RIGA SHAKYA

Email: riga.shakya@stonybrook.edu

Interests: empire, colonialism, borderlands, multilingualism, non-western intellectual history and political theory

Bio:
My research is grounded in the connected histories of China, Tibet, and Inner Asia, with particular interest in how empire, colonialism, and nation-building have shaped the region from the eighteenth century to the present. My research and teaching are informed by over a decade of archival research and community engagement across China, Tibet, Inner Asia, and the Himalayas, along with a long-standing commitment to Tibetan culture, history, and language—owing to which I’m proud to serve as Managing Editor of the Journal of Tibetan Literature.

My current book project, Kingship After Empire: The Poetics of Tibet’s Last Kingdom in Qing Inner Asia, examines Tibet under the lay rule of Polhane Sonam Tobgye (1689–1747)—the last dynastic ruler to govern central Tibet—on the eve of 18th century Qing imperial expansion, and explores how this oft-forgotten legacy continues to shape contemporary Sino-Tibetan politics.

Building on themes of colonialism, language, and multiethnic governance into the twentieth century, my next book project, Making Minor Languages, explores the politics of Tibetan language reform in China, Taiwan, and India during the Cold War. I am also developing Paper Empire, a study of the multilingual bureaucratic labor of scribes and translators working between Tibetan, Mongolian, and Manchu who sustained Qing imperial rule across Inner Asia.

In 2019, I co-edited and published The Song of the Bee, a critical edition of a recently discovered 19th-century Tibetan manuscript biography and history written by the nobleman Surkhang Sichö Tseten (1766–1820), in collaboration with my long-term research partner Cogro Yundrung Gyurme.

Before coming to Stony Brook, I was a Postdoctoral Research Scholar at the Heyman Center for the Humanities and a Lecturer in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia University, where I also taught in the Core Curriculum.  Outside the university, I work with literary translation and film production. My film projects have screened and won awards at festivals including the Toronto International Film Festival, South by Southwest (SXSW), and the Karlovy Vary International Film
Festival.

Recent Courses:
Undergraduate
HIS 219 Intro to Chinese History
HIS 340 Topics in Asian History

Graduate
HIS 517 Theme on Empire, Modernity and Globalization