Barbara Gerke

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

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Dr. Barbara Gerke, MSc

barbara.gerke@univie.ac.at

https://www.univie.ac.at/preciouspills/

Gerke, B. (2024). Potent substances and the art of medicine-making in Tibetan traditions. Radio show

Gerke, B. (2024). Sowa Rigpa, Vajrayana Buddhism, and COVID-19 Vaccines in India and Bhutan. Asian Medicine, 19, 164-189. https://brill.com/view/journals/asme/19/1/article-p164_7.xml

Gerke, B. (2024). “Potency” and “poison” in the making of medicines: A visit to a private Tibetan pharmacy near Dharamsala. Web publication

Gerke, B., & Singh, S. (2024). An introduction to Sowa Rigpa accessory tools used for medicine making in Spiti. Web publication

Gerke, B. (2024). Visual Dynamics of Contagion: Poisons and Antidotes in Tibetan Medical Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. CURARE - JOURNAL OF MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, 46(2), 15-29.

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

Gerke, B. (2023). Mixing Medicines: Ecologies of Care in Buddhist Siberia by Tatiana Chudakova. New York: Fordham University Press, 2021. pp. 344. Medical Anthropology Quarterly: international journal for the cultural and social analysis of health. https://doi.org/10.1111/maq.12770

Gerke, B., Van der Valk, J., & McGrath, W. A. (2023). Thinking about Contagion and Epidemic Disease in Tibetan and Himalayan Medical Contexts: Introducing the “Pandemic Narrative” Research Project. Web publication

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

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

Gerke, B., & Van der Valk, J. (2022). Tibetan Materialities workshop reflections: University of Copenhagen, 12-13 May 2022. 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. (2022). Review of A Global History of Buddhism and Medicine, written by C. Pierce Salguero. Asian Medicine, 17(2), 328-330. https://doi.org/10.1163/15734218-12341519

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. (2020). Tibetan Medicine, Buddhism and Psychiatry: Mental Health and Healing in a Tibetan Exile Community, written by Susannah Deane. Asian Medicine, 15(1), 197-208. https://doi.org/10.1163/15734218-12341467

Craig, S. R., Gerke, B., & Van der Valk, J. (2020). Asian Medicines, COVID-19 and the Politics of Science: An Unpublished Letter to the Editor of Nature. Web publication

Craig, S. R., Gerke, B., & Van der Valk, J. (2020). Asian Medicines and Covid-19: An Introduction. Fieldsights. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/asian-medicines-and-covid-19-an-introduction

Craig, S. R., Gerke, B., & Van der Valk, J. (2020). Responding to an Unfolding Pandemic: Asian Medicines and Covid-19. Fieldsights. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/series/responding-to-an-unfolding-pandemic-asian-medicines-and-covid-19

Gerke, B. (2020). Sowa Rigpa in Lockdown: On the Potency and Politics of Prevention. Fieldsights. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/sowa-rigpa-in-lockdown-on-the-potency-and-politics-of-prevention

Gerke, B. (2020). Pre-COVID-19: A visit to Dharamsala, India (February 2020). Web publication