Profile

Professional career

• since 10/2022
  Marie Skłodowska Curie Postdoctoral Fellow (EU project: 101059800-BhutIDBuddh: "Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Travel: Identity- and Nation-Building in Bhutan"), Universität Leipzig, Institute for the Study of Religion
• since 05/2018
  Associate Member, Leipzig University, CAHSS “Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities"
• 09/2018 - 08/2022
  Khyentse Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Tibetan Buddhist Studies & Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow (B.A. Asian Language and Culture/B.A. Asian Area Studies/B.A. Interdisciplinary Program in the Study of Religion), University of British Columbia, Department of Asian Studies
• 11/2017 - 05/2018
  Senior Research Fellow, Leipzig University, CAHSS “Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities" (Research project "Bhutan in Transition: Metamorphosis and Institutionalization of Buddhist Concepts")
• 10/2012 - 07/2014
  Instructor of Record (B.A. Languages and Cultures of the Indian Subcontinent and Tibet), Universität Hamburg, Department of Indian and Tibetan Studies

Education

• 01/2013 - 10/2017
  Ph.D. in Tibetology, Universität Hamburg, Department of Indian and Tibetan Studies (Dissertation title: “A Timely Message from the Cave: The Mahāmudrā Doctrine and Intellectual Agenda of dGe-bshes dGe-’dun-rin-chen (1926–1997), the Sixty-ninth rJe-mkhan-po of Bhutan”)
• 10/2006 - 08/2012
  Magistra Artium (M.A.) in Tibetology (major), Classical Indology and Political Science (minors), Universität Hamburg, Department of Indian and Tibetan Studies & Department of Social Sciences

Panel Memberships

• 09/2018 - 08/2022
  Steering Committee Member & Buddhist Communities Liaison, UBC Himalaya Program, University of British Columbia
• 05/2021 - 05/2022
  Department of Asian Studies Sustainability Committee Member, University of British Columbia

Dr. Dagmar Schwerk's current research project ("Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Travel: Identity- and Nation-Building in Bhutan" (https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101059800) is an investigation into identity- and nation-building in 18th-century Bhutan with a particular focus on the agency of Bhutanese Buddhist masters as important intermediaries in Bhutan’s entangled history with Tibet and is centred around the diplomatic travels of the 9th Chief Abbot of the Bhutanese Drukpa Kagyü school (Tib. lho ’brug), Shākya Rinchen (1710–59) to Tibet from 1740 to 1748. This research will diachronically trace the fourfold and multidimensional relationship between religious-doctrinal identity, socio-cultural identity, identity policies, and nation-building.

The innovative interdisciplinary research design (1) extracts empirical data through historical-philological and text-critical methods from Bhutanese and Tibetan primary sources in classical Tibetan; and (2) uses an analytical framework from religious studies.

Furthermore, Dr. Dagmar Schwerk's first monograph covered the unstudied reception history of the longstanding philosophical controversy about Mahāmudrā in the Bhutanese Bhutanese Drukpa Kagyü school between the 18th and 20th centuries and traced the creation of new doctrinal identities, important transcultural intellectual networks between Tibet and Bhutan, and the modernization of Bhutanese religious institutions in the second half of the 20th century.

• Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Travel: Identity- and Nation-Building in Bhutan

  Kleine, Christoph

  Duration: 10/2022 – 09/2024

  Funded by: EU Europäische Union

  Involved organisational units of Leipzig University: Religionsgeschichte
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more projects

• Schwerk, D.

  Secularizing Buddhism: New Perspectives on a Dynamic Tradition

  Journal of Global Buddhism. 2022. 23 (1). pp. 87–94.
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• Schwerk, D.

  A Timely Message from the Cave: The Mahāmudrā and Intellectual Agenda of dGebshes Brag-phug-pa dGe-’dun-rin-chen (1926–1997), the Sixty-Ninth rJe-mkhan-po of Bhutan

  Hamburg: Universität Hamburg, Department of Indian and Tibetan Studies. 2020.

  ISBN: 978-3-945151-10-5
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• Schwerk, D.

  Buddhism and Politics in the Tibetan Cultural Area (2019)
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• Schwerk, D.

  Drawing Lines in a Maṇḍala: A Sketch of Boundaries Between Religion and Politics in Bhutan

  Universität Leipzig. Leipzig. 2019.

  DOI: https://doi.org/10.36730/2020.1.msbwbm.12
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• Schwerk, D.

  The Pointed Spear of a Siddha and its Commentaries: The ’Brug pa bka’ brgyud School in Defence of the Mahāmudrā Doctrine

  Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines. 2016. 37 (2). pp. 352–373.
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more publications

• Andere Stipendien/Forschungspreise: Khyentse Foundation Award for Excellence in Buddhist Studies 2012 in recognition of distinction in the field of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist studies

  Schwerk, Dagmar (Religionsgeschichte)

  awarded in 2012 by Khyentse Foundation (San Francisco, USA)/ Universität Hamburg.
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more awards

National and international teaching experience and curriculum development in Tibetology and religious studies/Buddhist studies at the Universität Hamburg (2012-2014) and the University of British Columbia (2018-2022).

Areas of teaching: Tibetan language and literature, theories and methods in Tibetan studies, introduction to Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan material book culture, Buddhism in film, Buddhist ethics and the environment. Dr. Dagmar Schwerks' teaching includes community-engaged and experiential teaching components.