Buddhist Monk and Tibetan Activist Dr. Robert Thurman.

We discuss Tibet with Robert Thurman. Thurman is professor of Indo-Tibetian Buddist Studies at Columbia University, the organizer of the Year of Tibet activities, and the first American to be ordained a Tibetian Buddist monk by the Dalai Lama.

Journalist Pico Iyer has a long history meeting with the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet who lives in exile in India. Iyer joins Fresh Air to discuss how the Dalai Lama is responding to the current Tibetan uprising and protest against Chinese rule.

Journalist Orville Schell talks about his new book Virtual Tibet: Searching for Shangri-La from the Himalayas to Hollywood (Metropolitan Books). For centuries now, the mountainous and remote nation of Tibet has been the object of Western fascination. Today, Tibet is the subject of movies and Hollywood celebrities have taken on Tibetan Freedom as their cause. Schell talks about Tibet, real and imagined, and takes us through the history of the West’s infatuation. Schell has covered China and Tibet for many years.