At the Association for Asian Studies Conference, join NYSEAN and SEACAF for a roundtable that will explore the relationship between authoritarianism and threats to academic and intellectual freedom in a way that puts attacks on higher education in the United States in conversation with Southeast Asia. The Roundtable includes the following scholars: Bencharat Sae Chua of the Institute of Human Rights and Peace Studies at Mahidol University in Thailand; Herlambang Wiratraman of the Research Center of Law and Social Justice at Universitas Gadjah Mada in Indonesia; Sol Iglesias of the University of the Philippines-Diliman’s Political Science Department in the Philippines, and Rianne Subijanto of Baruch College, City University of New York. Margaret Scott, a founder of NYSEAN and a journalist with the New York Review of Books, will chair.

Join NYSEAN for a screening of The Last Breath of Sam Yan (2023), a documentary that captures the spirit and resilience of student activists and community members who stand firm in protecting their cultural heritage. The screening is followed by a discussion with co-producers Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal and Settanant Thanakitkoses, and student-activist Phumiyot Lapnarongchai.

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at UCLA for a lecture by Dr. Supeena Insee Adler, the curator and conservator of the World Musical Instrument Collection at UCLA and an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Ethnomusicology, where she directs the Music of Thailand ensemble. In this lecture, Dr. Adler will discuss the efforts of the Thai performing arts community in preserving cultural heritage and strengthening social bonds in Southern California’s Thai diaspora.

Thailand’s post-election government faces rising economic pressure, domestic instability, and shifting geopolitics. Join experts in politics and security for a virtual roundtable on what this moment means for Thailand and Southeast Asia. Featured speakers include Kunthida Rungruengkiat, MPP Candidate at Princeton University and former Deputy Leader of Thailand’s Future Forward Party, offering perspectives on domestic political reform and democratic movements; Dr. Fuadi Pitsuwan, Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University; and Matt Wheeler, Senior Analyst at International Crisis Group.

Join the SUNY/CUNY Southeast Asia Consortium (SEAC) for a webinar debriefing the recent elections in Myanmar and Thailand. Speakers include Dr. Joel Sawat Selway, Associate Professor of Political Science at Brigham Young University and co-founder and managing editor of ThaiDataPoints, and Dr. Kyaw Yin Hlaing, Chairman of the Myanmar Scholars Network and Visiting Senior Fellow in the Myanmar Studies Program at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. Meredith Weiss, Professor of Political Science at University at Albany–SUNY and Director of SUNY/CUNY SEAC, will moderate the discussion.

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University for a talk by Prakirati Satasut, Professor of Anthropology at Thammasat University and Visiting Scholar of Anthropology and Buddhism at Harvard-Yenching Institute. Through the context of Thailand’s 2014 coup, Dr. Satasut proposes the politics of Buddhist protection as a contested domain where religious discourse becomes a vehicle for political participation.

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Michigan (U-M) for a talk by Scott Stonington, Associate Professor of Anthropology and internal medicine physician at U-M. In this talk, Dr. Stonington explores how religious practice might emerge in the face of domineering experiences, through interviews and participant observation with people coping with severe pain in Northern Thailand.

Join the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute for a roundtable discussing insights and innovative approaches to inform more responsive policymaking in order to address the needs and aspirations of Southeast Asia’s next generation. Speakers include: Professor Nina T. Castillo-Carandang, pioneering health sociologist at  the University of the Philippines’ College of Medicine; Shahhanim Yahya, Senior Research Executive for the Institute for Youth Research Malaysia; Voradon Lerdrat, Director of Research and Policy Partnerships at 101 Public Policy Think Tank (Thailand); Dr. Sari Damar Ratri, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Research (IFAR), Monash University Indonesia; Dr. Rayner Kay Jin Tan, Assistant Professor at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore and National University Health System; and Dr. Tu-Anh Hoang, founder and Director of the Center for Creative Initiatives in Health and Population (CCIHP) and chair of the Vietnam Gender-based Violence Prevention and Response Network.

Join the Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University for a talk by Aditya Bhattacharjee, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow from Asian Studies at Cornell University, who will discuss how new trends in popular Thai religion have influenced the beliefs and business practices of residents in New York state’s primary Thai enclaves.

Join NYSEAN for a live watch party of Thailand’s pivotal election, featuring a special discussion with Ms. Kunthida Rungruengkiat, former Deputy Leader of the Future Forward Party and current MPP candidate at Princeton University. Watch the vote count live, enjoy breakfast, and unpack what this election means for Thailand’s political future.

Join the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute for a webinar exploring the key issues shaping Thailand’s 2026 general election. Speakers include Mathis Lohatepanont, Political Science Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Michigan, and Thanisara Ruangdej (GG), the CEO and Co-founder of WeVis, a civic technology group advancing Thailand’s participatory democracy through open data.

Join the Southeast Asia Coalition for Academic Freedom (SEACAF) for its orientation and general assembly. This is a key opportunity for members to shape priorities, engage in meaningful discussions, and contribute to the next phase of SEACAF’s work in 2026.

Join the Graduate Education and Training in Southeast Asian Studies (GETSEA) consortium for an information session for undergraduate students. In this session, graduate students studying Southeast Asia in universities across the United States will discuss resources, programs, funding, advisors, and other topics related to pursuing a graduate degree in Southeast Asian studies.

Join the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute for a talk by Dr. Kaewkamol (Karen) Pitakdumrongkit, the Interim Secretary General and incoming Executive Director of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council’s (PECC) International Secretariat. Dr. Pitakdumrongkit will examine the key findings of the PECC State of the Region Report 2025-2026, which gathered data from over 500 leaders across 24 economies on their outlook for the region from 2026 to 2027.

Join Engage Thailand for a talk by Anchana Heemmina, a human rights defender and the founder of the Duay Jai Group, an organization that provides rehabilitation services for torture victims in Thailand and support for their families. Anchana will discuss her experience working on human rights in Thailand's Deep South, including the current legal context, lessons learned, and pathways to peace. The conversation will be conducted in Thai, with live English interpretation.

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa for a webinar on how grounded, context-sensitive research contributes to a deeper understanding of environmental challenges and supports more equitable and sustainable approaches to environmental knowledge production. Speakers include: Dr. Micah Fisher (UH Mānoa), Xiaoyun Neo (UH Mānoa), Areerat Worawongwasu (UH Mānoa), Abdurrahman Abdullah (Universitas Hasanuddin), Irfan Saputra (Universitas Hasanuddin), and Aswin Baharuddin (Universiti Malaya). Dr. Mary Mostafanezhad will moderate the webinar.

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University (NIU) for a talk by Jui-Ching Wang, Professor of Music Education and World Music at NIU’s School of Music. Professor Wang will discuss a project called “Performing Southeast Asian Art Goes to School,” which helps develop curricula that use performing arts to teach K-12 students important historical context from Asian American Communities. This project connects NIU students and local in-service teachers with Asian American community members to raise awareness of Asian American cultures and history.

Join the Royal Society for Asian Affairs for a talk by Dr. Paul Chambers, a foreign academic living in Thailand for over thirty years, who will discuss his experience as the first foreign academic to be wrongfully accused and imprisoned for violating Section 112 (lèse-majesté) of Thailand’s Criminal Code and Computer Crimes Act.

Join NYSEAN and GETSEA for a screening of Vietnamerica , a documentary that follows Master Nguyen Hoa as he returns to former refugee camps in Southeast Asia after three decades abroad to search for the graves of his wife and two children. The screening is followed by a discussion with Executive Producer Nancy Bui of the Vietnamese Heritage Foundation.

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University for a talk by Benjamin Tausig, Associate Professor of Critical Music Studies at Stony Brook University, who will discuss his book on Maurice Rocco, a queer Black American jazz pianist who was murdered in 1976 in Bangkok. The talk explores how Rocco’s life and death reflect profound shifts in the definitions and valuations of race, sex, and gender identity in Cold War-era Thailand.

Join the Southeast Asia Program at Cornell for a talk by Marlie Lukach, PhD student in Plant Breeding and Genetics, who will discuss the historical significance of bottle gourd lagenaria siceraria in Southeast Asia.

Join the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute for a seminar exploring the evolution of Thailand’s middle-power aspiration, its recurring retreat into small-power conduct, and how this oscillation is shaped by domestic political instability, bureaucratic inertia, and strategic uncertainty. This panel features speakers from Thammasat University’s Faculty of Political Science, including: Dr. Jittipat Poonkham, Associate Dean for Academic and International Affairs, Director of International Studies Program, and Associate Professor of International Relations; Dr. Fuadi Pitsuwan, lecturer in International Relations; and Dr. Pongkwan Sawasdipakdi, lecturer in International Relations and Assistant Dean for Graduate Studies.

Join NYSEAN for a screening of Breaking the Cycle , a documentary about a group of young politicians campaigning against an authoritarian constitution in Thailand. The screening is followed by a discussion with Kunthida Rungruengkiat, a former Member of Parliament and Deputy Leader of the Future Forward Party in Thailand, and a current MPP candidate at the Princeton School of Public Policy and International Affairs.

Join the ISEAS Yusof-Ishak Institution for a seminar by Dr. Duncan McCargo, NYSEAN Co-Founder, Associate Senior Fellow at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, and President’s Chair in Global Affairs at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Dr. McCargo will discuss the Thai Senate’s selection process, a theoretically non-political process that has become overshadowed by the presence of political parties.

Join NYSEAN and Princeton Thaigers for a talk by Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut, a Thai politician and businessman who has served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the People's Party since 2024.

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.

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.

Join NYSEAN and the Southeast Asia Coalition for Academic Freedom (SEACAF) for a conference examining attacks on intellectual and academic freedom in Southeast Asia and the United States. Scholars, journalists, and activists will gather to look at how universities and intellectuals often become the first target of rising authoritarianism, the costs and benefits of collective action, and the strategies for resistance. The conversation will address the impact of funding cuts, strengthened immigration enforcement, and assaults on higher education in the United States as well as the lessons learned from crackdowns in Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Turkey.