Tibet: From Marco Polo to Mickey Mouse

The talk focuses on the origin and growth of the mythical view of Tibet in the Western world. Travelogues, novels, fictional movies, and special events —which will be reviewed in a chronological sequence with the support of images— have contributed to the mystification of the Land of Snows and its reshaping as a virtual entity often detached from reality. Tibet has regularly been characterized as secret, magic, mysterious, sacred, forbidden… an arcadia of peace and happiness whose population is featured as the prototype of the spiritual person —an archetype of sorts that has entered and taken deep roots in the Western soul. The Tibet fashion reached its climax in the late '90s when a few Tibetan intellectuals adopted significant icons of the Western civilization and Tibetanized them in order to restore them to the Western audience.

The subject of the talk was dealt with from a different perspective in Ramon Prats' article "Origins Of The 'Tibet Myth' In Western Fiction," published in Latse Library Newsletter, III (Fall 2005), pp. 31-37.

RAMON N. PRATS

professor

Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona

Ramon N. Prats holds a doctoral degree in Tibetan Studies from the Oriental Institute of the University of Naples (Italy), where he was associate professor of Tibetan language and literature from 1980 to 1995. In 1998 and 1999 Dr. Prats worked at the Himalayan and Inner Asian Resources of the Trace Foundation, New York. He was subsequently appointed professor of Buddhist studies at the Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona (Spain). Since 2006 he also works at the Rubin Museum of Art, New York, in the position of Senior Curator. Ramon Prats has more than sixty publications to his credit and has traveled extensively in the Tibetan world.