OUR EVENTS

Filtering by: “History”
The Art of Knowing in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Himalayas
May
31
to Nov 30

The Art of Knowing in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Himalayas

  • The Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art for an exhibition featuring stone sculptures, gilt bronzes, and painted manuscripts from India, Nepal, Tibet, Bangladesh, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Cambodia, and Indonesia, this exhibition illuminates the critical role of visual culture in conveying Buddhist and Hindu teachings from the ninth to the twentieth centuries.

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Nusantara: Six Centuries of Indonesian Textiles Exhibition at Yale University
Sep
12
to Jan 11

Nusantara: Six Centuries of Indonesian Textiles Exhibition at Yale University

Join the Yale University Art Gallery for an exhibition on Nusantara: Six Centuries of Indonesian Textiles, which presents one of Southeast Asia’s most significant artistic accomplishments: woven textiles. Exploring the ancient interisland links found in this culturally diverse maritime region, the exhibition features a wide array of textiles from the 14th to the 20th century, from the batiks of Java to the ikat of Sumba, and from ceremonial cloths and ritual weavings to clothing, shrouds, and architectural hangings. Nusantara—from the original name for the Indonesian archipelago—offers a broad overview of the rich imagery and technical mastery of this remarkable art form.

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Mekong and Metaphor: Contemporary Art and Regional Imaginaries in Mainland Southeast Asia
Oct
29

Mekong and Metaphor: Contemporary Art and Regional Imaginaries in Mainland Southeast Asia

Join the Yale Council on Southeast Asia Studies for a talk by Pamela Nguyen Corey, Associate Professor of Art History at Fulbright University Vietnam. In this talk, she looks at metaphor as an artistic method that emphasizes temporal and tacit dimensions of regional imagination, using the 2023 Thailand Biennale in Chiang Rai and artworks by Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Nguyen Trinh Thi as case studies.

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People of the Book: Translating an Oral Tradition into Written Form in Lumad Mindanao
Oct
30

People of the Book: Translating an Oral Tradition into Written Form in Lumad Mindanao

  • Library (Room 215), NYU Espacio de Culturas (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join NYSEAN and Sulo: The Philippine Studies Initiative at NYU for a talk by Dr. Oona Paredes, Associate Professor of Southeast Asian Studies at UCLA’s Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, who will discuss how a team of Higaunon people transformed their oral tradition into written form.

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Domestic Nationalism: Muslim Women, Health and Modernity in Indonesia
Nov
7

Domestic Nationalism: Muslim Women, Health and Modernity in Indonesia

  • NYU Wagner - Lafayette Conference Room, Floor 2 (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join NYSEAN for a book talk by Chiara Formichi, H. Stanley Krusten Professor of World Religions in the Department of Asian Studies. Domestic Nationalism argues that Muslim women in Java and Sumatra, from the late 1910s to the 1950s, were central to Indonesia’s progress as guardians and promoters of health and piety through gendered activities of care work.

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Reflections on the (Ab)Uses of Philippine History
Oct
28

Reflections on the (Ab)Uses of Philippine History

  • Northern Illinois University - Asian American Resource Center (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at NIU and the Philippine Consulate General of Chicago for a presentation by Ambeth Ocampo, Professor of History at Ateneo de Manila University, who will discuss how people have utilized the history of the Philippines for better or worse.

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Thai American Oral History Project
Oct
24

Thai American Oral History Project

  • Northern Illinois University - Asian American Resource Center (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University (NIU) for a talk by Kanjana Thepboriruk, Associate Professor at NIU’s Department of World Languages and Cultures, who will discuss her work conducting oral history interviews with Thai Americans.

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Citizens or Subjects?: The Paradox of Citizenship and Subjecthood in a Southeast Asian Kingdom
Oct
24

Citizens or Subjects?: The Paradox of Citizenship and Subjecthood in a Southeast Asian Kingdom

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies for a talk by Mu'izz Abdul Khalid, a Research Associate at the Global Awareness and Impact Alliance, who will discuss the paradoxical status Bruneians face as both citizens and subjects of Brunei, the last absolutist kingdom in Southeast Asia. With their hybrid status, Khalid argues Bruneians are compelled to constantly negotiate their political lives, balancing their status as subjects with subtle acts of citizenship, often in the form of “quiet activism.”

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Because of You: A History of Kilawin Kolektibo
Oct
22

Because of You: A History of Kilawin Kolektibo

  • City College of New York - Shepard Hall, Room 291 (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join the Thirdworld Newsreel and the Documentary Forum at City College of New York for a screening and discussion of the documentary film Because of You: A History of Kilawin Kolektibo by Desireena Almoradie and Barbara Malaran. The screening will be followed by a talkback with the co-directors and fellow past participants of Kilawin Kolektibo.

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Feeling “Sayang”: On Racialized Emotions and Their Minor Articulations in Colonial Singapore
Oct
22

Feeling “Sayang”: On Racialized Emotions and Their Minor Articulations in Colonial Singapore

Join the Council on Southeast Asia Studies at Yale University for a talk by Jack Jin Gary Lee, Assistant Professor of Sociology at The New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at The New School. Dr. Lee will discuss the 1938 case of a magistrate who was suspected by colonial officials in Singapore and London of having homosexual relations with colonial subjects.

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Linking Histories of Citizenship and Forced Displacement: Armed Conflict, Expropriation, and Bureaucratic Violence in Myanmar
Oct
13

Linking Histories of Citizenship and Forced Displacement: Armed Conflict, Expropriation, and Bureaucratic Violence in Myanmar

  • Northern Illinois University - Asian American Resource Center (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join the Asian American Resource Center, the Center for Burma Studies, and the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University for a talk by Elizabeth Rhoads, Senior Lecturer at the Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies at Lund University, Sweden. Professor Rhoads will discuss the influence of conflict and displacement on statelessness and barriers to acquiring and holding citizenship in Myanmar.

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He Who is Made Lord: Empire, Class and Race in Postwar Singapore
Oct
8

He Who is Made Lord: Empire, Class and Race in Postwar Singapore

  • University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa - Moore Hall 258 (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at University of Hawai‘i (UH) at Mānoa for a talk by Dr. Muhammad Suhail Mohamed Yazid, Fellow at the Harvard University Asia Center, as he discusses his latest book He Who is Made Lord. Dr. Barbara Watson Andaya, Emerita Professor of Asian Studies at UH-Mānoa, will moderate the discussion.

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Karen Identity in Transition: A History of Karen Baptists in British Burma and America
Oct
8

Karen Identity in Transition: A History of Karen Baptists in British Burma and America

  • Northern Illinois University - Asian American Resource Center (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies and the Center for Burma Studies at Northern Illinois University for a talk by Hitomi Fujimura, Humanities Lecturer at Ehime University in Japan, who will discuss the history of Karen Baptists in British Burma and the United States.

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Halo-Halo Ecologies: The Emergent Environments Behind Filipino Food
Oct
3

Halo-Halo Ecologies: The Emergent Environments Behind Filipino Food

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at UH-Mānoa for the virtual book launch of  Halo-Halo Ecologies, an anthology that gathers a transnational community of food enthusiasts, engaged scholars, and social and environmental activists to reimagine Philippine Studies and Food Studies. Speakers include Dr. Alyssa Paredes, Dr. Marvin Montefrio, Felice Prudente Sta. Maria, Chef Giney Villar, and Paolo Ven B. Paculan.

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Immigration Education Workshop
Sep
24

Immigration Education Workshop

Join the Asian American Education Project for a workshop that explores Asian  Immigration to the United States, and the past and present challenges faced by immigrants. The workshop will be facilitated by Laura Ouk, board president of the National Cambodian Heritage Museum and board member for the Cambodian Association of Illinois.

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Challenges in Writing the New Cambridge History of Southeast Asia
Sep
24

Challenges in Writing the New Cambridge History of Southeast Asia

Join the Council on Southeast Asia Studies at Yale University for a talk by Barbara Watson Andaya, Emerita Professor of Asian Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, and Leonard Y. Andaya, Emeritus Professor of History at UH-Mānoa. As co-editors of the third volume of The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia, they will discuss the challenges of placing contemporary concerns of Southeast Asian studies in a historical framework.

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Botany's (Un)making: Vernaculars of Plant Knowing in the Early 20th-Century Davao Gulf
Sep
19

Botany's (Un)making: Vernaculars of Plant Knowing in the Early 20th-Century Davao Gulf

  • University of Michigan, Weiser Hall, Room 555 (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at University of Michigan for a talk by Dr. Kathleen Cruz Gutierrez, Assistant Professor of History at University of California, Santa Cruz. Dr. Gutierrez will discuss the first decades of U.S. colonization in the Philippines and institutions of botanical research aimed to scale up plantation-style production.

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The National Revolution: A View from the Subaltern
Sep
18

The National Revolution: A View from the Subaltern

  • Russell Hall (Room 305), Columbia University Teachers' College (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Over the past several weeks we’ve worked towards the idea of Indonesia with a colorful cast of characters: our Kartinis, Ki Hajars, and Sukarnos, luminaries of that class that “dreamt and prayed in Dutch.” But what of the vast majority of Indonesians that didn’t? Who spoke in the language of jimats and Imam Mahdis rather than treatises and political theories? This week we begin to tell their side of the story, and of how they mobilized for that decisive act of political creation: the National Revolution itself.

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Champassak Royalty and Sovereignty: Within and Between Nation States in Mainland Southeast Asia
Sep
18

Champassak Royalty and Sovereignty: Within and Between Nation States in Mainland Southeast Asia

Join the Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University for a talk by Ian Baird, Professor of Geography and Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Baird will discuss the enduring legacy of the House of Champassak, a royal lineage from southern Laos that has navigated centuries of political upheaval, from Thai vassalage and French colonialism to Lao independence and communist rule.

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Art in Places of Worship in the Middle East and Southeast Asia
Sep
13

Art in Places of Worship in the Middle East and Southeast Asia

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at UCLA for a professional development workshop by Heather A. Badamo, Associate Professor of art history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Mya Chau, Lecturer in the Department of Asian Studies and Asian Pacific American Studies at Loyola Marymount University. They will discuss the cultures and histories of the Middle East and Southeast Asia through their religious spaces and places of worship.

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The Moderate Middle: The Suharto Regime and Indonesia’s Engagement with the New International Economic Order (NIEO), 1968-1984
Sep
11

The Moderate Middle: The Suharto Regime and Indonesia’s Engagement with the New International Economic Order (NIEO), 1968-1984

Join the Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University for a talk by Bradley Simpson, Professor of History and Asian Studies at the University of Connecticut, who will discuss Indonesian politics and policies surrounding the New International Economic Order.

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British Hydrocolonialism in Southeast Asia
Sep
10

British Hydrocolonialism in Southeast Asia

  • Yale University - Henry R. Luce Hall, Room 203 (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join the Council on Southeast Asia Studies at Yale University for a talk by Nurfadzilah Yahaya, Assistant Professor of History of Southeast Asia at Yale, who will discuss the colonial engineering campaigns of the British Empire such as Singapore's harbors and North Borneo’s shores.

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Our Journeys: 50 Years After the Fall
Sep
7
to Sep 30

Our Journeys: 50 Years After the Fall

Vietnamese Boat People (VBP) is honored to present Our Journeys: 50 Years After the Fall, a traveling exhibition debuting in New York City in September 2025 at Think!Chinatown Studios. This exhibition launch commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon—a pivotal moment in Vietnamese history and the diaspora experience.

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Domestic Nationalism: Muslim Women, Health and Modernity in Indonesia
Sep
4

Domestic Nationalism: Muslim Women, Health and Modernity in Indonesia

Join the Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University for a book talk by Chiara Formichi, H. Stanley Krusten Professor of World Religions in the Department of Asian Studies. Domestic Nationalism argues that Muslim women in Java and Sumatra, from the late 1910s to the 1950s, were central to Indonesia’s progress as guardians and promoters of health and piety through gendered activities of care work.

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Who Tells the War? Community Memory and the Vietnam War’s Enduring Legacies
Sep
3

Who Tells the War? Community Memory and the Vietnam War’s Enduring Legacies

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at University of Hawaii-Mānoa (UH Mānoa) for a webinar about the influence of community narratives on the memory and ongoing legacies of the Vietnam War. Barbara Watson Andaya of UH Mānoa will moderate the discussion with a panel that includes: Long T. Bui (UC Irvine), Dan “Fig” Leaf (Honorary Consul for Vietnam in Hawaii), and Thy Phu (University of Toronto Scarborough).

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Center for Khmer Studies Research Presentations: 2025 Junior Resident Fellows
Aug
12
to Aug 13

Center for Khmer Studies Research Presentations: 2025 Junior Resident Fellows

  • CKS Conference Hall, Wat Damnak (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join the Center for Khmer Studies for a series of research presentations for the 2025 Junior Resident Fellows Program (JRFP). Fourteen undergraduate fellows from Cambodia, France, and the U.S. will present their individual research projects in English on topics including Cambodian history, culture, literature, gender studies, economics, and sustainability.

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Year of the Cat
Aug
9

Year of the Cat

Join Asian CineVision for the screening of Year of the Cat (2025) as part of the Asian American International Film Festival. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with writer and director Phạm Tony Nguyen.

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AAIFF Film Shorts: This World & The Next
Aug
9

AAIFF Film Shorts: This World & The Next

Join Asian CineVision for the screenings of Vox Humana, Funeral of the Earth, Grandma Nai Who Played Favorites, Vic and His Nanay, We Used to Take the Long Way Home, and Across the Waters as part of the Asian American International Film Festival. These films entail liminal places, bodies in motion, borders of life and death. They explore the intermediate, indeterminate spaces between one another, the world around us, and even the worlds beyond. The screenings will be followed by a filmmaker Q&A.

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Because of You: A History of Kilawin Kolektibo (Dahil Sa 'Yo: Ang Storya Ng Kilawin Kolektibo)
Aug
8

Because of You: A History of Kilawin Kolektibo (Dahil Sa 'Yo: Ang Storya Ng Kilawin Kolektibo)

Join Asian CineVision for the screening of Because of You: A History of Kilawin Kolektibo (Dahil Sa 'Yo: Ang Storya Ng Kilawin Kolektibo) as part of the Asian American International Film Festival. The screening will be preceded by the short film, Two Travelling Aunties, and followed by a filmmaker Q&A.

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Malaysia Update 2025: Malaysia’s Regional Role
Jul
31
to Aug 1

Malaysia Update 2025: Malaysia’s Regional Role

  • Auditorium, Australian Centre on China in the World, Building 188, Fellows Lane, ANU (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join the Malaysia Institute at the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific for a conference bringing together leading scholars and distinguished speakers in Malaysia and Australia. The theme of the 2025 conference explores Malaysia’s role in ASEAN, in Southeast Asia, and in the Asia-Pacific.

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From Journalists to Authors: The Making of Stories
Jul
26

From Journalists to Authors: The Making of Stories

Join the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and Asian American Journalists Association for an enlivening conversation on transitioning from reporting to long-form storytelling, featuring Vicky Nguyen and Youngmi Mayer. The panelists will reflect on the challenges of shifting from the fast-paced, fact-driven world of journalism to the slower, more introspective craft of writing books.

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