Poetics and Persona in Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhist Autobiography

This two-hour roundtable session includes 8 presenters who draw on examples of Tibetan-language poetry in different styles and periods of autobiographical writing from across the Tibetan Buddhist cultural sphere including Mongolia. Scholarship over the past several decades has investigated ways that Buddhist ideas of personhood are bound with first-person life writing, but less attention has been paid to the role of poetry and poetics in autobiography, or to how poets use "persona"—whereby the poet speaks through an assumed voice. Prior to the roundtable, all presenters will have precirculated their own original translations. These examples show how in Tibet and Mongolia, as elsewhere, poetics can be used to negotiate various modes of self-expression. The diverse group of presenters will limit their remarks to 10 minutes each to investigate ways that Buddhist ideas of personhood are expressed through poetry.