Join the LSE Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre’s annual Southeast Asia Forum in 2025, which brings together leading specialists worldwide to discuss the implications of global trends and ongoing geoeconomic contestation for Southeast Asian economies, polities, and societies. Featured speakers include Evelyn Goh (Australian National University), Henry Wai-chung Yeung (The Chinese University of Hong Kong), Selina Ho (National University of Singapore), and Alvin Camba (Association of Universities, Inc.).

Join the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) for a talk by Caixia Mao, PhD candidate in Urban Planning at Columbia University and NYSEAN member. This presentation will explore the politics of China and Japan funding the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway (HSR) project in Indonesia.

Join ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute for a talk by Dr. John Lee, senior fellow at Hudson Institute, for a talk on Trump’s policies and their far-reaching global consequences. He will explore their impact on the US Indo-Pacific strategy and security alliances in Asia, the potential for strategic realignments among Asian nations, and how countries can navigate the uncertainties and challenges in the turbulent years ahead.

Join the Southeast Asia Program and the Department of Systems Engineering at Cornell University for a talk by Vincent Woon Kok Sin, assistant professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou) and an adjunct associate professor at Xiamen University Malaysia, who will discuss how enhanced solid waste management can mitigate warming and support the Paris Agreement and the Global Methane Pledge.

Join the Indonesia Project at the Australian National University for a talk by Wayan Jarrah Sastrawan, historian of Southeast Asia and Lecturer at ANU, who will discuss the ancient Javanese economy, focusing on the benefice (sīma) system and its role in supporting monumental architecture and religious institutions, while addressing broader questions about fiscal structures, land use, and trade over eight centuries.

Join GETSEA and AIFIS for a workshop on how to conduct research in Indonesia. Learn about research permits, visas, and preparing for fieldwork, and hear from experienced researchers sharing tips, insights, and lessons learned from conducting research across Indonesia.

Join the the Southeast Asia Initiative at Harvard University Asia Center for a talk by Cheeno Mario M. Sayuno, Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and Associate Professor at University of the Philippines Los Baños. Dr. Sayuno will analyze discuss water- and forest-themed children's storybooks from Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia alongside the experiences of long-term expatriates from Southeast Asia, in order to explore how both narratives negotiate concepts of home, belonging, and cultural identity in foreign lands

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa for a talk by Kisho Tsuchiya, Assistant Professor in the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Kyoto University, who will discuss the history of East Timor through the relationship between the cycle of regime changes and knowledge production.

Join the Indonesia Studies Program at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute for a panel featuring Elyssa Ludher, Visiting Fellow and food security researcher and urban planner; Marihot Nasution, State Budget Analyst in the Secretariat General of Indonesia’s House of Representatives (DPR), and Adriana Viola Miranda, MD, Program Director of 1000 Days Fund. These experts will discuss President Prabowo Subianto’s plan to feed Indonesia’s schoolchildren and pregnant mothers, including issues such as the meals’ nutritional value, governance, and fiscal and social sustainability.

Join NYSEAN for a talk by Rianne Subijanto, Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Baruch College, City University of New York. Her book, Communication against Capital: Red Enlightenment at the Dawn of Indonesia, tells a story of the processes through which ordinary people mobilized an anticolonial communist resistance against Dutch rule through the production of revolutionary communication in the 1920s. NYSEAN co-founder Margaret Scott will moderate the discussion. 

Join NYSEAN, SUNY/CUNY SEAC, and GETSEA for a screening of Hot Stuff: Exposure of Indonesia's Geothermal Dreams, an AIFIS award-winning documentary and part of a trio of Indonesian films that delve into energy policies in Indonesia, corporate ties to those policies, and their detrimental effects on local environments and populations. Director Dandhy Laksono and Producer Cypri Dale will join us live from the University of Michigan’s Center for Southeast Asia Studies as over 20 universities from across North America connect to watch Hot Stuff simultaneously, followed by a discussion about the film, energy policy in Indonesia, and the new Prabowo Subianto administration’s response to local grassroots movements in the country.

Join the Indonesia Project at Australian National University for a talk by Hilman Palaon, Research Fellow at the Lowy Institute’s Indo-Pacific Development Centre, and Robert Walker, economist and Research Associate at the Lowy Institute.  They will discuss Indonesia’s recent industrial policy successes in downstreaming critical minerals and EV manufacturing, while also addressing the environmental and social challenges, and exploring strategies for broader economic development and sustainability.

Join NYSEAN for a talk by Taomo Zhou, Associate Professor of Chinese Studies at the National University of Singapore, on the life and legacy of Francisca Casparina Fanggidaej (1925–2013)—a left-wing Indonesian activist in the Afro-Asian movements, a mother of seven, and a woman who endured decades of forced separation from her family. Through Fanggidaej’s story, Taomo explores how Indonesia and China shaped notions of motherhood and how a transnational figure like Fanggidaej navigated her role within revolutionary anticolonialism in Indonesia, state socialism in China, and the global shift toward capitalist neoliberalism—ultimately displacing the Third World internationalist vision both nations once championed. The discussion will be moderated by Rianne Subijanto, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Baruch College, CUNY.

Join the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) for a panel discussion featuring Iman Pambagyo, former Chief Trade Negotiator for Indonesia; Jayant Menon, Senior Fellow at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute; Yasuyuki Todo, Professor of Economics at Waseda University; Wendy Cutler, ASPI Vice President. These experts from the Indo-Pacific and the U.S. will explore the impact of U.S. friendshoring policy, discussing its challenges, lessons learned, and how it can be enhanced to strengthen supply chains and boost economic prosperity.

Join the Crawford School of Public Policy at Australian National University for a talk by Rani Dwi Putri, M.Phil student in the Department of Anthropology, who will discuss the experience of young women within the Salafi community in Bima, Indonesia.

Join NYSEAN for a book talk by Merlyna Lim, Canada Research Chair in Digital Media and Global Network Society, Professor of Communication and Media Studies, and Director of the ALiGN Media Lab at Carleton University. Social Media and Politics in Southeast Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2025) highlights the dual role of social media in both fostering grassroots activism and enabling autocratic practices of algorithmic politics, notably in electoral politics.

Join the Indonesia Studies Programme at ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute for a talk by Maxwell Lane, Visiting Senior Fellow, who will examine the stagnation and challenges in Indonesia under the Prabowo government, focusing on the persistent under-industrialization of the economy, the dominance of New Order-era political and cultural structures, and the struggles of civil society and emerging political alternatives to drive meaningful reform.

Join the Indonesia Project at the Australian National University for a talk by Lili Yan Ing and Krisna Gupta, who will discuss the economics of Indonesia joining BRICS, an intergovernmental organization formed by Brazil, Russia, India, and China.

Join the Regional and Cultural Studies Programme at ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute for a seminar featuring Andar Nubowo, Muhammad Faiz bin Fadzil, and Mohamed Imran Mohamed Taib. The panel will be about Islam and the construction of modern national identity in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.

Join NYSEAN and NYU’s Masters Program in International Affairs for a conversation with Dédé Oetomo, a campaigner for LGBT rights in Indonesia and a scholar on gender issues, and Gina Chua, a Singaporean journalist who is the Executive Editor of Semafor and one of the most senior transgender journalists in the U.S. 

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University for a talk by Muzakki Bashori, Southeast Asia Fellow at NIU and Lecturer in the Department of Social and Political Sciences at Semarang State University, who will explore the significance of Javanese folklore in language preservation and its relationship to environmental themes.

Join the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at the George Washington University for a conference on the Chinese Diaspora in Southeast Asia. This event brings together papers from scholars of maritime Southeast Asia who document and analyze the diverse but often precarious practices of everyday management of linguistic and cultural identities of diasporic Chinese in the Southeast Asian region.

Join the Council on Southeast Asia Studies at Yale University for a talk by Paul K. Gellert, Visiting Research Scholar at CUNY Graduate Center and Professor of Sociology at the University of Tennessee, who will discuss the ecologically unequal exchange of palm oil and dairy products in Indonesia and New Zealand.

Join Master Javanese gamelan musician Wakidi Dwidjomartono, the Cornell Gamelan Ensemble, and the Gamelan in Indonesian History and Cultures course for a program of traditional Javanese gendhing.

Join the Indonesia Institute at the Australian National University for a panel discussing media freedom in commemoration of International Human Rights Day. Adisti Sukma Sawitri, Ika Ningtyas, and Revolusi ‘Revo’ Riza Zulverdi will discuss the challenges of reporting during Indonesia's democratic decline, and the shifting nature of professional journalism in an era of social media influencers, disinformation, and AI.