En route to the Roof of the World. Little-known stories of women explorers, tourists, artists and missionaries.

Study day open to the public and organized by Pascale Dollfus (ethnologist, CNRS) and Rachel Guidoni (librarian, BnF, Department of Prints and Photography), with the support of IFRAE (Institut français de recherche sur l'Asie de l'est) and SFEMT (Société française d'études du monde tibétain).

Des voyageurs au Tibet qui vont sur une montagne — The Indian Alps © Nina Mazuchelli, 1876‎

"There are countries that haunt us, fascinate us, call out to us. And once we've visited them, we never resign ourselves without a twinge of grief at never seeing them again. Their attraction comes sometimes from nature, which has adorned them more generously, sometimes from the men who inhabit them."
Isabelle Massieu, 1910

At the end of the 19th century, a new context, generated by the first feminist movements, encouraged women to assert themselves outside the domestic sphere, and promoted the image of a "new woman" as the actress of her destiny.
Adventurers, artists, tourists, the first female journalists, field ethnologists or missionaries, many women took to the road, alone or with their husbands, but the accounts of their travels, written on the spot or on their return to Europe, long underestimated by their male competitors, often remained in the shadows.
An exception among the women featured here is Alexandra David-Neel, known early on for her writings on Buddhism and her travels, "on foot, as a beggar, from China to India through Tibet", but whose long stay in Lhasa - the feat that made her famous - is a mystery unveiled here, one hundred years after her arrival in the Tibetan capital.
The aim of this study day is to shed light on the encounter between Western women travelers and the Tibetan world. This is the first study day on this theme, which will highlight individual trajectories and unusual female travelers whose works have often remained unknown.

Program

9:30am: Welcome

9:45am: welcome by Pascale Dolfus, organizer of the day,

10h-11h : Aurélise Bouquet (independent researcher) : Les artistes-voyageuses au Ladakh, 1900-1947

11h-12h : Jonathan Guyon Le Bouffy (independent researcher): Women in the Moravian mission of "Western Tibet" (Ladakh, Spiti, Kinnaur)

12h-13h30: lunch break

13h30-14h30: Rachel GUIDONI (BnF):Le séjour d'Alexandra David-Neel à Lhasa en 1924 : les parts d'ombre d'un événement mondialement connu

14h30-15h30 : Pascale DOLLFUS (CNRS-LESC) : "Mon passeport, c'est mon pinceau". Léa Lafugie's travels in Ladakh, Spiti and Tibet between 1926 and 1931

15h30-16h: coffee break

16h-17h: Dolores Zoe BERTSCHINGER (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany): Blanche Christine Olschak (1913-1989), Journalist, Feminist, Tibetologist

17h-18h : Isabelle HENRION-DOURCY (Université Laval, Canada): Susie Carson Rijnhart (1868-1908): an independent Canadian missionary among the Tibetans (distancial)

Organizers

Pascale DOLLFUS has been working in Ladakh and the neighboring Spiti and Upper Kinnaur regions for 45 years, and travels there every year for homestays lasting between three and nine months. For several years she worked in the collections of the Musée de l'Homme, where she curated her first exhibition in collaboration with Christine Hemmet. Since then, she has continued to work closely with several museums, including the Musée des Confluences in Lyon and the Maison Alexandra David-Neel in Digne.
Rachel GUIDONI has a dual background in Tibetan and ethnology, and taught ethnology and geography of Tibet at INALCO for fifteen years. She has worked in university and research libraries and has become an expert documentalist on Himalayan holdings in France. She is currently collaborating with the Maison Alexandra David-Neel in Digne to classify and translate their archives, and also with the Institut de France, for which she is preparing an inventory of the Tibetan collection.