Wen-Qing Ngoei, Associate Professor of History at the Singapore Management University, examines the ramifications of the intimate strategic and economic relationship between the United States and Singapore.

This talk was hosted by the Harvard University Asia Center.

In this episode of Gatty Lecture Rewind, the host Namfon Narumol Choochan interviews “Mai” Anocha Suwichakornpong, independent filmmaker, producer, founder of Electric Eel Film, and Associate Professor of Film at Columbia University. They discuss how her previous and upcoming features have engaged with the politics of remembering and forgetting of state violence in Thai history.

In this episode of the New Books in Southeast Asia Podcast, Stéphan Huard discusses Calibrated Engagement: Chronicles of Local Politics in the Heartland of Myanmar (‎Berghahn Books, 2024), in which he takes a deep dive into the history and anthropology of village leadership in Myanmar’s central dry zone, or anya. Though the book was researched prior to the military coup of 2021, it offers material with which to make sense of both why and how people in the dry zone formed new armed groups along what Stéphen calls an internal frontier.

The book is available for download free of charge via the publisher’s website. This episode was produced by NYSEAN Partner, the New Books Network.

Chiara Formichi discusses her new book, Domestic Nationalism (Stanford University Press, 2025), asserting that Muslim women in Java and Sumatra in the early to mid-20th century were central to Indonesia’s progress as guardians and promoters of health and piety through gendered activities of care work. While sidelined in the Dutch colonial project of hygienic modernity, women’s labor of social reproduction became increasingly visible during the Japanese Occupation and early years of independence. Women from all walks of life were called upon to fulfill domestic and motherly roles for the production and socialization of laborers, soldiers, and citizens.

This discussion was moderated by Sidney Jones and was hosted by NYSEAN.

Vina Orden presents her essay published in CUNY FORUM Volume 11:1, examining how narratives in popular media can perpetuate or challenge existing power structures and colonial mentalities. Orden explores this through the complex dynamics behind the pop culture success of comics like “The United States of Captain America.” Her analysis delves into the diverse creative team behind these comics, including queer, Filipino, First Nation, and South African writers. And she critically questions whether Captain America, despite such diverse creative input, must still operate within a context of “imperial power dynamics” and the realities of the U.S. nation state.

In this webinar, Deconstructing Indonesia confronts the uncomfortable truth that mainstream education, especially STEM, has been a weapon of coloniality. It has enforced a destructive divide between humans and nature, privileging extraction over reciprocity and silencing millennia of indigenous wisdom.

This talk is presented by Nathanael Pribady, MS student in Learning Analytics at Teachers College, Columbia University. This seminar was hosted by NYSEAN Partner, Deconstructing Indonesia.

Nationalism is an inherently unifying and totalizing force. But what happens when other identities begin to encroach on certain visions of what it means to be Indonesian? Deconstructing Indonesia, a student-run seminar, pays special attention to Chinese Indonesians, one of the minority groups in Indonesia.

In this episode of Gatty Lecture Rewind, the host Namfon Narumol Choochan interviews Dr. Aditya Bhattacharjee, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Asian Studies at Cornell University. Together, they discuss how growing up in Bangkok led him to study the localization and globalization of Hinduism. Focusing on the transnational appearances of Ganesha in Thailand and Thai restaurants in the United States, Dr. Bhattacharjee explains how and why this deity becomes a visible conduit for understanding the globalization of religious practices and religious belonging beyond the exclusively Thai-Buddhist framework.

In this episode of the New Books in Southeast Asia Podcast, Katheryn Dyt discusses her new book, The Nature of Kingship: The Weather-World in Nineteenth-Century Vietnam (University of Hawaii Press, 2025). This text connects Vietnam’s precolonial political history with an understanding of the natural environment seen through the eyes of Vietnamese kings and royal officials.

In this episode of Gatty Lecture Rewind, the hosts join Dr. Rachel Leow, Associate Professor of Modern East Asian History at the University of Cambridge, for a lively conversation that dives into the tangled, shimmering histories of migration, language, and ideas across Asia’s maritime world.

In this episode of the New Books in Critical Theory, Vincent Pak discusses his new book, Queer Correctives: Discursive Neo-homophobia, Sexuality and Christianity in Singapore (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025), which explores Christian discourses of sex and sexuality in Singapore to argue that metanoia, the theological concept of spiritual transformation, can be read as a form of neo-homophobia that coaxes change in the queer individual.

In this episode of Talking Indonesia, the host is joined by Grace Leksana, an Assistant Professor in Indonesian history in the Cultural History section of Utrecht University. Together, they discuss the origins and concerns of the Minister for Culture and Education’s commission to rewrite the official Indonesian history textbook.

In an article for the Journal of Historical Geography, Christian C. Lentz revisits mid-20th century Asia, particularly Southeast Asia, examining journalist, scholar-activist, and theorist Oey Hong Lee's book, Asia Won in Dien Bien Phu (1961). The article puts Asia Won in dialog with ideas of worldmaking, space-time, and eventful temporality to argue for an eventful geography of decolonization.

Jonathan Lam's essay published in the Southeast Asia Digital Library examines the lasting legacy of the Vietnam War and the US Secret War in Southeast Asia, particularly the extensive bombing campaigns in Laos and Cambodia. The essay explores the devastation caused by US military intervention, the refugee and deportation crisis since the fall of Saigon, and how connections to these historical patterns of US imperialism continue to shape the lives of Southeast Asian diaspora communities today.

Annie Pohlman writes for a special issue of Inside Indonesia, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the 1965-1966 genocide, where an estimated 500,000 people were murdered for their real or perceived support of the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI).

In an article for the Bangkok Post, Thitinan Pongsudhirak recaps former Thai PM Thaksin’s recent jail sentence and the events that led to it. While this may seem as a close on Thaksin's chapter in Thai politics, Thitinan argues that he will likely continue to have a political role as part of the Shinawatra dynasty.

In an article by Cambodianess, Pou Sothirak and Kanhara Eoeng bid farewell  to Cambodia's landmark Pochentong International Airport. Pochentong's closing and the opening of the new Techno International Airport marks the closing of a chapter in Cambodia's modern history, which started with Pochentong as a small airstrip in 1924 under the French colonial administration, standing resilient over years of strain.