2025 Annual Council on Thai Studies Meeting
Conference Dates: October 3-5, 2025
Center for Southeast Asian Studies
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Ingraham Hall, Room 206
1155 Observatory Dr, Madison, WI 53706
The Council on Thai Studies (COTS) is an informal organization of scholars interested in all aspects of Thai studies, broadly defined. First established in 1972, COTS annually provides scholars with a venue for reporting preliminary findings, opportunities to receive prepublication feedback and a forum to discuss field and archive challenges. This year’s conference will feature eleven panels and roundtables on a variety of topics in Thai Studies, plus two keynote speakers: Dr. Megan Sinnott (Georgia State University) and Dr. Peera Panarut (Museum of Asian Art, Berlin).
Submission to present at COTS 2025 is now closed, but attendance at the conference is free and open to the public.
For the full schedule, see below.
We highly recommend that you book your hotel room as soon as possible to ensure availability and consider options outside of the immediate campus area for lower rates. We are also willing to help graduate students from other institutions arrange to stay with UW-Madison graduate students.
Questions about COTS 2025 should be directed to Nathan McGovern at mcgovern@uww.edu.
COTS 2025 At-a-Glance Schedule
Friday, October 3
12:00-1:30: Friday Forum Lecture (First Keynote)
Market Transformations and the Possibilities of Desire within the Spirit World in Thailand
Megan Sinnott
Georgia State University
Spirits are so central to the everyday experiences of many people that no account of religion and culture in Thailand is complete without an accounting of how the spirit world informs both personal experience and ideological structures. Thai spirit practices and beliefs are omnipresent, colorful, and dramatic. These practices provide images, symbols, and narratives that resonate with felt experiences, as well as a highly flexible system of meaning that affords the tools to grapple with life’s uncertainties and inscrutabilities while acknowledging the ultimate impossibility of fully rationalizing the human experience. The growth of capitalism and the market economy in Thailand, as well as internet technologies and social media platforms, have provided new avenues for invention and transformation of these practices. This talk traces the shifts in middle class sensibility and the influence of the market on the growth and transformation of spirit practices.
1:30-1:45: Break
1:45-2:45: Digital Horizons
Unearthing the Gothic in Thai Survival Horror Video Games: A Textual Analysis of “Home
Sweet Home”
Raiden Montero, UW-Osh Kosh
AI as Information Literacy in the Academic Libraries in Thailand
Jittapim Yamprai, NIU
Outsourcing the Sacred: Digital Ritual and Mediation in Transnational Religion Between
Thailand and China
Qi Yi, University of Michigan
2:45-3:00: Break
3:00-4:00: Identities
Relational Identity Tensions of Thai Pre-service and Early-Career Teachers
Duangkamon Winitkun, NIU
From Forest Destroyers to Forest Guardians: Hmong Efforts to Change the Narrative in Northern
Thailand
Ian G. Baird, UW-Madison
Royalist Nationalism and Respect for Muslim Minority Culture
Joel Selway, Brigham Young University
Tomas Larsson, University of Cambridge
Stithorn Thananithichot, Chulalongkorn University
4:00-4:15: Break
4:15-5:15: Examining Politics of Thailand’s Lower North
Regional Identity and Baan Yai in Thailand’s Lower North
Paul Chambers, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) Yusuk Ishak Institute
From National /Local Entrepreneur to Ballots– Deciphering Phichit’s Provincial Political Mosaic
Watcharapol Supajakwattana, Department of Political Science, Naresuan University
Uthai Thani Province: Personality Politics in a Periphery
Napisa Waitoolkiat, Center of ASEAN Community Studies, Naresuan University
5:15-5:30: Break
5:30-6:00: Business Meeting
Saturday, October 4
8:30-9:45: Imagin(ed/ing) Peace: Toward Peace and Trust Building amidst Cambodian-
Thai Border Conflict
Hosted by Southeast Asia Research Group (SEARG), UW-Madison
Panelists
Supalak Ganjanakhundee, Independent Scholar-Journalist
Sok Udom DETH, Paragon International University
Nalin Sindhuprama, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Sopheak SAM, Cornell University
9:45-10:00: Break
10:00-11:00: Religion
The Prakhon Chai Puzzle: A Pre-Angkorian Bronze Bodhisattva at the Art Institute of Chicago
Nicolas Revire, Art Institute of Chicago
Cosmopolitan Millenarianism: Connections Between Millenarian Tradition in Lanna and Other
Asian Cultures
Parit Chiwarak, UW-Madison
“Hearing Impermanence in Bhikkhuni Ta Tao Fa Tzu’s ‘Anicca Sangkhan’”
Katherine Scahill, University of Pennsylvania
11:00-11:15: Break
11:15-12:45: Second Keynote Lecture
New Trends and Challenges?: Thai Buddhist Manuscript Studies in the 21st Century
Peera Panarut, Asian Art Museum, Berlin
12:45-2:00: Lunch Break
2:00-3:00: Women
Becoming Christian: Gendered Dimensions of Religious Conversion among Hmong Women in
Northern Thailand
Yu Tsao, NIU
Local feminists critique: Thai mainstream feminism and universal liberal ideology
Nattamon Saphaokham, UW-Madison
Examining the Framework of Quiet Violence: An Intersecting Examination of Thai Feminine
Expatriates Confronting Patriarchal Oppression, Definitions of Femininity, and Liberatory Paths
within Transnational Familial Structures in Thailand and Taiwan
Anthika Manowong, Wenzao Ursiline University
3:00-3:15: Break
3:15-4:30: Debating Holy Things—Rethinking Buddhism in Thai History
Erick White, Independent Scholar
Benjamin Baumann, University of Heidelberg
Thomas Borchert, University of Vermont
Responding: Nathan McGovern, UW-Whitewater
4:30-4:45: Break
4:45-6:00: Politics
Thailand’s Military Land of Smiles
Kanda Naknoi, University of Connecticut
Paul Chambers, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) Yusuk Ishak Institute
Relics as Soft Power: Transnational Buddhist Diplomacy and State Legitimation in
Contemporary Thailand
Prakirati Satasut, Thammasat University
The Lost Malay Dance: The Politics of Dance in Southern Thailand’s Insurgent Borderlands
Goeun Kim, UW-Madison
Leaving No One Behind? Shifting Vulnerabilities of Participants in Baan Mankong Program in
Bangkok, Thailand
Chanaporn Tohsuwanwanich
Sunday, October 5
8:30-9:30: Agriculture
PGS vs. Third-Party Certification: Challenges for Organic Rice in Thailand
Panathip Chimrak, UW-Madison
From Opium to Coffee: Not a Royal Project but a Revitalized Cultural Narrative of Akha Coffee
Rituals in Northern Thailand
Po-Tao Chang, UW-Madison
Monthong Durian: How One Cultivar is Changing How Durian is Grown, Consumed, and Sold
in Thailand
Ray Lacko, UW-Madison
9:30-9:45: Break
9:45-10:45: Queer Studies
Thinking Outside the Box: Alternative Conceptualizations of Transmasculine Health in Thailand
Adrian Beyer, UW-Madison
The Western Influence on Thai Queerness in the Midst of the Cold War
Kit Faulk, NIU
What’s to Love about Boys Love? An (Un)conventional Approach to the Popular Mass Media
Phenomenon
Nida Sanglimsuwan, UCLA
10:45-11:00: Break
11:00-12:15: Roundtable in Celebration of Dr. Katherine Bowie
Eric Haanstad, Notre Dame University
Goeun Kim, UW-Madison
Micah Morton, NIU
Megan Sinnott, Georgia State University