Bucknell University Bucknell Digital Commons Honors Theses Student Theses 2013 Self-Immolation In Tibet: Beyond The Lens Of The esW tern Media Meredith Kaufman Bucknell University,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/honors_theses Recommended Citation Kaufman, Meredith, "Self-Immolation In Tibet: Beyond The Lens Of The eW stern Media" (2013). Honors Theses. 147. https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/honors_theses/147 This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Theses at Bucknell Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Bucknell Digital Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. ii Table of Contents Title Page 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Historical relations of China, the West, and Tibet 6 1.2 Contemporary relations between Tibet and China 8 1.3 Defining Media 10 1.4 Overview of thesis argument 12 2 An in Depth Look at Media Accounts 16 2.1 Recurring Patterns in Media Content 17 2.2 Chinese Oppressors 18 2.3 Topics in Media Accounts: Political Protest & Helplessness 19 2.4 Media Depictions of Self-Immolators 25 2.5 Sonam Wangyal: Media Depictions vs. Personal Recording 26 2.6 Western Media Depictions of Chinese Self-Immolations 28 3 Buddhist Foundations of Self-Immolation 32 3.1 Buddhist Doctrinal Background 33 3.2 Self-Immolation in Buddhist Scripture: The Lotus Sutra 37 3.3 Self-Immolation in Jataka Tales 42 3.4 Reexamining the Self-Immolation of Lama Sobha 44 4 Self-Immolation