Barbara Gerke

 

Contact: 

E-Mail: barbara.gerke@univie.ac.at
Web: https://univie.academia.edu/BarbaraGerke


Barbara Gerke received a M.Sc. in Medical Anthropology (2003) and a D.Phil. in Social Anthropology (2008) from the University of Oxford. She is currently the Principal Investigator of the FWF-funded projects Pandemic Narratives of Tibet and the Himalayas (P36136) (with post docs Dr. William McGrath and Dr. Jan van der Valk) and the project Potent Substances in Sowa Rigpa and Buddhist Rituals (P30804) (with post doc Dr. Jan van der Valk). She came to the University of Vienna in 2015 with a Lise-Meitner senior fellowship on Tibetan precious pill formulas. Her DFG-funded post doc project on Sowa Rigpa (Tibetan medical) pharmacological detoxification methods (2011-2015) was based at Humboldt University of Berlin, where she also taught. She also taught at universities in the USA (University of California Santa Barbara and Dartmouth College, NH).

She works across the disciplines of medical anthropology and Tibetan studies. Her research interests are the anthropology of Sowa Rigpa, specifically Sowa Rigpa-related responses to the pandemic, the medico-religious interfaces in Sowa Rigpa pharmacology, and the use of potent and poisonous substances. Her ethnographic fieldwork is based in Buddhist communities across the Himalayas.

Her open-access monograph Taming the Poisonous: Mercury, Toxicity, and Safety in Tibetan Medical Practice (Heidelberg University Publishing, 2021) examines the use of refined mercury in Tibetan medicines. Her first monograph Long Lives and Untimely Deaths (Brill, 2012) analyzes long-life rituals, as well as vitality and life-span concepts among Tibetans in the Darjeeling Hills. Together with Jan van der Valk and Sienna Craig (2020) she co-edited a Hot Spots issue on Asian medical responses to COVID-19. With Jan van der Valk she co-edited the special issue section of HIMALAYA (vol. 39.1, 2019) on potent substances. She also edited a special issue of Asian Medicine (vol. 8.1, 2013) on mercury in Ayurveda and Tibetan Medicine. For her numerous articles and book chapters visit: https://univie.academia.edu/BarbaraGerke


Online Resources

FWF Project Pandemic Narratives of Tibet and the Himalayas 

FWF Project Potent Substances in Sowa Rigpa and Buddhist Rituals 

Taming the Poisonous open access monograph


 

All activities

Dr. Barbara Gerke, MSc
Barbara Gerke
1 - 20 out of 38

Arya, P. Y. (Author), Van der Valk, J. (Author), & Gerke, B. (Author). (2023). Tashi Yangphel Tashigang. Web publication, Treasury of Lives.



Gerke, B. (Author), & Van der Valk, J. (Author). (2022). Potent Substances project expo: Sowa Rigpa pandemic responses. Web publication

Gerke, B. (Author), & Van der Valk, J. (Author). (2022). Working with calcite: Potency as process. Web publication


Gerke, B. (2022). Allegiance to whose community? Effects of Men-Tsee-Khang policies on the role and identity of amchi in the Darjeeling Hills. In L. Pordié, & S. Kloos (Eds.), Healing at the Periphery: Ethnographies of Tibetan Medicine in India Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478021759-008


Gerke, B. (2021). Taming the Poisonous: Mercury, Toxicity, and Safety in Tibetan Medical Practice. (1 ed.) Heidelberg University Publishing. Heidelberg Studies on Transculturality Vol. 7 https://doi.org/10.17885/heiup.746









Gerke, B., & Van der Valk, J. (Eds.) (2019). Materiality, Efficacy, and the Politics of Potent Substances across Asia. (1 ed.) Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies.

Gerke, B. (2019). Material Presentations and Cultural Drug Translations of Contemporary Tibetan Precious Pills. In W. A. McGrath (Ed.), Knowledge and Context in Tibetan Medicine: Proceedings of the Fourteenth Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Bergen, 2016 (pp. 337–367 ). Brill. Brill's Tibetan Studies Library Vol. 43 https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004404441_011

1 - 20 out of 38

The multiple potencies of nine aromatic substances: The Tibetan anti-epidemic amulet formula Nakpo Gujor

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

30 Nov 20231 Dec 2023

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Taming the Poisonous

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

22 Nov 2023

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Tibetan Buddhist Longevity Rituals and Traditional Medicine in India

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

13 Nov 2023

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


European Conference for South Asian Studies

Jan Van der Valk (Speaker) & Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

28 Jul 2023

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


COVID-19 in Sowa Rigpa: Approaching Epidemics in the Texts and Practices of Tibet and the Himalayas

Barbara Gerke (Speaker), Jan Van der Valk (Speaker) & William McGrath (Speaker)

23 Jun 2023

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Smellscapes of Protection: NAKPO GUJOR, The 9-Compound Black Pill

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

23 Jun 2023

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Sowa Rigpa Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Material Manifestations of Protection and Treatment.

Barbara Gerke (Speaker) & Jan Van der Valk (Speaker)

21 Jun 2023

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Potent Substances in Sowa Rigpa and Buddhist Rituals

Barbara Gerke (Speaker), Jan Van der Valk (Speaker), Tawni Lynn Tidwell (Speaker) & Calum Blaikie (Speaker)

4 Nov 2022

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Sowa Rigpa Infectious Disease Etiologies, Buddhist Rituals, and COVID-19 Vaccination Compliance

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

28 Oct 2022

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Continuity of Potency: Ethnographies of Lineage Substances (phab rta)

Barbara Gerke (Speaker) & Calum Blaikie (Speaker)

13 Jul 2022

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Tibetan Spiritual Ecologies of Substances: The Anti-Epidemic “9-Compound Black Pill” (nag po dgu sbyor)

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

6 Jul 2022

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Depicting poisons, contagion, and antidotes in Tibetan medical paintings of the 17th century

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

4 Jun 2022

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Precious and Potent: Tibetan Medical Pill Traditions

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

23 May 2022

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Public


Artisanship in Sowa Rigpa Medicine Making

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

16 May 2022

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


When Practice Contradicts Texts: The Use of Panacea in Sowa Rigpa

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

27 Jul 2021

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Potency, poison cultures, and the politics of toxicity: Processing mercury in Asian medicines

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

21 Nov 2019

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Artisanship and "Potency-in-Becoming"

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

14 Nov 2019

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


What Makes a Substance Potent? Senses, Substances, and the Art of Tibetan Pharmacology

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

21 Oct 2019

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionOther


Enhancing the Potency of Substances in Sowa Rigpa: Chongzhi (cong zhi), the ‘Essence of Stones’

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

11 Jul 2019

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


"Potency-in-Becoming": Artisanship among Amchi Practitioners Making Sowa Rigpa Medicines in Ladakh

Barbara Gerke (Speaker) & Jan Van der Valk (Speaker)

31 Jan 2019

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Biographies of Tibetan Precious Pills: A Project Exhibition at ISTB

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

18 Jan 2019

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionOther


Sterben am Ganges: Hospize in Varanasi, Indien

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

10 Jan 2019

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionOther


Starting and running an NGO in India in my Twenties

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

4 Oct 2018

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionOther


Tod und Sterben in Indien

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

14 Jun 2018

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionOther


The Globalization of Asian Medicines

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

14 Nov 2017

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Precious Substances in Tibetan Pharmacopoeia: Exploring Tibetan Jewel Pill Ingredients

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

2 Nov 2017

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


On the History and Manufacturing of Tibetan Precious Pills

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

26 Sep 201729 Sep 2017

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Challenges in Translating Epistemologies of Toxicity in Tibetan Medical Texts and Ethnographic Encounters

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

11 Aug 2017

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


The Potency of Preciousness: Gems as Potent Substances in Sowa Rigpa Pharmacopoeia

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

8 Aug 2017

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Entangled Efficacies in the Biographies of Tibetan Precious Pills

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

2 Aug 2017

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Reformulations in Sowa Rigpa: Thinking about “Classical Formulas” Taking the Example of Tibetan Precious Pills

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

14 Feb 2017

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Mercury as a chülen in Tibetan traditions

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

21 Oct 201622 Oct 2016

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionOther


Potent substances in Tibetan multicompound formulas: Anthropological considerations

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

1 Sep 20164 Sep 2016

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionOther


The Signature of Recipes: Genre, Authenticity and the Development of Tibetan Precious Pill Formulas

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

16 Jun 201624 Jun 2016

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionOther


On the Sensory Engagement with Poisonous Substances: 'Taming' Poisons into Elixirs in Tibetan Pharmacological Practices

Barbara Gerke (Speaker)

13 Jun 2016

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionOther


Pandemic Narratives of Tibet and the Himalayas

Gerke, B., Van der Valk, J. & McGrath, W.

1/12/2230/11/25

Project: Research funding


Potent Substances in Sowa Riga and Buddhist Rituals

Gerke, B. & Van der Valk, J.

11/06/1810/09/24

Project: Research funding


Biografien Tibetischer Kostbarpillen

Gerke, B.

11/05/1531/01/18

Project: Research funding


Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies

Spitalgasse 2
1090 Wien
Room: 2B-O1-12

barbara.gerke@univie.ac.at