Goldsmiths - University of London

Dr Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim

Academic qualifications

BA Tel-Aviv University, 1989
MA summa cum laude Tel-Aviv University, 1998
PhD SOAS, University of London, 2004 

Areas of supervision

I would welcome research proposals on various aspects of the history of Asian medicine, as well as in interactions between medicine and religion.

Grants & awards

• Wellcome Trust University Award, 2010
• Research Fellowship (three years), Wellcome Trust, 2007
• Warburg Institute, Short Term Fellowship, 2004
• SOAS research fund; Curty-Gullay Fellowship, 2002
• Spalding award for the study of Religions; Sutasoma award for Buddhist Studies, 2001
• Frederick Williamson Fellowship (Cambridge), 1999
• Ian Karten Fellowship, 1998

Professional activities

I am a member of the Editorial Board of: Asian Medicine: Tradition and Modernity (Brill).

Research interests

My recent research has focused on the transmission of medical ideas along the Silk-Roads. Within this general scope, I have been working on the history of early Tibetan medicine, based primarily on manuscripts found in the Dunhuang caves. This work followed up on my work which consisted part of the 'Islam and Tibet' project at the Warburg Institute .

My current research project funded by the Wellcome Trust is titled: "Re-Orienting Early Medicine: Bridges of Knowledge between 'east' and 'west'". The main goal of this project is to analyse the ways in which ancient Hebrew medicine, like ancient Tibetan medicine, is a case of 'medical syncretism' deriving from what is termed 'eastern' and 'western' medical traditions.

My academic training has been in the Study of Religions and I am also interested in the ways religions have defined transmission of knowledge, both in the Buddhist and Jewish cases.

 

Selected publications

Selected Publications

Books

Medical Mélange: Ancient Tibetan Medicine from Dunhuang (in preparation).   

Co-editor (with Anna Akasoy and Charles Burnett), Rashid al-Din as an Agent and

Mediator of Cultural Exchanges in Ilkhanid Iran , London: Warburg Institute, forthcoming in 2011.

Co-editor (with Anna Akasoy and Charles Burnett), Islam and Tibet: Interactions along the Musk Routes, Farnham: Ashgate, 2011.  

Co-editor (with Anna Akasoy and Charles Burnett), Astro-Medicine: Astrology and Medicine, East and West, Florence: Micrologus’ Library, 2008. 

Edited Journal

Co-editor (with Vivienne Lo), Asian Medicine: Tradition and ModernitySpecial Silk Roads Volume, Leiden: Brill 2007

Articles in Books

“Rashid al-Din’s Life of the Buddha – some Buddhist Perspectives,” In: Anna Akasoy, Charles Burnett and Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim (eds), Rashid al-Din as an Agent and Mediator of Cultural Exchanges in Ilkhanid Iran, London: Warburg Institute Press, forthcoming in 2011.

“A Tibetan Image of Medical Divination: Some Contextual Remarks”, In: Vivienne Lo and Wang Shumin (eds), Globalising Chinese Medicine (provisional title), forthcoming in 2011.    

“On Urine Analysis and Tibetan Medicine’s Connections with the West” In:

Sienna Craig, Mingji Cuomu, Frances Garrett and Mona Schrempf (eds), Studies of Medical Pluralism in Tibetan History and Society, Halle: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies GmbH, in press, pp. 195-211.

“Islam and Tibet: Cultural interactions – An Introduction”, In: Anna Akasoy, Charles Burnett and Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim (eds), Islam and Tibet: Interactions along the Musk Routes, Farnham: Ashgate 2011, pp. 1-16.

“Tibetan Medical Astrology”, In: Anna Akasoy, Charles Burnett and Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim (eds), Astro-Medicine: Astrology and Medicine, East and West, Florence: Micrologus’ Library, 2008, pp. 223-36.

“The Kālacakra Empowerment as Conducted by Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche” In:  Edward A. Arnold (ed), As Long as Space Endures: Essays on the Kālacakra Tantra in Honor of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Ithaca: Snow Lion, 2009, pp. 415-48.

“Yuthog Yonten (the younger)” and “Sangye Gyatsho”, Entries in the Dictionary of Medical Biography, W.F. Bynum and H. Bynum (eds) Westport, CN & London: Greenwood Press, 2007. Vol. 5, pp. 1342-4; pp. 1107-8.

“Shambhala”, entry in: Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements, Peter Clarke (ed.), London: Routledge, 2006. pp. 526-28.

Articles in Journals 

“Tibetan ‘wind’ and ‘wind’ illnesses: towards a multicultural approach to health and illness,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, vol. 41 (2010), pp. 318–324.

“Along the Musk Routes: Exchanges between Tibet and the Islamic World,” (with Anna Akasoy), Asian Medicine: Tradition and Modernity, vol.3, no.2 (2007), pp. 217-240. 

“The 14^th Dalai Lama’s Oral Teachings on the Source of the Kālacakratantra ” Pacific World: Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies. Third series, no. 6, (Fall 2004), pp. 229-44.

Reviews

Review of: David Shulman and Shalva Weil (eds), Karmic Passages: Israeli Scholarship on India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2008. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, vol. 73 (2010), pp. 558-559.

Review of: Mona Schrempf (ed), Soundings in Tibetan Medicine: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives, Leiden: Brill, 2007. Asian Medicine: Tradition and Modernity, vol. 4 (2008), pp. 555-558.

Review of: Wallace, Vesna, trans. The Kālacakratantra: The Chapter on the Individual together with the Vimalaprabhā. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 66, no. 2 (2007), pp. 554-555.

Review of:  Wallace, Vesna. The Inner Kālacakratantra. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.” Buddhist Studies Review,  (Winter 2002), pp. 219-21.