Modern Secularist vs. Religious Fanatic: Goldstein’s reading of Tibet, a review by Nicole Willock
What does a modernist secularist reading of recent Tibetan history look like? How do such readings reinforce notions of Tibetans as religious fanatical barbarics? Nicole Willock (2011) takes a stab at these questions in her review of Melvyn Goldstein’s (2007, 2009) History of Modern Tibet. While she acknowledges his contributions, she also highlights the limitations of such a framing. Pointing out how such lens tend to reify notions of Tibetans as either modern or not-modern. One way of remedying this, according to Willock, is to engage Tibetans themselves, who have historically engaged in the practice of translation and continue to do so in the present. Highlighting how Tibetans continue to be agentive in translating and negotiating new political and cultural moments and the terminologies these moments spawned.
