This event will be both in-person & online. Alyson will be joining via Zoom, but you are welcome to join us in the Mangalam library for her talk and the following talk by Gregory Shushan from 4-5:30pm.
The "go to online event page" on your Ticket will give you access the Zoom link as well as directions for in-person attendance at Manglam Research Center in Berkeley, CA.
To register for the entire series on "Mind, Death, & Rebirth," please go here.
*If tickets are sold-out, you can choose "Donate (any amount)" in the "Get Ticket" options for in-person or online entry.
A recording of this talk will be shared via email a few days after the event.
Description: Tibetan language accounts of returns from death identify delogs (‘das log) as people who have died, usually uneventfully, and then reawakened to resume their former lives. What are these people like, these delogs who have seen the afterlife? What do they say about their death experiences? I will draw from my ethnographic research with contemporary delogs to describe common features of delog testimonies as well as significant variations between individual delogs’ reports. I will also explain how delogs are viewed by their communities: what contributes to people trusting, doubting, or discrediting delogs and their messages?
Alyson Prude is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Georgia Southern University where she teaches courses introducing students to Religious Studies and Asian religions. Her research focuses on issues of power and authority, relationships between normative Buddhist and indigenous traditions, and contemporary delogs in Nepal and Tibet. Her publications include “What Makes Folk Buddhism?” (Living Folk Religions, 2023) and “A Reexamination of Marginal Religious Specialists: Himalayan Messengers from the Dead” (Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 2020). She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
