New Books in Southeast Asian Studies

Elisa Tamarkin, an English prof of high repute (Anglophilia and Apropos of Something: A History of Irrelevance and Relevance) at UC Berkeley, joins RTB to discuss Done in a Day: Telex from the Fall of Saigon. It is an extended reflection on the last day of the Vietnam War, set against the imminent disappearance of war coverage in the nation's city newspapers, and framed through her own stepfather's experience covering the war. Tamarkin anatomizes curious forms of self-delusion that flourished in the American Me generation and traces the subtle trajectory that stretching from the journalistic autonomy of the mid-century to the "embedded reporters" of the US war in Iraq to today's implacable governmental hostility to truthful reportage. Back in the 1960's Hannah Arendt and others warned that bubbles of non-information and delusive self-deceit got propagated within the corridors of power and out in the larger public realm. Now cloudy misinformation is the property of a near-ubiquitous social media realm whose corrosive effect (the power to unthink) is far less circumscribed. Mentioned Hannah Arendt, "Lying in Politics" (subject of an earlier RTB episode) and "Home To Roost". Frank Kermode Sense of an Ending (1967). The philosopher John Pollock published a book called Knowledge and Justification in 1975. Jamie Cohen-Cole The Open Mind Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death (1973). Ursula Le Guin The Lathe of Heaven 1971 (Elisa also mentions John's book on Le Guin). R. A. Lafferty, The Fall of Rome (1971). Thomas Harris, I'm OK, You're OK (1967). Recallable Books: Adam Phillips, On Giving Up. Graham Greene, The Quiet American (1955). Read the transcript of the episode here. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

Elisa Tamarkin, an English prof of high repute (Anglophilia and Apropos of Something: A History of Irrelevance and Relevance) at UC Berkeley, joins RTB to discuss Done in a Day: Telex from the Fall of Saigon. It is an extended reflection on the last day of the Vietnam War, set against the imminent disappearance of war coverage in the nation's city newspapers, and framed through her own stepfather's experience covering the war. Tamarkin anatomizes curious forms of self-delusion that flourished in the American Me generation and traces the subtle trajectory that stretching from the journalistic autonomy of the mid-century to the "embedded reporters" of the US war in Iraq to today's implacable governmental hostility to truthful reportage. Back in the 1960's Hannah Arendt and others warned that bubbles of non-information and delusive self-deceit got propagated within the corridors of power and out in the larger public realm. Now cloudy misinformation is the property of a near-ubiquitous social media realm whose corrosive effect (the power to unthink) is far less circumscribed. Mentioned Hannah Arendt, "Lying in Politics" (subject of an earlier RTB episode) and "Home To Roost". Frank Kermode Sense of an Ending (1967). The philosopher John Pollock published a book called Knowledge and Justification in 1975. Jamie Cohen-Cole The Open Mind Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death (1973). Ursula Le Guin The Lathe of Heaven 1971 (Elisa also mentions John's book on Le Guin). R. A. Lafferty, The Fall of Rome (1971). Thomas Harris, I'm OK, You're OK (1967). Recallable Books: Adam Phillips, On Giving Up. Graham Greene, The Quiet American (1955). Read the transcript of the episode here. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

As a child, Lim Muy Lang grew up in a prosperous Sino-Khmer family in Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. When the Khmer Rouge seized power in April 1975, her family, along with the entire population of Phnom Penh, was forced to immediately leave the city for the countryside. What followed was a harrowing struggle for survival under the Khmer Rouge's radical revolutionary regime, which led to the deaths of all of Muy Lang's immediate family members, and much of her extended family. In the Shadow of the Khmer Rouge: A Child Survivor's Memoir (NUS Press, 2026), is Muy Lang's account of what happened. It's a story of almost unimaginable pain, cruelty, and loss, but also an incredible struggle for survival. And not least, the book is a delightful, deeply personal recollection of childhood and family life in Cambodia before 1975. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

In this episode of Talking Thai Politics, Dr Paul Chambers, talks about his new book, Praetorian Kingdom: A History of Military Ascendancy in Thailand (ISEAS, 2024). This book provides detailed insights to the military's involvement in Thai politics over the past ninety years and more — and is an essential source for researchers and students looking to dive deeper into this topic. Paul Chambers is an associate senior fellow in the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute's Thailand Studies programme. A prominent scholar best known for his expertise on the military's role in Thai politics, Paul Chambers has spent more than two decades off-and-on in Thailand, both teaching and researching. His other books include Khaki Capital: The Political Economy of the Military in Southeast Asia (co-edited, NIAS 2017). Duncan McCargo is President's Chair in Global Affairs at Nanyang Technological University. Talking Thai Politics brings crafted conversations about the politics of Thailand to a global audience. Created by the Generation Thailand project at Nanyang Technological University, the podcast is hosted by Duncan McCargo. Our production assistant is Shermaine Lau. Website: here Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

Savage: The Making of Modern Dogs in British Hong Kong (Cornell University Press, 2026) explores the dark side of colonial modernity through canine eyes, showing the many ways that dogs involuntarily contributed to the modernization of twentieth-century Hong Kong. Dr. Catherine S. Chan follows the piecemeal transplantation of British animal humanitarianism as pedigree dogs accompanied hardening class differences, dogmeat became a contested racial issue, and dogs were roped into the long list of undesirables fabricated in the so-called golden era of reforms following the social disturbances of the 1960s. Dr. Chan reveals a fragmented civilizing project that constructed dogs as dangerous, filthy, and unnecessary nuisances in a burgeoning city, rationalizing the slaughter of tens of thousands of dogs alongside paradoxical criticism of the native population for perpetrating animal cruelty and the promotion of British animal humanitarianism. Departing from anthropocentric perspectives in understanding the use of Britishness in the molding of modern cities, Savage restores the presence and agency of dogs to encourage a rethinking of the patchiness of British colonial governance and the long-lasting repercussions that modernity can have on our relationship with animals. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda's interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.  Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

Examining the emergence of international public health policy between the 1930s and 80s, The Emergence of International Health Policy in Southeast Asia, India, and Sri Lanka, 1937–1978 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2026) by Dr. Vivek Neelakantan sheds light on the role that rural community health initiatives in South and Southeast Asia played in the movement towards ‘primary health care' and ‘health for all,' articulated ultimately at the 1978 International Conference on Primary Health Care in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan. The author argues that the movement was not directed exclusively from the headquarters of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, but also by institutions such as the Rockefeller Foundation's International Health Division in rural Southeast Asia, and through local community initiatives including the Bandung Plan for Health in Indonesia. The book illustrates how an exclusive association of global health with the emergence of the WHO in the 1950s fails to account for the local, national, or regional contexts that shaped the evolution of primary health care in South and Southeast Asia. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda's interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.  Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

From misty mountain oolongs to the global boba boom, Taiwan's teas carry far more than flavor. They embody contested borders, evolving identities, and the complexities of nationhood. Routes of Taiwan Tea: Mobility, Borders, and Territoriality (U Washington Press, 2026) by Dr. Po-Yi Hung traces tea varieties, processing expertise, and merchants across Taiwan and Southeast Asia to reveal how a simple leaf has become a force in global politics.Drawing on decades of fieldwork and extensive archival research, Dr. Hung delves deep into the history of Taiwan's tea industry, from its roots in the Qing empire to its role in modern food nationalism. Hung shows how advocacy for Taiwanization—the movement to recover and celebrate the island's unique history and culture—occurs not only within Taiwan's food scenes but also through cross-border exchanges. Oolong cultivation in Thailand's highlands and bubble tea's rise in Vietnam demonstrate how tea acts as a nonhuman agent, fostering connections and unsettling conventional notions of sovereignty. Through these routes, tea becomes more than agriculture; it becomes an instrument of diplomacy, a marker of authenticity, and a symbol of cultural pride.Offering a fresh perspective on Taiwan's geopolitical positioning, Routes of Taiwan Tea redefines how borders are imagined and lived. It is an essential contribution to food studies, political geography, and East and Southeast Asian studies, illuminating how everyday practices like drinking tea shape global relations. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda's interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

A series of questions have been sparked by the indigenous urgency of the moment: What does it mean to live through a world coming undone? How do people carry on amid rupture, loss, and grief? Decolonial Endurance: Lisu Worldmaking Against Chinese Settler Colonialism (Stanford University Press, 2026) explores these questions through the turbulent lives of Indigenous Lisu subsistence farmers in China's Eastern Himalayas, bordering Myanmar and Tibet. Like many of China's Indigenous borderlands, this mountainous region has long borne the force of encroaching Chinese state power. Since the 1980s, the Chinese state has been compelling the Lisu to give up their subsistence lifeways, move into urban settlements, and send their children to government boarding schools. In exchange for the so-called gifts of development—healthcare, income, and education—they suffer environmental and social catastrophes such as mass landslides, strange new illnesses, and toxic food. Drawing on over a decade of engagement with the Lisu, Ting Hui Lau takes readers into the world of ex-shamans, heart-pained mothers, restless spirits, and demon-mad migrants as they grapple with the fallout from state development, which Lau argues is the latest phase in a centuries-long project of settler colonialism along China's Southwest frontier. At once a portrayal of loss and an ethnography of hope, Lau chronicles Lisu worldmaking amid this destruction, centering their quiet resistance through everyday acts of communal caretaking. In a time of escalating geopolitical and ecological crisis, this book calls for a new decolonial politics rooted in the transformative power of endurance. Ting Hui Lau (email address: lau.th@nus.edu.sg) is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the National University of Singapore. She studies sociocultural, psychological, and medical anthropology, development and environmental change, Indigeneity and colonialism, and the borderland areas of East and Southeast Asia. Yadong Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

In Land of Famished Beings: West Papuan Theories of Hunger (Duke UP, 2025), Sophie Chao examines how Indigenous Marind communities understand and theorize hunger in lowland West Papua, a place where industrial plantation expansion and settler-colonial violence are radically reconfiguring ecologies, socialities, and identities. Instead of seeing hunger as an individual, biophysical state defined purely in nutritional, quantitative, or human terms, Chao investigates how hunger traverses variably situated humans, animals, plants, institutions, infrastructures, spirits, and sorcerers. When approached through the lens of Indigenous Marind philosophies, practices, and protocols, hunger reveals itself to be a multiple, more-than-human, and morally imbued modality of being—one whose effects are no less culturally crafted or contested than food and eating. In centering Indigenous feminist theories of hunger, Chao offers new ways of thinking about the relationship between the environment, food, and nourishment in an age of self-consuming capitalist growth. She also considers how Indigenous theories invite anthropologists to reimagine the ethics and politics of ethnographic writing and the responsibilities, hesitations, and compromises that shape anthropological commitments in and beyond the field. Dr Sophie Chao is Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Sydney, author of In the Shadow of the Palms: More-Than-Human Becomings in West Papua, and coeditor of The Promise of Multispecies Justice, both also published by Duke University Press. Land of Famished Beings won the 2026 ASAA Mid-Career Book Prize. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

Every day, tens of millions of people use mantras all around the globe. Originating in South Asia and then spreading via practitioners, texts, rituals, and iconography, mantras have been grounded in speech and sound but also take a range of material forms. For instance, they are inscribed on surfaces, written in manuscripts, printed on posters, visually encoded in diagrams, or worn as amulets and textiles. Not surprisingly, mantras also circulate widely in digital spaces. In this episode of the Nordic Asia Podcast, Prof. Xenia Zeiler from the University of Helsinki talks to Prof. Borayin Larios about the ERC Synergy project MANTRAMS - Mantras in Religion, Media and Society in Global Southern Asia, and about digital mantra research. Funded by a Synergy Grant from the European Research Council, MANTRAMS is a pioneering, large-scale research project entirely dedicated to mantras, past and present. The interdisciplinary and comparative six-year project will investigate mantras across millennia and around the world, examining the roots of mantra, their circulation across South and Southeast Asia, and their transcultural significance in global contexts today. Borayin Larios is Assistant Professor of Modern South Asian Studies at the University of Vienna. His research interests span contemporary and classical Indian religious traditions, including the anthropology and history of mantras, popular and everyday Hinduism, material religion, and Yoga and Tantra traditions. In his interdisciplinary approach, he combines cultural anthropology, religious studies, and historical philology. He is a Principal Investigator in the ERC Synergy project MANTRAMS - Mantras in Religion, Media and Society in Global Southern Asia. Xenia Zeiler is Professor of South Asian Studies at the University of Helsinki. Her research and teaching are situated at the intersection of digital media, culture, and society, specifically as related to India and global Indian communities. Her focus within this wider field of digital culture is video games and gaming research, in India and beyond. She also researches and teaches digital religion, popular culture, cultural heritage, and mediatization processes. The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the following academic partners: Asia Centre, University of Tartu (Estonia), Asian studies, University of Helsinki (Finland), Centre for Asian Studies, Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania), Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Turku (Finland), Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University (Sweden) and Centre for South Asian Democracy, University of Oslo (Norway). We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

On June 10, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York returned two pieces of artwork to Cambodia: an Angkor statue and a sandstone lintel. It's the latest repatriation effort by the U.S.'s premier art museum, and the third time the Met has had to give up Cambodian artifacts specifically. Matthew Campbell's The Man Who Stole The Gods: A True Story of War, Obsession, and a Global Art Conspiracy (Penguin, 2026) dives into the story of the Cambodian antiquities trade, from looted temples in the Cambodian forests, through dealers in Bangkok like Douglas Latchford, and then into museums and billionaire homes in the West. And he also digs into how this trade fell apart: How the U.S. Department of Justice and activists in Cambodia pressured dealers and museums like the Met to give this art back. Matthew is an award-winning reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek. His previous book, Dead in the Water—co-authored with Kit Chellel—was selected as a Book of the Year by The Economist, the Financial Times, and The Times. Matt has reported from more than twenty-five countries on crime, corruption, terrorism, economics, and the environment. His work has earned some of journalism's highest honors, including awards from the Gerald Loeb Foundation, the Overseas Press Club, the National Press Club, SOPA, and SABEW for both feature and investigative reporting You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The Man Who Stole the Gods. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

In her most recent publication, Domestic Nationalism: Muslim Women, Health, and Modernity in Indonesia (Stanford UP, 2025), Chiara Formichi 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. 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. The medicalization of cleanliness, intersecting with multiple patriarchal orders, marginalized women's traditional influence and knowledge. However, leveraging the critical importance of infant care, cleanliness, and nutrition, women pushed against the boundaries imposed on them by the colonial and postcolonial state. Largely absent from government archives, their words and acts are evident in vernacular magazines and visual sources drawn from official outreach, news and lifestyle media, and advertisements. Women writers rearticulated scientific mothering, nationalist maternalism, and Islamic ideals of motherhood to create a public voice through gendered care work. The framework of Domestic Nationalism proposes that as the modern Indonesian nation-state took shape capitalizing on the public function of mothering, so did homemaking become a crossroads of national and international approaches to development, blurring nonaligned self-reliance and global capitalist interests. In this episode Dr. Chiara Formichi (Cornell University) and Leah Cargin (University of Oklahoma and Journal of Women's History) discuss Domestic Nationalism. We converse about feminist theory and tensions between Indonesian women and colonial establishments. We talk about food, food choices, food preparation and nutrition to reveal an intersection of hygiene, nutrition, and imperialism. And last, we discuss how imperial and colonial invocation of novel hygiene practices was a global phenomenon in the mid-twentieth century. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

Indonesia is often framed as a key arena of China-Japan-US competition in the Second Cold War. In this episode, we talk with Trissia Wijaya about her book on the political economy of Chinese and Japanese infrastructure financing in Indonesia. She challenges the view that it is simply an instrument of competition and instead situates infrastructure finance within Indonesia's own development strategies. She shows how development assistance, commercial loans, export credits, and public-private partnerships are shaped by contestation among Chinese and Japanese capital, as well as Indonesian civil society, state actors, and labor. We also link these dynamics to the country's changing industrial policy, from energy infrastructure to Nickel processing to the planned capital of Nusantara, asking how Indonesia uses strategies of polyalignment and foreign finance to pursue its own developmental ambitions. — Trissia Wijaya is a McKenzie Research Fellow at the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne. Prior to this role, she worked as a Senior Research Fellow at Asia-Japan Research Organization, Ritsumeikan University, and taught at the College of Global Liberal Arts. She received her PhD in Politics from Murdoch University, Australia, and remains affiliated as an Honorary Research Fellow at the Indo-Pacific Research Centre there. She has also worked at the Asian Development Bank and UNDP Indonesia, cultivating an interest in the political economy of development and evidence-informed policymaking. Her research spans green infrastructure financing, industrial policy, and critical mineral development. She has conducted intensive fieldwork across Indonesia, Japan, and China. The Political Economy of Japanese and Chinese Infrastructure Financing Governance: Organizing Alliances, Institutions, and Ideology (Bristol University Press 2025) Indonesia, nickel, and the political economy of polyalignment in the Second Cold War in Third World Quarterly An EV-fix for Indonesia: the green development-resource nationalist nexus in Environmental Policy Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

Exploring the work of established and emerging artists in Indonesia's vibrant art world, Artists and the People: Ideologies of Art in Indonesia (NUS Press, 2022) examines why so many artists in the world's largest archipelagic nation choose to work directly with people and in the studio. While the social dimension of Indonesian art makes it distinctive in the globalised world of contemporary art, Elly Kent is the first to explore this engagement in Indonesian terms. What are the historical, political and social conditions that lie beneath these polyvalent practices? How do formal and informal institutions, communities and artist-run-initiatives contribute to the practices and discourses behind socially-engaged art in Indonesia? What do artists do when they locate their practice in a broader social milieu, and what tensions arise when artists integrate communities, governments, politics, history and people into their practice? Drawing on interviews with artists, translations of archival material, visual analyses and participation in artists' projects, this book presents a unique, interdisciplinary examination of ideologies of art in Indonesia. It portrays the ways art practice and theory are understood within Indonesia and inside Indonesian-language discourse. Indonesia's artists have continued to explore, resist and draw on the methodologies and discourses of social responsibility and artistic autonomy generated by Indonesian arts practitioners through their early 20th-century encounters with modernity and the founding of the nation state. This book brings contemporary practice into conversation with art history in Indonesia. Dr Elly Kent is a visual artist, translator, researcher and educator with 20 years of experience working in academia and the arts in Indonesia and Australia. Elly is Deputy Director of the ANU Indonesia Institute and Sub-dean of Languages in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University. She convenes the Year in Asia program and is Treasurer of the Indonesia Council, Australia's peak body for Indonesian studies. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

In 1898, on the eve of the Spanish-American War, the US Army seemed minuscule and ill-equipped for global conflict. Yet over the next fifteen years, its soldiers defeated Spain and pacified nationalist insurgencies in both Cuba and the Philippines. Despite their lack of experience in colonial administration, American troops also ruled and transformed the daily lives of the 8 million people who inhabited these tropical islands.How was this relatively small and inexperienced army able to wage wars in Cuba and the Philippines and occupy them? American soldiers depended on tens of thousands of Cubans and Filipinos, both for military operations and civil government. Whether compelled to labor for free or voluntarily working for wages, Cubans and Filipinos, suspended between civilian and soldier status, enabled the making of a new US overseas empire by interpreting, guiding, building, selling sex, and many other kinds of work for American troops. In The Work of Empire: War, Occupation, and the Making of American Colonialism in Cuba and the Philippines (UNC Press, 2025), Justin Jackson reveals how their labor forged the politics, economics, and culture of American colonialism in Cuba and the Philippines and left an enduring imprint on these islands and the US Army itself. Jackson offers new ways to understand the rise of American military might and how it influenced a globalizing imperial world. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

In Singapore, the financial center of Southeast Asia, hyperurbanization and commercial development exist alongside enduring belief in the economic power of ghosts: in their ability to control the flows of money and value and to determine the outcome of investments and wagers. Spectropolis: The Enchantment of Capital in Singapore (U Minnesota Press, 2025) explores the unlikely collusion of these two systems, demonstrating both the productive role of popular beliefs in the modern world and the surprising correlations between “late” capitalism and the workings of the spirit realm. Detailing the logic and practices of Singapore's ghost economy—from performing exorcisms on real estate development sites to offering money and commodities to the dead as a hedge against precarious real-world transactions—Joshua Comaroff shows how speculative finance, largely governed by chance and volatility, is understood via its inherently spectral qualities. Based on detailed case studies and years of extensive fieldwork, Spectropolis argues for the power of popular belief systems to theorize contemporary socioeconomic conditions and to give form to collective affect as well as shared aspirations and anxieties, often in deeply hopeful, horizontal and empowering ways. Joshua Comaroff is the assistant professor of architecture at the National University of Singapore. He is coauthor of Horror in Architecture: The Reanimated Edition (Minnesota, 2024). Alyssa Kee recently finished graduate studies at the University of Vienna. Her research interests lie in urban geography, multispecies ecologies, and urban food assemblages. She is currently in the field of Geographical Education. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

From about the middle of the first millennium of the Common Era through to the fifteenth century, Southeast Asian societies underwent a political transformation that produced the first, early states that were the forerunners of the countries we know today as Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Dougald O'Reilly's Empires of the Southern Ocean: Early Civilizations of Mainland and Insular Southeast Asia (Bloomsbury Academic, 2026), tells the complicated story of the development of these earlier polities from ‘chiefdoms' to more complex states. The book highlights the role of local factors in the rise of these states, as well as the influence of early Southeast Asia's participation in long-distance trade networks in the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

In the first half of the twentieth century, the United States attempted to build a colony in the Philippines in its own image—one fraught with racist notions of what it means to be civilized, developed, and worthy of self-rule. These imported notions of race and modernity left a profound imprint on the nation. More recently, we have seen a menacing rise of Islamic "terrorism," political polarization, populism, xenophobia, and isolationism. Conventional wisdom has attributed this rise to a "failed state" or economic insecurity and cultural backlash. In ⁠Emotional Filipinos: The American Myth of the "Lazy Native" and Islamic Separatism in the Philippines⁠ (University of Georgia Press, 2026), however, Dr. George Baylon Radics explains this forgotten part of U.S. history with emotions as a driving force behind social action. The Philippines is currently experiencing the longest-running Muslim-Christian conflict in the modern world and an increasingly anti-Western populist government. By unpacking the role of emotions from the American colonial period to the present, Emotional Filipinos blurs the line between American colonizer and Muslim-Filipino "terrorist," highlighting the lasting effects of America's footprint in Southeast Asia. Radics humanizes this fraught history and reveals unexplored connections between past and present. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose ⁠book⁠ focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda's interviews on ⁠New Books with Miranda Melcher⁠, wherever you get your podcasts. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

Despite the implications of its subtitle, this is not a travel guide to Singapore, although readers run the risk of becoming tempted to venture there. Author Lim Tse Wei begins this collection of essays with the candid admission, “I am a somewhat unusual cook. My main qualification for the profession is that I was born and raised in Singapore, where food is both secular obsession and national religion. I didn't learn to cook at my mother's side, or my grandmother's, and although my grandfather had been a cook for some years, we didn't speak of it in the family. In Singapore, good sons do not learn to cook.” Lim's dry commentary and insight introduces us to a world of striking juxtapositions, from expatriate French chefs preparing food for diners in Chippendale chairs to street hawkers who struggle to make a living wage, let alone one that would allow them to feel like full-fledged members of Singaporean society. He makes his grandmother's recipe for lou arh, braised duck, in suburban Massachussets and questions why anyone would export Tabasco sauce to Southeast Asia, “home of the most nuanced and varied chilli-eating culture on the planet.” There are a few recipes, some traditional, some not at all, included to illustrate ideas rather than to command us to act. And although Lim makes no attempt to be systematic in his coverage, he still paints a vivid picture of the city-state's culinary culture. Little Perfections: Eating in Singapore (Kitchen Arts and Letters, 2026) is available to purchase exclusively at Kitchen Arts & Letters.  This interview was conducted by Ernest Lee, PhD student at the University of Chicago. He researches the history of postcolonial energy through the lens of development, infrastructure and environment, with a focus on West Africa and Southeast Asia. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

“What might it mean to take the dead seriously as political actors?” asks Lia Kent in this exciting new contribution to critical human rights scholarship The Unruly Dead: Spirits, Memory, and State Formation in Timor-Leste (U Wisconsin Press, 2024). In Timor-Leste, a new nation-state that experienced centuries of European colonialism before a violent occupation by Indonesia from 1975 to 1999, the dead are active participants in social and political life who continue to operate within familial structures of obligation and commitment. On individual, local, and national levels, Timor-Leste is invested in various forms of memory work, including memorialization, exhumation, reburial, and commemoration of the occupation's victims. Such practices enliven the dead, allowing them to forge new relationships with the living and unsettling the state-building logics that seek to contain and control them. With generous, careful ethnography and incisive analysis, Kent challenges comfortable, linear narratives of transitional justice and argues that this memory work is reshaping the East Timorese social and political order—a process in which the dead are active, and sometimes disruptive, participants. Community ties and even the landscape itself are imbued with their presence and demands, and the horrific scale of mass death in recent times—up to a third of the population perished during the Indonesian occupation—means Timor-Leste's dead have real, significant power in the country's efforts to remember, recover, and reestablish itself. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

In the quest for human rights justice for communities and workers whose rights are breached by transnational businesses, non-judicial mechanisms (NJMs) are often deployed, but how effective are they? Global Business and Local Struggle: Reimagining Non-Judicial Remedy for Human Rights (Cambridge UP, 2025) creates a blueprint for reforming transnational human rights NJMs and for helping communities and workers to use them. Through 587 interviews with 1100 individuals over five years of research in Indonesia and India, the authors delve into the practical workings of NJMs in diverse industries and contexts. The findings reveal that while NJMs are limited in providing standalone remedies, they can play a valuable role within a broader regulatory ecosystem. Combining rich empirical data, multi-method analyses and a new theoretical framework, the authors argue for a multi-pronged approach to human rights redress. Their findings will advance both academic and policy debates about the merits and shortcomings of NJMs. Interview with Tim Connor and Fiona Haines. Interview by Caitlin Murphy, Lecturer, RMIT University and Fellow, Laureate Program on Global Corporations and International Law. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

Nurhaizatul Jamil's Faithful Transformations: Islamic Self-Help in Contemporary Singapore (U Illinois Press, 2025) is a complex and meticulous ethnography of recent trends in Islamic self-help circles based in Singapore. Drawing on research conducted with primarily young, college-educated and working professional Malay Muslim women, Jamil details how they negotiate aspirational pursuits related to faith, love, work, and beyond through participation in self-help seminars and classes. The role of the state in racializing minority Malay Muslim identities as backward and culturally deficient looms large in Jamil's discussion, as self-help teachers instruct their students operating within these structures to cultivate gratitude, remain optimistic, and redirect their efforts towards patience and piety. Themes of the book include gender and religious authority, Islamic discursive traditions, Malay minority history, state neoliberal projects and religious self-help discourse, projects of piety and self-improvement under conditions of racialized capitalism, and the intersections of belonging, class, gender, and state initiatives in twenty-first century Singapore. Jamil's work offers important new perspectives on global Islamic traditions by putting research and theory from Black, ethnic, feminist, and critical Muslim studies into conversation with the anthropology of Islam and of Southeast Asia. Dr. Nurhaizatul Jamil is an Associate Professor of Global South Studies at the Pratt Institute (USA). Dr. Jaclyn Michael is an Associate Professor of Religion at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (USA). She is the author of several articles on Muslim cultural representation, performance, and religious belonging in India and in the United States. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

In Sex Work in Southeast Asia: Scenes of Ambivalence in Literature and Film (Edinburgh UP, 2025), Leslie Barnes examines the ambivalences that mark Southeast Asian sex industries under global imperialism. She explores the multi-layered subjectivities of sex workers, procurers and clients, and interrogates the frameworks in which discourses surrounding sex work circulate. Engaged with debates concerning the status of transactional sex, Sex Work in Southeast Asia explores the symbolic force and concrete conditions of sex work in Cambodia and Vietnam, considering how these debates and the figures they ensnare are mediated by fiction and creative nonfiction. The book's scenes of ambivalence show how the aesthetic treatment of sex work stretches the paradigms we use to make sense not only of sex work, but also of art, the evidentiary status of testimony and the spectacles of pleasure and suffering. Contesting essentialism and authenticity, and working to suspend judgement, these scenes encourage a re-examination of what we think we know about sex work, how we know it and what we do with that knowledge. Leslie Barnes is an Associate Professor of French Studies at the Australian National University. She is author of Vietnam and the Colonial Condition of French Literature (2014) and co-editor of The Cinema of Rithy Panh: Everything Has a Soul (2021). We previously chatted on New Books about her work on the great Cambodian film director Rithy Panh, so was excited to speak with her again about Sex Work in Southeast Asia: Scenes of Ambivalence in Literature and Film. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

The Gastronomica podcast returns to the air, bringing listeners new interviews with authors from the latest issues of Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies. In this episode, Alyssa James of Gastronomica's Editorial Collective hosts award-winning writer and historian Camille Bégin for a discussion of “Chiang Mai 2015,” a creative nonfiction account of a family trip and a search for sustenance that becomes entangled with questions of illness, climate, and care. In her memoir of failed culinary tourism, a story set against the smoky skies of northern Thailand, Camille asks what it means to travel, to look for meaning, and to eat ethically. In conversation with Alyssa, Camille talks about how the haze shapes her story, reflects on the politics of culinary tourism, and shows how food can become a small anchor in times of crisis. “Chiang Mai 2015” was published in the Spring 2025 issue of Gastronomica (25.1) and is available online here. Camille Bégin is the author of Taste of the Nation: The New Deal Search for America's Food (University of Illinois Press, 2016). Her personal essays have appeared in Gastronomica, Adelaide Magazine, and the scientific journal, Brain. She is currently writing a food memoir called Crumbs: A Trail of Taste and Illness. Website here Alyssa A. L. James is an anthropologist and postdoctoral scholar at the USC Society of Fellows. Her current book project, Revival Grounds, examines coffee, heritage, and temporality in Martinique. Learn more here Listeners can now find the Gastronomica podcast on the New Books Network here. Subscribe to Gastronomica's podcast feed to stay updated on the newest episodes. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

“Japanese war crimes are notorious. During the Second World War, as Japanese forces overran Southeast Asia and the Pacific, they massacred, murdered, raped, and tortured Asians and Westerners who fell into their hands. They also mistreated hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war (POWs) and civilian internees. After the war ended in 1945, the victorious Allied powers conducted trials in which they brought Japanese perpetrators to justice, as they also did with Germans in Europe… In this provocative new book, Twelve Japanese War Criminals and One Who Got Away, published by University of Hawaiʻi Press (2026), historians Robert Cribb and Sandra Wilson analyse thirteen case studies of Japanese war crimes. They attempt to answer a crucial question with contemporary relevance, how does one become a war criminal? Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

The post-Reformation era has witnessed a vastly changing landscape in Indonesian Islam, particularly with the emergence of conservative Muslim voices. Christian-Muslim Relations in Post-Reformation Indonesia: Resistance, Identity and Belonging (Edinburgh UP, 2026) explores several strategies of Christian resistance against the resurgence of conservative voices in Indonesian Islam to establish a coherent view of Christian responses and a greater understanding of Christian-Muslim relations after the Reformation in 1998. These different strategies demonstrate that, despite their status as a religious minority, Indonesian Christians are far from passive and submissive. Instead, they actively negotiate their identity and role in contemporary Indonesia's shifting political and social context to cultivate a sense of belonging. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

On Feb. 6, 1945, just three days after the U.S. army started to fight the Japanese in the city of Manila, General Douglas MacArthur declared that “Manila had fallen.” In truth, the battle would take another month, as U.S. forces fought their way through block after block. By the end of the battle, which featured some of the most intense urban fighting faced by the U.S. army, Manila was in ruins, the old walled city of Intramuros was flattened, and 100,000 Filipino civilians were dead.  Nicholas Evan Sarantakes writes a comprehensive history of the fighting in The Battle of Manila: Poisoned Victory in the Pacific War (Oxford UP, 2025) Nicholas Evan Sarantakes is an associate professor in the strategy and policy department at the U.S. Naval War College. He is the author of four books, including Dropping the Torch: Jimmy Carter, the Olympic Boycott, and the Cold War (Cambridge University Press: 2010) You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The Battle of Manila. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at@nickrigordon. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

Borneo—split between two countries, home to some of the world's oldest rainforests and a vast array of animal and plant life—is back in the news. The island is set to be home to Nusantara, Indonesia's new planned political capital set to, maybe, open in 2028. And the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak—different from the rest of Peninsular Malaysia—are griping for more rights and authority to control its own wealth. Author Olivier Hein tackles the long history of Borneo in his latest book titled, appropriately, Borneo: The History of an Enigma (Hurst, 2025). He tackles Borneo's indigenous communities; the spread of Hindu, Chinese, Muslim and European influence; the rise of the White Rajah; and how Borneo is treated by today's modern nations. A former diplomat with the UN, the OSCE and the UK, Olivier Hein has undertaken postings in Kosovo, Turkmenistan, the USA and France. He is also the author of Star and Key: The Historical Adventure of Mauritius and Mother of the World: The Remarkable History of Turkmenistan. He is also a regular contributor to The Chap magazine. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Borneo. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

Since 2008, there has been tremendous public interest in the social and ecological ramifications of the global land rush, a rapid increase of capital investment into land, especially for the establishment of agricultural and tree plantations. In Laos, the government has granted five percent of the national territory to investors as long-term land concessions since the early 2000s. Land investments, globally and in Laos, have violently and unjustly dispossessed peasants and Indigenous peoples of their life-giving land, leading to their immiseration. Yet, targeted communities have rarely accepted the theft of their land outright, often struggling to protect their land rights with varying degrees of success. How can these divergent outcomes of land control be understood? In Socializing Land: Plantations, Dispossession, and Resistance in Laos (U Hawai'i Press, 2025), Dr. Miles Kenney-Lazar addresses these questions by investigating the development of Chinese and Vietnamese pulpwood and rubber plantations on the lands of ethnic minority Brou people in eastern Savannakhet of southern Laos. He argues that land should not be viewed as a “thing” but as a set of social relationships among different groups of people. The characteristics of these ties to land play a critical role in determining if and how its use, access, and ownership change—whether land becomes the property of plantation capitalists or remains in the possession of peasant farmers. Furthermore, the book explores the contradictory role of the state, simultaneously pursuing investment-driven economic growth built upon the coercive expropriation of land while pledging to protect a limited set of peasant land rights. Highlighting the sociality of land demonstrates that land transactions are full of friction and contestation. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda's interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

This episode unpacks the 8 February 2026 snap election and constitutional referendum in Thailand. The results paint a mixed picture: a decisive win for the country's conservative forces alongside signals of progressive change, particularly regarding the drafting of a new constitution. Dialogues on Southeast Asia sits down with Prof Duncan McCargo, President's Chair in Global Affairs at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and a world-leading specialist on Thai politics, to make sense of what the results mean. Prof McCargo focuses on the comparative politics of Southeast Asia, especially Thailand, on which he has published widely. He is the author of a dozen books, including Fighting for Virtue: Politics and Justice in Thailand (Cornell, 2019) and Future Forward: The Rise and Fall of a Thai Political Party (NIAS Press, 2020). Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

Entangled in a nexus of commerce, industry, food security, and environmental concerns, palm oil has become a prominent topic of controversy and debate. In this episode, Dr. Ayu Pratiwi illuminates the complicated reality behind the controversy by introducing the University of Turku research project "Good and Bad Palm Oil: Food Security, Paradigm Shift and Stakeholder Negotiations in Indonesia and the EU." What is good and what is bad about palm oil, and what is the recent paradigm shift in its status between Southeast Asia and Europe? Dr. Ayu Pratiwi is a Docent in economic geography at the Department of Marketing and International Business and Senior Researcher at the Department of Biodiversity Sciences at the University of Turku. Ari-Joonas Pitkänen is a Doctoral Researcher at the Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Turku. The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the following academic partners: Asia Centre, University of Tartu (Estonia), Asian studies, University of Helsinki (Finland), Centre for Asian Studies, Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania), Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Turku (Finland), Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University (Sweden) and Centre for South Asian Democracy, University of Oslo (Norway). We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

The balance of global power changed profoundly over the course of the twentieth century, above all with the economic and political rise of Asia. Asia after Europe: Imagining a Continent in the Long Twentieth Century (Harvard UP, 2024) is a bold new interpretation of the period, focusing on the conflicting and overlapping ways in which Asians have conceived their bonds and their roles in the world. Tracking the circulation of ideas and people across colonial and national borders, Sugata Bose explores developments in Asian thought, art, and politics that defied Euro-American models and defined Asianness as a locus of solidarity for all humanity.Impressive in scale, yet driven by the stories of fascinating and influential individuals, Asia after Europe examines early intimations of Asian solidarity and universalism preceding Japan's victory over Russia in 1905; the revolutionary collaborations of the First World War and its aftermath, when Asian universalism took shape alongside Wilsonian internationalism and Bolshevism; the impact of the Great Depression and Second World War on the idea of Asia; and the persistence of forms of Asian universalism in the postwar period, despite the consolidation of postcolonial nation-states on a European model.Diverse Asian universalisms were forged and fractured through phases of poverty and prosperity, among elites and common people, throughout the span of the twentieth century. Noting the endurance of nationalist rivalries, often tied to religious exclusion and violence, Bose concludes with reflections on the continuing potential of political thought beyond European definitions of reason, nation, and identity. Sugata Bose is Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs, Harvard University. Lucas Tse is Examination Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford University. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

Recentering Southeast Asia: Politics, Religion and Maritime Connections (Routledge, 2026) assesses the impact of European colonization in the late 19th and early 20th century in ‘restructuring' the shared past of India and Southeast Asia. It provides case studies that transcend colonial constructs and adopt newer approaches to understanding the shared past. The authors explore these developments through the lens of political figures like Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) and re-examine themes such as the Greater India Society (1926–1959) established in Calcutta, and the role of Buddhism in post-World War II connections, as the repatriation of the mortal remains of Japanese soldiers killed in Burma (Myanmar) acquired urgency. Drawing on a diverse range of sources including archaeology, Buddhist texts, the afterlives of the Hindu temples, maritime networks, and inscriptions from Vietnam and central India, the book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of history, Buddhism, archaeology, heritage studies, cultural studies, and political history as well as South and Southeast Asian history. Guest: Himanshu Prabha Ray Interviewer: Natali Pearson Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

Libraries in French colonial Vietnam functioned as symbols of Western modernity and infrastructures of colonial knowledge. Yet Vietnamese readers pursued alternative uses of the library that exceeded imperial intentions. In Bibliotactics: Libraries and the Colonial Public in Vietnam (U California Press, 2026), Cindy Any Nguyen examines the Hanoi and Saigon state libraries in colonial and postcolonial Vietnam, uncovering the emergence of a colonial public who reimagined the political meaning and social space of the library through public critique and day-to-day practice. Comprising government bureaucrats, library personnel, journalists, and everyday library readers, this colonial public debated the role of libraries as educational resource, civilizing instrument, and literary heritage.  Moving beyond procolonial or anticolonial nationalism framings, Bibliotactics advances a relational theory of power that centers public reading culture contextualized within the library infrastructure of the colonial information order. As the first comprehensive history of the colonial and national library in Asia, this book contributes new insights into publicity, colonial and postcolonial studies, and the histories of Vietnam, libraries, and information. Bibliotactics is available open access from Luminosa. Visit here to download a copy for free. Cindy Anh Nguyen is Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Studies and the Digital Humanities program at the University of California, Los Angeles. Jen Hoyer is Technical Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology. She is co-author of What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom (2022) and The Social Movement Archive (2021), and co-editor of Armed By Design: Posters and Publications of Cuba's Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America (2025). Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

Hillary Langberg discusses Wisdom of the Goddess, an online exhibition she curated for the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art featuring nine goddesses across Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Langberg traces her path from fieldwork at western Deccan cave temples to public humanities, and addresses the curatorial choices, pedagogical design, and theological framing involved in presenting devī traditions to diverse audiences. The conversation explores the Hindu-Buddhist interface in goddess worship, visual texts as evidence, and transmission beyond academic containers. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

Bangkok is one of the world's great cities, and the central artery of that city is the Chaophraya River. Michael Hurley's book, Waterways of Bangkok: Memory, Landscape, and Twilight (NUS Press, 2025) just published by National University of Singapore Press, is an evocative reflection on the river's place in Thai history, society, and culture. The author describes the Chaophraya River as the “binding thread of the Thai heartland”. He uses the river to examine historical legacies, the role of diverse ethnic groups that have contributed in various ways to Bangkok, and the country's fractious politics. The book is also a meditation on the important, but today barely noticed, shift in Thai social life from a waterborne lifestyle to a land-based one, a shift which is barely a century old. Flooding, water pollution, and Bangkok's notorious traffic jams, are all related to this movement away from an earlier aquatic culture. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

Sara Swenson is Assistant Professor of Religion and Affiliated Faculty in Asian Societies, Cultures, and Languages at Dartmouth College. Her areas of expertise include Religions of Southeast Asia, Buddhism in Vietnam, Gender and Sexuality, Affect Theory, and Ethnography. She received her Ph.D. in Religion from Syracuse University in 2021. She also holds an M.Phil. in Religion and a Certificate of Advanced Study in Women's and Gender Studies from Syracuse University, an M.A. in Comparative Religion from Iliff School of Theology, and a B.A. in English from the University of Minnesota Duluth. She pursues projects that highlight the power and agency of everyday people. Religions are often a vital resource for grassroots social action and community engagement, as exemplified by Buddhism in Vietnam. Her projects have received generous grant support from the American Council of Learned Societies; Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship; Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA); and The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Dissertation Fellowship in Buddhist Studies. Swenson's new book, Near Light We Shine: Buddhist Charity in Urban Vietnam (Oxford UP, 2025) is one of the first major ethnographic studies on Buddhism in southern Vietnam, featuring new histories and interpretations of this rich subject. It shares new context for how religious practices affect urban migration, development, and humanitarian concerns, and presents theoretical advancements for understanding grassroots charity. Near Light We Shine offers a diversity of perspectives on grassroots Buddhist practices throughout Vietnam, by featuring interviews that have never been published before from marginalized Buddhist practitioners in Vietnam, such as day laborers, queer men, elderly women, and retired communist soldiers. References mentioned in the interview:  Le Hoang Anh Thu, "Doing Bodhisattva's Work: Charity, Class, and Selfhood of Petty Traders in Hồ Chí Minh City" here Nhung Lu Rots, "Towards an Alternative Buddhist Modernity: Hòa Hảo Charity Healing and Herbal Medicine in the Mekong Delta" here Elizabeth Perez, Religion in the Kitchen here Southeast Asian Studies Summer Institute (SEASSI) at the University of Wisconsin here Van Nguyen-Marshall, Between War and the State: Civil Society in South Vietnam, 1954–1975 here Casey R. Collins, Buddhist Contramodernism: Shinnyo-en's Reconfigurations of Tradition for Modernity here Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

Economies of Gender: Masculinity, "Mail Order Brides," and Women's Labor (Rutgers University Press, 2025) by Dr. Julia Meszaros offers a provocative exploration of the international dating industry, challenging simplistic narratives of human trafficking and scams while shedding light on the economic dynamics of gender. Through twelve years of fieldwork, the book delves into the motivations and experiences of men who seek relationships abroad, driven by dissatisfaction with Western women who, they believe, no longer embody traditional femininity. By examining romantic tourism hotspots such as Ukraine, Colombia, and the Philippines, Economies of Gender reveals how these international settings serve as "intimate frontiers," where men seek to extract femininity capital and bolster their status. It illuminates the often-unseen economic underpinnings of relationships and questions how global gender dynamics shape desires, fantasies, and intimate markets. Through its compelling analysis, the book broadens the conversation on gender, power, and the commodification of intimacy in a globalized world. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda's interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

In contemporary Indonesia the idea that Islam and Marxism are inherently incompatible has become deeply entrenched. However, as Lin Hongxuan's work Ummah Yet Proletariat: Islam, Marxism, and the Making of the Indonesian Republic (Oxford University Press, 2023) shows, the relationship between them in Indonesian history is deeply intertwined. Based on a wealth of Indonesian language sources, Lin traces over the half century between 1915 and 1965 how Islam and Marxism coexisted and converged in the Netherlands Indies and newly independent Indonesia. In addition to reframing Indonesian ideological history, the book also helpfully emphasises key actors' engagement with broader intellectual currents to situate them in a global historical context. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

International Law and Security in Indo-Pacific: Strategic Design for the Region (Routledge, 2025) edited by Dr. Joanna Siekiera uses an interdisciplinary approach to discuss international law and conflict in the Indo-Pacific region, covering topics such as maritime security, climate change and international relations. Detailing how international relations and particular state interests govern regional and global partnerships, the book provides suggestions for the future of the Indo-Pacific region. Exploring how conflict within the region has international repercussions, topics covered include the role of South-East Asian countries, and the role of statehood of small islands in Oceania. Detailing harmonization of laws and policies in the context of international security and maritime law, the book focuses on the impact of climate change and other topical issues such as cyber security and the protection of cultural identity. The book will be of interest to researchers in the field of international law, law of the sea, international relations and security.Dr. Joanna Siekiera is an expert in international law, NATO consultant, trainer, and educator. She currently works as the Assistant Professor at the War Studies University in Warsaw, Poland. She is also a fellow at the U.S. Marine Corps University in Quantico and supports various military institutions as a legal SME and course facilitator.Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar with research areas spanning Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, Military History, War Studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, and Russian and East European history. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

How has China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs transformed itself into one of the most assertive diplomatic actors on the global stage? What explains the rise of “wolf warrior” practices, and how should we interpret Beijing's evolving diplomatic identity? In this episode, Duncan McCargo speaks with Dylan Loh, an Associate Professor in the Public Policy and Global Affairs programme at Nanyang Technological University (Dr. Dylan M.H. Loh - Associate Professor | International Relations Scholar | Chinese Foreign Policy), about his award-winning new book China's Rising Foreign Ministry: Practices and Representations of Assertive Diplomacy (Stanford University Press, 2024). Dylan Loh unpacks how Chinese diplomats craft narratives and balance assertiveness with professionalism, touching on institutional habitus, ritualised loyalty, and China's bid for discourse power on platforms like X. This conversation offers timely insights for anyone interested in Chinese foreign policy, diplomacy, and the future of great-power relations. Host: Duncan McCargo is President's Chair in Global Affairs at Nanyang Technological University. Podcast Editing: Ishaan Krishnan Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

As the world moves with increasing urgency to mitigate climate change and catalyze energy transitions to net zero, understanding the governance mechanisms that will unlock barriers to energy transitions is of critical importance. Governing Energy Transitions: A Study of Regime Complex Effectiveness on Geothermal Development in Indonesia and the Philippines (Cambridge UP, 2025) by Dr. Kathryn Chelminski examines how the clean energy regime complex-the fragmented, complex sphere of governance in the clean energy issue area characterized by proliferating and overlapping international institutions-can be effective in fostering energy transitions at the domestic level, particularly in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs). Through comparative case studies of geothermal development in Indonesia and the Philippines, the chapters provide two different tales of energy transitions, demonstrating how domestic factors have hindered or facilitated progress. This book will be useful for students, researchers, and practitioners working in international relations, energy politics, political science, development studies, public policy, international law, and sociology. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda's interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies