Program Associate, Southeast Asia – International Republican Institute
The Program Associate is the entry level position for program work at IRI and provides administrative and programmatic support for current and developing programs in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands.
Lead Researcher (Energy/Climate) – ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute
The Lead Researcher’s primary focus of research is on Southeast Asia’s energy transitions in the context of a green recovery and the nexus between energy and climate. The Lead Researcher will examine the political, economic, social, technological and/or policy implications of these interactions in the context of planned energy transitions the region. Country expertise and focus on selected Southeast Asian countries will be an advantage. Secondary focus may be on, but not limited to, carbon pricing, carbon markets, labour transition issues, green technology or sustainable finance.
Open Rank Faculty Position (Assistant Professor/Associate Professor/Full Professor) in Public Policy and Global Affairs – Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Thailand Representative and Regional Programme Manager – Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD)
Southeast Asia Studies Librarian Training Position – University of Washington
The University of Washington Libraries is offering an exciting career development opportunity for candidates seeking to pursue a career in administration and development of Southeast Asia library collections. Candidates holding a minimum of an M.A., preferably with a PhD or some doctoral credits, in any discipline with a focus on Southeast Asia are eligible to apply for this 2-year position. The successful candidate will work half-time in one of the country’s premier Southeast Asia collections while completing a 2-year MLIS professional library degree at the University of Washington Information School.
Assistant Professor in Asian Art History – Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar
Visiting Professor of Asian History – Illinois Wesleyan University
Resident Directors – American Councils for International Education
American Councils for International Education is hiring short-term Resident Directors for summer language immersion programs abroad for American high school and college students studying one of 15 critical languages including: Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bangla, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Swahili, Turkish, and Urdu.
Resident Directors must be proficient in the target language and typically have experience studying, working, or traveling in the host country. They are responsible for promoting student success by ensuring the health and safety of program participants, helping them to maintain a language policy, and assisting them in acclimating to life in the host country. In-country partner institutes are responsible for administering the academic curriculum. Therefore, the Resident Director position is a non-teaching position.
A full list of available Resident Director positions is available at https://www.americancouncils.org/careers
Center for Strategic and International Studies Internships
The Southeast Asia Program is seeking interns who are highly motivated, professional, and have a strong foundation in Southeast Asia studies and international relations/political economy. We operate a fast-paced, dynamic program, and require interns who are detail-oriented and can work independently and as part of a team.
- Associate: based in Singapore. The US-ASEAN Business Council is seeking an Associate who will support the Council’s programs and initiatives aimed at strengthening the U.S.-ASEAN economic relationship.
- Policy and research internships: Semester internships based in Washington, D.C. Recent graduates encouraged to apply.
For details, email internships@usasean.org
Translators: The Language Doctors
Linguistics company that provides language translation services to the federal government, continuously seeking to hire bilingual people on a full-time or part-time basis to help with a growing volume of translation work. Depending on availability, able to provide either W2 or 1099 arrangements. For current job postings, click here.
Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellowship, Southeast Asian Art and Archeology — Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago’s Department of the Arts of Asia is currently accepting applications for the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellowship. Position begins September 2022. Job ID: 11512.
See website: https://www.artic.edu/careers/employment-2.
Visiting Fellow, Climate Change in Southeast Asia Programme – ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute
The Visiting Fellow’s primary focus of research is on the interactions between climate change and energy, agriculture or food security in Southeast Asia. The Visiting Fellow will examine the political, social, economic, policy or technological implications of these interactions in the context of climate change in the region. In-depth research into a selected Southeast Asian country is welcome. Secondary focus may include fossil fuel subsidy reforms in the region, transboundary haze pollution related to agricultural practices, changing food production practices, smart agriculture and so on. The tenure of a Visiting Fellowship is usually for a 3 to 6 month period.
Open Calls for Funding – Living Through Upheaval Grants Program
UCHRI’s 2022-23 calls for funding are now open. This year’s calls include funding to support innovative, systemwide faculty and graduate student working groups, residential research groups, conferences, engaging humanities, and more. We especially invite proposals that engage with our theme of “Living Through Upheaval.” While the thematic can inform applications to all open calls, four calls directly address this thematic: Historical and Contemporary Leadership in Social Movements; Racial Infrastructures; Conjuring Future(s); and Unexpected Collaborations Beyond the Humanities. Most deadlines are February 22, 2022. Stay tuned for three new calls for funding to open in February. More information here.
Junior Resident Fellows Program – Center for Khmer Studies
The CKS Junior Resident Fellows Program is a six-week program in Cambodia for Cambodian, French, and US students to live and study alongside peers to learn about contemporary Cambodian history and society. Each summer, CKS offers five U.S., five Cambodian, and five French undergraduate students and recent graduates the exciting opportunity to participate in our six-week Junior Resident Fellows Program in Cambodia. Fellows are based at the CKS campus in Siem Reap, situated on the historic grounds of Wat Damnak – one of the city’s major Buddhist pagodas – and mere minutes away from the world-renowned Angkor Wat temple complex. Fellows also spend time in Cambodia’s bustling capital city, Phnom Penh.
Postdoctoral Fellow, Textual Microcosms – Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Textual Microcosms project under the direction of Prof. Ronit Ricci is offering postdoctoral fellowships beginning in the 2022-23 academic year. The project focuses on interlinear translations, texts in one language that include a translation into another written between the lines, as practiced between the 16th-20th centuries in the Indonesian-Malay World. The project requires knowledge of two relevant research languages at a level that allows reading interlinear translations (for example, two of the following: Malay, Arabic, Javanese, Sundanese, Balinese. Knowledge of other relevant languages welcome).
Southeast Asian Studies Archive Fellowships – University of Washington
The University of Washington Libraries invites applicants for our Southeast Asian Studies Archives Fellowship Program funded by the Henry Luce Foundation. We invite recent Ph.D. graduates, or finishing doctoral candidates across all disciplines in the arts, humanities and social sciences to apply for a one-quarter long full time paid fellowships in the 2022-2023 academic year. Fellows will spend a quarter in one of the leading Southeast Asian Studies library collections in the country, and have the opportunity to learn about library and archival practice while working with Southeast Asia Librarian, Dr. Judith Henchy. We seek candidates able to engage with one or more of the themes of our Luce grant: the ethics and aesthetics of care and community restitution in archives and libraries; interpreting the archival traces of authoritarianism; new pedagogies and research to bridge Southeast Asian and Southeast Asian American Studies. Fellows will work on projects that build on their existing scholarly interests, and country or language of research, while engaging with one of the unique collections at the University of Washington Libraries. Preference will be given to applicants with an interest in working with the following collections: the Elizabeth Becker Collection of documents on Democratic Kampuchea; the Adrian Cowell Collection of archival film footage on the Shan State drug trade and secessionist war; the Bob Jones Collection of books and journals on Indochina, 1900 to 1975. Fellows are expected to give a lecture or seminar addressing the way their research intersects with a Luce grant theme. Their work while in residence will address one or more themes of the UW Luce grant in the form of publication, expanded dissertation investigation, or a collaborative outreach project that brings Southeast Asian, or Southeast Asian American communities into dialog with archives.
Summer School on Social Movements in Contemporary Southeast Asia – Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
The Department of Asian and North African Studies at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice with the support of the Marco Polo Center for Global Europe-Asia Connections invites scholarship applications for a week-long Summer School on the theme of Social Movements in Southeast Asia (poster attached). The event will be held in person in Venice from September 18 to 24, 2022.
The purpose of the Summer School is to support the professional development of 20 selected MA and PhD students who wish to develop a research paper exploring contemporary Southeast Asian social movements through the lenses of age/generation, gender, and religion.
MA students and PhD students (humanities and social sciences) who are researching about social movements in the region are encouraged to apply. Southeast Asian candidates (all ASEAN countries except Singapore and Brunei) are eligible for scholarships that will cover round trip airfare and visa costs.
In addition to focused lectures and class discussions on social movements in Southeast Asia, the School will provide the students with opportunities to develop academic writing and presentation skills through collaborative work with senior researchers and leading experts in the field. At the end of the School, the students will present their paper to an audience of scholars of Southeast Asia.
Fullbright US Scholars Program
The Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program offers awards for U.S. citizens to teach, research, and conduct professional projects in more than 130 countries. College and university faculty and administrators, as well as professionals, artists, journalists, scientists, lawyers, and many others, can join the more than 400,000 Fulbrighters who have come away with enhanced skills, new connections and greater mutual understanding.
Wang Gungwu Visiting Fellowship Program: ISEAS Yusof-Ishak Institute
The Wang Gungwu Visiting Fellows Programme honours Professor Wang Gungwu, former Chairman of the Board of Trustees at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute (ISEAS) for his distinguished tenure of 17 years and for his key contributions in nurturing a strong culture of research excellence at ISEAS. The programme aims to nurture the next generation of scholars and policymakers who seek to explore the nexus of big-power relations and its impact on Southeast Asia. The programme is open to pre- and postdoctoral candidates and mid-career policymakers. Rolling deadline for applications. Click here for the full announcement.
SEALC-GETSEA Language Tuition Support
With support from the Henry Luce Foundation, The Southeast East Asian Language Council (SEALC) and The Graduate Education and Training in Southeast Asian Studies (GETSEA) consortia award financial assistance to students who incur tuition fees when studying a Southeast Asian language during the academic year at an institution other than their home institution via synchronous distance learning. This award is intended to facilitate cross-institutional collaboration and increase access to Southeast Asian language instruction. Eligibility requires that the course is credit-bearing at a North American institution and that the applicant is a full-time student at a North American institution. Priority will be given to graduate students, but all are encouraged to apply. SEALC and GETSEA encourage applicants to consider attending SEASSI which serves as an excellent resource for summer language instruction. This award is intended to improve access during the academic year so that students can obtain multi-year instruction in a timely manner.
What does the assistance cover?
The award provides partial tuition reimbursement for synchronous distance learning of a SE Asian language at a North American institution.
Application process:
The application cycle for the 2021-2022 academic year awards is now closed. Please email sealc@intl.wisc.edu with any questions you may have.
Fulbright-Hays Funding
The Group Projects Abroad Program accepts applications for FY short-term (short-term seminars, curriculum development teams, and group research or study projects) and long-term projects (advanced overseas intensive language projects).
Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowships
The Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) Fellowship Program provides opportunities for doctoral candidates to engage in full-time dissertation research abroad in modern foreign languages and area studies. The program is designed to deepen research knowledge and increase the study of modern foreign languages, cultural engagement, and area studies not generally included in U.S. curricula.
The Luce Program provides a year-long internship in an Asian country related to the scholar’s interests. The program is designed to provide an extended period of exposure to an Asian country for highly qualified young Americans who lack extensive knowledge of Asian affairs and who would not gain this knowledge through their normal career trajectories. Any professional field will be considered, except Asian Affairs/Asian Studies. Graduating seniors, recent alumni, graduate students, and junior faculty are encouraged to apply. UW Campus deadline October 7, 2021.
2022-2023 Rotary Peace Fellowship
Through academic training, practice, and global networking opportunities, the Rotary Peace Centers program develops the capacity of peace and development professionals or practitioners to become experienced and effective catalysts for peace. The fellowships cover tuition and fees, room and board, round-trip transportation, and all internship and field-study expenses.
Asia Internship Program – 2021 Positive Impact Scholarship
The AIP positive impact scholarship is aimed at students of institutions throughout the world to kickstart the restart of global mobility amid the nearing end of the global pandemic. AIP decided to offer a number of institutions the possibility to refer their students, either directly by partnering with us or indirectly by simply advertising our scholarship, for a chance to win a remote internship scholarship with AIP. To apply for the scholarship, click here. To learn more about AIP, click here. Email info@internsinasia.com with questions.
Glenn Anthony May Memorial Scholarship
The Glenn Anthony May Memorial Scholarship is intended to honor Professor Glenn Anthony May, a history professor who spent 32 years teaching at the University of Oregon. Prof May had a deep love for the Philippines and authored 5 books on the region. In tribute to his work, this scholarship is intended to provide scholarships to students who are Filipino or of Filipino heritage and/or are pursuing a field of study related to Southeast Asian Studies with a preference for those focused on the Philippines. This scholarship is available to all students, including those living and studying outside of Oregon, who are currently enrolled or have plans to enroll at least half time at any 2- or 4-year public institution or nonprofit private college in the United States. Email Harper Pulsipher, Administrative Assistant for Scholarships (hpulsipher@oregoncf.org), for more information.
The Center for Khmer Studies is a non-governmental institution supported by international foundations, educational institutions, scholars, the US Department of Education, and interested individuals and philanthropists from the US, France, and Cambodia. The Center facilitates a range of fellowships, including Senior, Scholar-in-Residence, Dissertation, and Junior Resident Fellowships.
Center for Indonesian Policy Studies
CIPS invites qualified researchers to join our Visiting Research Fellowship Program. The program offers opportunities for both Indonesians and non-Indonesian nationals who are completing their Indonesia-related PhD and post-graduate theses abroad, to conduct field research in Indonesia over a 3-6 month period. CIPS also opens the opportunity for post-doctoral or non-degree fellowships.
If you are interested in the Fellowship Program, please send an e-mail to contact@cips-indonesia.org
Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC)
CAORC offers two fellowship programs, the NEH Senior Research Fellowship and Multi-Country Research Fellowship, which enable fellows to visit and carry out research within CAORC’s network of Overseas Research Centers (ORCs).
In addition, each ORC offers fellowships and grant opportunities specific to its region. Visit the ORC Fellowships & Grants page for more information on opportunities within the ORC network.
USAID Donald M. Payne International Development Graduate Fellowship Program
The USAID Donald M. Payne International Development Graduate Fellowship Program seeks to attract outstanding individuals who are interested in pursuing careers in the Foreign Service of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). If you want to work on the front lines of some of the most pressing global challenges of our times — poverty, hunger, injustice, disease, environmental degradation, climate change, conflict and violent extremism – the Foreign Service of the U.S. Agency for International Development provides an opportunity to advance U.S. foreign policy interests and reflect the American people’s compassion and support of human dignity. The Payne Fellowship, which provides up to $96,000 in benefits over two years for graduate school, internships, and professional development activities, is a unique pathway to the USAID Foreign Service.
Learn more: https://www.paynefellows.org/graduate-fellowship-program/payne-program-overview/
Freeman Awards for Study in Asia (Freeman-Asia)
Scholarships for undergraduate U.S. undergraduate students with demonstrated financial need to study abroad in East or Southeast Asia. For more information on undergraduate scholarships, click here.
Visiting Research Fellowship: Center for Indonesian Policy Studies (CIPS)
The Center for Indonesian Policy Studies (CIPS) is offering Visiting Research Fellowships. The program offers opportunities for both Indonesians and non-Indonesian nationals who are completing their Indonesia-related PhD and post-graduate theses abroad. The program supports their field research in Indonesia over a 3 (three) to 6 (six)-month period. CIPS also opens this opportunity to post-doctoral or non-degree research. The preferred research areas are in economics, public policy/public management, education, politics, and development studies.
CIPS is a public policy think tank dedicated to providing policy analysis and practical policy recommendations to decision-makers within Indonesia’s legislative and executive branches of government. CIPS focuses its research and policy advocacy on issues concerning education policy reform, food security and agriculture, as well as general issues affecting the livelihood of low-income communities. We have previously cooperated with local governments, the National Development and Planning Agency (BAPPENAS), the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Australia, UNESCO, and many other reputable organizations.
The Visiting Research Fellowship program offers the researchers the necessary office space while conducting their research in Jakarta. We are also able to offer administrative assistance for the stay of the researcher and other arrangement of the field research. For more information, please visit the website or email contact@cips-indonesia.org.
The United States-Indonesia Society (USINDO) Programs
For complete information on the educational exchange programs offered by USINDO (including a summer studies program, a masters fellowship, professional fellows, etc), visit the website.
Boren Awards for Language Study and Research in Southeast Asia
Boren Awards fund U.S. undergraduate and graduate language study and research abroad in world regions critical to U.S. national interests (including Africa, Asia, Central & Eastern Europe, Eurasia, Latin America, and the Middle East). Boren Awards promote longer‐term linguistic and cultural immersion overseas, and are available to applicants in most fields of study.
Boren Awards will give preference to applicants planning to study in a number of East & Southeast Asian countries, including Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Preference is also given to students who are willing to study abroad for longer periods of time, and those who are highly motivated to work in the federal government following graduation.
The Boren Scholarships provide up to $20,000 for undergraduate students for language‐focused study abroad.
The Boren Fellowships provide up to $30,000 for graduate students to fund language study, graduate‐level research, and academic internships abroad.
Webinars on aspects of the Boren Awards, including special regional initiatives and components of the application are scheduled throughout the application process. Sign up today here. Additional information on preferred countries, languages, fields of study, and annual deadlines can be found at www.borenawards.org.
Applicants are encouraged to contact their Boren Awards campus representatives, listed in a directory on the website, for institution‐specific guidance. They may also contact Boren Awards staff directly at 1‐800‐618‐NSEP or boren@iie.org.
Fellowships: National Asia Research Program
NARP Fellows conduct policy-relevant research on national security issues. For information on the program and the annual, competitive selection process, please visit the website.
Is Minilaterlaism the Future of the Indo-Pacific?
Asia Society Policy Institute
March 29, 2022
7:00am CT / 8:00am ET
The complexity of challenges in the Indo-Pacific region, including U.S.-China tensions, territorial disputes, and the Myanmar crisis, has resulted in a paradox of multilateralism. While these developments have underscored the importance of cooperation, they have also tested inter-governmental frameworks such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The revival of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (“Quad”), creation of the Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) arrangement, and renewed criticisms of ASEAN’s efficacy in political and security affairs raise the question of whether minilateralism — arrangements of smaller groupings of willing, able, or like-minded countries — may be the more practical approach for managing developments and preserving a rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific. More information available here.
China and Southeast Asia: A Conversation with Wang Gungwu
Singapore Policy Journal
March 29, 2022
7:30pm CT
Troubling the Water: A Dying Lake and a Vanishing World in Cambodia
The Stimson Center
March 30, 2022
8:00am CT / 9:00am ET
Join our discussion between Brian Eyler and NYSEAN member and journalist Abby Seiff about her new book Troubling the Water, which explores how the rapid destruction of a single lake in Cambodia is upending the lives of millions. The Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia is one of the world’s most productive inland fisheries, and its abundance provides protein and food security to millions. But today, the lake is dying. Dams hold back billions of gallons of water and disrupt critical fish migration paths. Illegal fishing is now unstoppable. And the region has suffered a string of devastating droughts. Drawing on years of reporting, Abby Seiff traces the changes on the Tonle Sap. Registration available here.
Philippine Presidential Election and the South China Sea: Navigating Maritime Dispute with China
Harvard University Asia Center
March 30, 2022
6:00pm CT / 7:00pm ET
More information and registration here.
Structural change, inequality and poverty reduction in Thailand: Were Kuznets and Krugman right?
with Peter Warr (ANU)
ISEAS Yusof-Ishak Institute
March 30, 2022
9:00 pm CT
This webinar will consider relationships between economic growth, structural change, poverty incidence and income inequality, using data for Thailand covering the period since 1981. In the process it tests two famous empirical propositions regarding economic growth in Asia. Simon Kuznets hypothesised that in a growing economy, income inequality would first rise and then decline. Paul Krugman hypothesised that Asian economic growth was almost entirely attributable to growth in the total quantities of factors of production used, rather than increases in their productivity. He described this process as ‘perspiration’ rather than ‘inspiration’. The data for Thailand support Kuznets but not Krugman. For more information on the speaker and to register, click here.
Maybe This Time: Thai Tourism Gets Ready to Welcome Visitors Back to the Land of Smiles
Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand (FCCT)
March 31, 2022
7:00am CT / 8:00am ET
After two years of closed borders and draconian travel restrictions due to COVID-19, it looks like Thailand and its neighbors across Southeast Asia are now committed to bringing back tourists, who make a significant contribution to the economies in the region.
Thailand has eased, but not removed, requirements for testing and isolation, while other countries have eliminated conditions completely. It’s reasonable to expect that the Thai “Test and Go” entry program will be slowly phased out, as long as public health risks remain within manageable limits.
The tourism industry is gearing up for the return of international tourists. New and renovated hotel projects are back on the books. Airlines are increasing capacity. From medical tourism to markets with vast potential like India, businesses are looking at ways to attract new customers in innovative ways. Pre-Covid Thailand was a leader in the MICE (meetings, incentives, conventions, and exhibitions) market and wants to bring big and small events back. In the meantime, domestic tourism is still largely reliant on the “Rao Thiew Duaygan” (We Travel Together) subsidies. Will interest in traveling close to home remain strong as borders reopen?
Despite efforts to promote tourism, many factors remain beyond the control of local authorities. Chinese tourists, who accounted for ten million arrivals in 2019, are still not allowed to travel freely outside their country. Russian travelers have seen the value of the ruble slashed by half, while soaring fuel prices and fly-over restrictions mean that airfares and transportation are more expensive than they were just a few weeks ago.
How successful will Thailand be in attracting tourists in the near future? Will the country manage to overcome international and regional issues and rebuild what is an essential part of its economy?
The FCCT is pleased to welcome a distinguished panel to discuss these questions and more, including the on-going efforts to reconcile public safety and ease of travel.
The panel will include executives from the Tourism Authority of Thailand, the Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau, one of Thailand’s leading hotel developers and operators, and an airline expert.
Moderator: Vincent Vichit-Vadakan, freelance writer and FCCT committee member.
More information available here.
Gatty Lecture: The Papered Forests: Regional Administration, Forest Expertise, and the Emergence of Siam’s Enviro-Colonial Rule in Lanna
Cornell SEAP
March 31, 2022
11:15am CT / 12:15pm ET
Tinakrit Sireerat is a Ph.D. Candidate in the field of Asian Literature, Religion and Culture. After receiving his bachelor’s degree in history from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, he joined the Ph.D. program at Cornell University to pursue his interests in the environmental history of Japan and Thailand during the nineteenth century. His dissertation, tentatively entitled “Looking from the North: A Comparative Enviro-Colonial History of Hokkaido and Lanna,” reexamines the history of livestock farming in Hokkaido and forestry in Lanna to foreground the interconnections between colonial administration and environmental governance, and role of knowledge production in bridging the seemingly separate fields of governance. More information and registration available here.
New Sounds from Global Filipino Pop Music Studies
Organized by American Studies at the University of Minnesota
March 31, 2022
8:00 pm CT
With Elaine Andres (UC Irvine), James Gabrillo (University of Texas at Austin), Casey Mecija (York University), and Fritz Schenker (St. Lawrence University). For more information and to register for this event, click here.
Racial Capitalism and Interspecies Empire in Colonial Myanmar
CSEAS – University of Michigan
April 1, 2022
11:00 am CT | 12:00 pm ET
Lecture by Prof. Jonathan Saha, Associate Professor (South Asian History) in the Department of History at the University of Durham. To register, click here.
State-building, Nation-building, and Civil Service Recruitment in Southeast Asia
CSEAS – NIU
April 1, 2022
12:00 pm CT
Nicholas Kuipers is a PhD candidate in political science at the University of California, Berkeley and a predoctoral scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. Most of his research is interested in identifying whether and when certain political institutions worsen group-based antagonisms. He has a particular regional interest in Southeast Asia. His research has been supported by the Institute for International Studies, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Southeast Asia Research Group (SEAREG), and the Weiss Family Fund. He is also a research associate at the Center on the Politics of Development. For more information and to register, click here.
Cold War Reckonings: In the Shadow of Solzhenitsyn
Cornell SEAP
April 1, 2022
3:00pm CT / 4:00pm ET
Jini Kim Watson, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at New York University speaks on, ‘Cold War Reckonings: In the Shadow of Solzhenitsyn.’ Hybrid event.
How did the Cold War shape political modernity in the decolonizing world, and what do literature and literary networks reveal about such political contestations and their afterlives? In the first half of the presentation, Kim gives an overview of her new book, ”Cold War Reckonings: Authoritarianism and the Genres of Decolonization” (Fordham UP, 2021), which examines cultural production that emerges from, and reflects upon, the entanglement of the Cold War and decolonization in East and Southeast Asia.
In the second half, she considers several high-profile dissident writers from the region: Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Kim Chi-ha, and Ninotchka Rosca. Kim argues that these figures challenge Cold War liberal, human-rights notions of the dissident Third World writer via their emphases on incomplete decolonization and bipolar economic restructuring. Such an analysis, suggests Kim, helps us parse the way Cold War exigencies reshaped notions of literary and political freedom in postcolonial Asia. More information and registration here.
Indonesian Cultural Memory, Media, and Visual Arts in the wake of 1965
Harvard University Asia Center
April 5, 2022
6:00pm CT / 7:00pm ET
Two talks on the topic of Indonesian cultural memory, media, and visual arts in the wake of 1965.
Wulan Dirangatoro – After 1965: Historical Violence and Strategies of Representation in Indonesian Visual Arts
The presentation will reflect on the issues surrounding the representation of historical violence in the practices of artists such as Tintin Wulia (b. 1971), Yaya Sung (b. 1982), Dadang Christanto (b. 1957) and Rangga Purbaya (b. 1976). The term ‘After 1965’ is used to describe the impact of historical violence on aesthetic practices of Indonesian contemporary artists. Scholars have noted that Indonesian visual artists drawn their inspiration from historical, cultural and sociopolitical changes, both visually and conceptually. However, little attention has been paid about the aesthetic impact of these changes on the art works.
Drawing from Astrid Erll’s notion of ‘transcultural memory’ (2011, 2019), the presentation will discuss how memory travels and its locatedness not only shaped and mediated memory but also produces dynamic tension that takes place in the interconnected processes of creation, transmission, and reception (Erll et al. 2019) through the artworks. The presentation will examine transcultural memory as it operates on the three levels of the narrated, narration, and reception process in the works of these Indonesian artists. The diasporic and transgenerational perspective of artists produce artworks that simultaneously functions epistemologically (as a means of comprehending) and therapeutically (as a means of coping) of the historical violence.
Grace Leksana – Sites, Narratives, Coexistence: Remembering the Anti-communist Violence in Indonesia Today
The anti-communist violence that occurred in 1965-66 in Indonesia has been one of the most controversial event in the country’s history. On one hand, the national historiography recorded the killings of seven high rank army officers on 1 September and accused the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) as the perpetrator behind this movement. On the other, the extermination project against the left and the continuous persecutions against them remain largely excluded in the national narrative. While the death of the high rank army officers is continuously commemorated, the death of more than five hundred thousand to one million Indonesian leftists is mostly silenced. In this lecture, I will present the coexistence between these different narratives by examining various sites of violence in a particular rural district in East Java. Through exploration of these sites, we will see how different narratives are entangled in a certain site and how their meaning could transform over time. Furthermore, these sites are in a constant dialogical process with the people surrounding them. The sites become devices of negotiation in present society, rather than symbols of remembrance of the past.
More information available here.
Human Rights, Myanmar, and the UN
Yale University Council on Southeast Asian Studies
April 6, 2022
11:00am CT / 12:00pm ET
Tom Andrews is the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar. A former member of the US Congress from Maine, Tom Andrews has run national advocacy organizations including Win Without War and United to End Genocide. Through his consulting practice, Andrews Strategic Services, he has worked with the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs as well as parliamentarians, democracy advocates and human rights organizations in several countries including Cambodia, Indonesia, Algeria, Norway, Croatia, Serbia, Ukraine and Yemen. Andrews served as General Secretary of “The Nobel Peace Laureate Campaign for Aung San Suu Kyi and the People of Burma” in 2001 and served as an advisor to the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma and the Euro-Burma Network. Andrews was Director of the Maine Studies Center at the University of Maine and served in the Maine House of Representatives and the Maine Senate. More information and registration available here.
The Role of Law: Interrogating the Contributions of Lawyers and Complexities of Legal Reform in Burma’s Democracy Movement
UC Berkeley CSEAS
April 6, 2022
4:00pm CT / 2:00pm PT
This panel interrogates the role of lawyers, the legal profession, and legal reforms in Burma’s pro-democracy movement. Throughout decades of military rule, Burma’s various military regimes used the law and legal system as instruments of authoritarian control. They suppressed any resistance from the legal profession. Famously, however, many law students and attorneys did participate in the Burmese democracy movement, often receiving lengthy prison sentences or even losing their lives as a result.
Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, a number of transnational campaigns sought to instigate change inside of Burma by advocating for legal reform and corporate accountability in the U.S. and elsewhere. Finally, beginning in 2010, Burma was the recipient of a range of development aid programs directed at promoting international perspectives and practices regarding the rule of law, justice, rights-based approaches, independence, and legal ethics.
Now, the February 2021 military coup and its aftermath have caused questions about Myanmar’s legal profession and its fledgling reforms to emerge. It has also brought up lingering questions about whether focusing on legislation and corporate accountability in the U.S. and other Western countries can impact change inside of Burma. The panel addresses such questions by presenting a range of perspectives to identify the issues facing Burma’s lawyers, judges, law schools, and legal system. It also seeks to offer prognostications for the future and recommendations for international action. Registration here.
The Impacts of COVID-19 on Marginalized Communities in the Philippines
Harvard University Asia Center
April 6, 2022
7:00pm CT / 8:00pm ET
More information available here.
Interconnectivity of Southeast Asia Visualized through Historical GIS Mapping
University of Hawai’i CSEAS
April 6, 2022
7:00pm CT / 2:00pm HT
This presentation illustrates ways to facilitate configuring historical data with geospatial tools featuring Southeast Asian research utilizing geographic information systems (GIS) point locations of ancient trade routes and religious sites of the region linked to enriched spatial information. The project interacts with various research fields, and integrates many different types of data and analytical styles developing enhanced research methodologies that have possibilities of creating paradigm shifts and multi-vocal views in the humanities and social sciences. The research has found that sea ports are orientated with mountain peaks serving as navigational points of reference. 3D mapping has provided new guidance for developing the best practice standards applied to databases giving interactive multimedia utility aspects. This has allowed uniting the context of landscapes with cultural and language data components for making new possibilities in spatial humanities for local community and scholarly exchange. More information and registration available here.
Heritage and the Making of Political Legitimacy in Laos
April 7, 2022
7:30am CT / 14:30pm CET
Magnetic Female Power in East Javanese Cross-Gender Dance Performance
University of Michigan CSEAS
April 8, 2022
12:00pm CT
Christina Sunardi is an associate professor in the Ethnomusicology program in the School of Music at the University of Washington, where she has been teaching since 2008. Her interests include performance, identity, spirituality and ethnography in Indonesia. Her work focuses in particular on the articulation of gender through music, dance, and theater in the cultural region of east Java.
Her publications include articles in Bijdragen Tot de Taal-, Land en Volkenkunde, Asian Music, and Ethnomusicology, as well as reviews in the Journal of Folklore Research Reviews, American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, and Indonesia. Professor Sunardi has been studying and performing Javanese arts since 1997 in Indonesia and the United States, earning her Ph.D. in music from the University of California, Berkeley in 2007. Her book about the negotiation of gender and tradition through dance and music in east Java was published by the University of Illinois Press in 2015. In addition to her academic work, she enjoys playing gamelan music with the Seattle-based ensemble Gamelan Pacifica and performing as an independent dancer. More information and registration available here.
Local Leadership in Cambodia: A Re-Study of Three Communes
NIU CSEAS
April 8, 2022
12:00pm CT
The work of Caroline Hughes conceptualizes peace and development as political relationships constructed to legitimize unequal distributions of resources and subject to ongoing contestation by different social groups, which is contrary to liberal understandings of peace and development as public goods achieved through collaboration.
Hughes employs a political economy framework to understand contestation among social forces at local, national and international levels over political and economic settlements established in response to political crisis. She is particularly interested in how actors at different levels or ‘scales’ construct ideas not only of peace and development but also of ‘locality’ and ‘authenticity,’ the ‘international’ and ‘North’ and ‘South’ as a means to bolster their position in forging competitive political alliances and (de)legitimizing particular claims to authority.
Hughes has conducted field research in Cambodia; Timor-Leste, Indonesia; Thailand; and Vietnam. She has spent two decades studying the post-conflict reconstruction of Cambodia following its civil war in the 1990s. She also has published several studies of post-conflict statebuilding in Timor-Leste and post-authoritarian governance reform in Indonesia, and has completed several comparative projects that examine the ways in which a range of actors “on the ground” contest international peacebuilding and statebuilding interventions. More information available here.
Chroniclers of Transitions: Documentarians and Writers
CSEAS University of Hawai’i
April 26, 2022
6:00pm CT / 2:00pm HT
Consequences of Oil Palm Expansion in Southeast Asia: Overview of Recent Research?
April 28, 2022
8:30am CT
While there are considerable concerns about the negative impacts of oil palm expansion, increased political sensitivities have prevented a dispassionate debate about facts on the ground. Hosted by the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, NYSEAN member Ward Berenschot will chair this panel in which researchers will discuss the findings of three recent research projects and assess their implications for policymakers and development agencies. For more information and to register for this event, click here.
Imagining Environmental Futures in SEA: Mekong 2030
CSEAS University of Hawai’i
May 24, 2022
6:00pm CT / 2:00pm HT
FY 2022 Language Resource Centers Program Competition
The International and Foreign Language Education (IFLE) office at the U.S. Department of Education is pleased to announce the opening of the competition for the fiscal year (FY) 2022 Title VI Language Resource Centers (LRC) Program.
The LRC Program provides grants to institutions of higher education (IHEs) or consortia of IHEs for establishing, strengthening, and operating centers that serve as resources for improving the nation’s capacity for teaching and learning foreign languages. Funded centers provide teacher training and conduct research, materials development, assessment, and dissemination projects.
Volunteer Announcement: Tutors and Learners
Greater University Tutoring Service (GUTS), Foreign Language Learners (FLL) program is designed to help students learn a new language by partnering them up with a native speaker of that language.
We are currently recruiting tutors and learners for our program. Please encourage students to apply to our program as it is a great opportunity for them to improve their speaking and listening skills. Also if you know of any students that are exceptionally skilled in a language, please let them know about our program.
For more information, please email fll.guts@gmail.com.
Globaljobs.org
Job/internship opportunities: Turn area studies into an internship or a career. See job listings at NGOs, think tanks, government, and private-sector employers.
Chinese Mutual Aid Association
Job/volunteer opportunities. For more information contact info@chinesemutualaid.org or 773-784-2900.
U.S. Department of State
Student internship program: Internship opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students at Washington headquarters and US embassies, consulates and missions worldwide.
Room to Read
Volunteer opportunities: San Francisco-based organization that helps develop literacy skills among primary and secondary school students.
Asia Society
Career opportunities: Internships and jobs posted regularly on website.
Association of Southeast Asian Nations
Jobs listed under Opportunities tab of ASEAN website.
Devex: Do Good. Do it Well
International aid and development jobs in 1,000 agencies, companies and NGOs in 100 countries.
DevNetJOBS.org
International development jobs and consulting opportunities.
Idealist.org
Privately funded website offers searchable database of nonprofit international jobs and volunteer opportunities.
ReliefWeb
Specialized digital service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs that posts jobs regularly.
World Health Organization
Global health agency in the United Nations system encourages online applications for potential employment.