Nicole Willock and I co-edited the May 2016 issue of Himalaya on the theme,  “The Secular in Tibetan Cultural Worlds.” The issue examines Tibetan responses to secularism in diverse geographic contexts from Himalaya to Central Asia with contributions by Tsering Gonkatsang, Matthew King, Leigh Miller, Emmi Okada, Annabella Pitkin, Françoise Robin, Dominique Townsend, and the co-editors. Our introduction, “Theorizing the Secular in Tibetan Cultural Worlds,” discusses the categories of ‘religion’ and the ‘secular’ in Tibetan discourse as they emerged historically and places them within the context of the varieties of Asian secularisms. My own article, “Controversy over Buddhist Ethical Reform: A Secular Critique of Clerical Authority in the Tibetan Blogosphere,” examines the blogosphere debate over ethical reform inaugurated in eastern Tibet by Larung Buddhist Academy.

Cover of Himalaya 36:1, artwork by Dedron (Luciano Benetton Collection).