India – Ladakh, Lahaul and Spiti, and Sikkim. This includes religious paintings and statues, jewellery inlayed with turquoise and coral, textiles, and dress – preserved in London collections which we will visit – as well as shrines, stupas, temples, and palaces.
Brief introductions to the Tibetan script(s) and religion(s) from the first session will encourage a fully immersive experience, supplemented by multi-media preparatory materials of readings, videos, music, and online resources.
This course offers a broad but meaningful introduction to trans-Himalayan culture to inspire further study, travel, and discovery. We will conclude with the institutions and sites now established in exile, particularly in Dharamshala, current home to His Holiness The Dalai Lama in India. Here, against extreme repression at home, Tibetan art, language and culture are being carefully preserved today.