The Channel: A Podcast from the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS)

In this episode, current IIAS Research Fellow Zhengfeng Wang hosts a conversation on transregional architectural history in the Asia-Pacific. She is joined by Amanda Achmadi, Paul Walker, and Soon-Tzu Speechley, all from the University of Melbourne. The three guests recently co-edited the volume Architectural Encounters in Asia Pacific: Built Traces of Intercolonial Trade, Industry and Labour, 1800s-1950s, published by Bloomsbury in 2024).Amanda Achmadi is an Associate Professor in Architectural Design, specializing in Asian Architecture and Urbanism. Her work examines the intersections of architecture and identity politics across pre-colonial, colonial, and postcolonial periods, with a particular focus on Indonesia and the broader Southeast Asian region. Amanda was previously a Research Fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies in 2010. Paul Walker is a Professor of Architecture whose recent research delves into mid-20th-century architecture in Australia and New Zealand, contemporary museum architecture, and colonial museum buildings in Australia, New Zealand, and India. Finally, Soon-Tzu Speechley is a Lecturer in Urban and Cultural Heritage. His research interests include the reception of classical architecture in colonial Malaya, architectural networks within the British Empire, and Southeast Asian heritage. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode of The Channel, we're bringing you a full episode from our friends over at Southeast Asia Crossroads, a podcast from the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University. We at IIAS have frequently crossed paths with members of the team behind Southeast Asia Crossroads, and we've long wanted to do re-post one of their episodes on our feed. A perfect opportunity arose when an episode from last September featured Taylor Easum for a group discussion of his latest book, Chiang Mai between Empire and Modern Thailand: A City in the Colonial Margins. Easum is an Associate Professor of History at Indiana State University, and as some of you may know, the book under discussion is part of our “Asian Cities” book series, published by IIAS and Amsterdam University Press. As you'll hear, the podcast features rigorous, engaging, but also fun discussions on a wide array of topics pertaining to the Southeast Asia, so we encourage our listeners to go and subscribe to Southeast Asia Crossroads! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode features a conversation with Mustahid Husain, who is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto Mississauga. His work explores a variety of themes, from international development and global inequality to mental health and the Bangladeshi diaspora. He is the author of two new books. The first is a short academic monograph, Masculinity and Mental Health of Muslim Men of Colour: Diaspora and Intersectionality of Canadian Youth, published in 2024 as part of Palgrave's New Directions in Islam series. The book explores the complex intersection of mental health, masculinity, and cultural identity among young Bangldeshi-Canadian men. His second new book is the novel Double Truths, which follows the protagonist Asif as he navigates personal relationships and his own identity in the complicated world of international development agencies. In this conversation, Mustahid discusses both of these projects as well as the somewhat unconventional path that led him to pursue anthropology. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode features a conversation about contemporary Indonesian politics, with a special focus on the role of Islam. In October 2024, Prabowo Subianto was sworn in as the president of Indonesia. In the Presidential election back in February 2024, he had quite handily defeated his two competitors, Anies Baswedan and Ganjar Pranowo, with 59% of the popular vote. This 2024 election was the third time that Prabowo tried to become president, after he lost in 2014 and 2019 against Joko "Jokowi" Widodo. The political competitions between Jokowi and Prabowo on occasion turned quite ugly. Not infrequently, it was accusations that the other was the "wrong kind" of Muslim that made it ugly – with the effect that the two candidates always appeared like irreconcilable opponents. But when Jokowi could no longer compete in the 2024 elections after his second term was up, he surprised many spectators by endorsing none other than Prabowo as his successor as president. Prabowo, in turn, selected Jokowi's son, Gibran Rakabuming, as his running mate. This episode is hosted by Dr. Verena Meyer, an Assistant Professor of Islam in South and Southeast Asia at Leiden University. She is joined by three colleagues with expertise in Islam and politics in contemporary Indonesia: (1) Dr. Zainal Abidin, who teaches at at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta and also serves as Director of the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies; (2) Dr. Saskia Schäfer, Head of a Research Group about Secularity, Islam, and Democracy in Indonesia and Turkey at Humboldt University in Berlin; and (3) Dr. Taufiq Hanafi, postdoctoral researcher at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) in Leiden. Welcome to the three of you, and thank you for joining us. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode features a conversation with the team behind the exhibition Asian Bronze at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. The ambitious show celebrates 4000 years of bronze art and the central role of bronze in the traditions of Asia. Ranging from prehistoric objects to contemporary artworks, the exhibition includes pieces from India, China, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan, Nepal, and Korea. In this conversation, our four guests elaborate on the magnificence of this metal and its importance across widely different regions of the Asian continent. They discuss the complexities of planning and designing an exhibition of this scale and proportion, and they introduce some of their favorite objects and stories. William Southworth is Curator of Southeast Asian Art at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Ching-Ling Wang is Curator of East Asian Art at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Anna Slaczka is Curator of South Asian Art at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, and Sara Creange is Conservator Metals at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam.Asian Bronze is on view at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam until 12 January 2025. It includes a book entitled Asian Bronze. 4000 Years of Beauty, as well as a symposium that will be held on 9 and 10 January 2025. Interested listeners can register for the symposium using the following link: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/whats-on/lectures-symposiums/symposium-asian-bronze[The recording of bronze bells, a clip of which is played in this episode, was kindly provided by the Museum of East Asian Art, Koeln & Ludwig Foundation, Aachen.] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode, Laura Erber hosts a conversation with two distinguished historians from the Federal University of Bahia, Brazil: João José Reis and Fábio Baqueiro Figueiredo. These scholars represent two generations of researchers committed to reinterpreting and deepening our understanding of the complex relationships between Brazil and Africa.João José Reis is one of Brazil's foremost historians and a globally recognized authority on 19th-century slavery. Born in Salvador, his extensive research has focused on urban slavery, resistance movements, and the lives of former slaves in Brazil. Reis earned his History degree from the Catholic University of Salvador and completed his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota, where his groundbreaking thesis explored the Malê Revolt of 1835. A full professor at the Federal University of Bahia since 1979, he has also held visiting positions at Princeton and Harvard. Reis' work has profoundly influenced the study of slavery and Afro-Brazilian history, making him a seminal figure in the field.Professor Fábio Baqueiro Figueiredo is a leading scholar in African History, also at the Federal University of Bahia. His research is deeply rooted in the cultural and political dynamics of contemporary Africa, with a particular focus on Angola. Figueiredo has delved into the intricate relationships between culture and politics and the formation and transformation of social and political identities in the latter half of the 20th century. Figueiredo has also made significant contributions to the academic community as editors of the journal Afro-Ásia from 2018 to 2023. Notably, João José Reis earlier helped relaunch that journal in 1996 after some years of irregular publication during the military dictatorship.Additionally, their work is closely tied to the Centro de Estudos Afro-Orientais (Centre for Afro-Oriental Studies), a pioneering research center at the Federal University of Bahia. Established in 1959, the Center is dedicated to the study of African, Asian, and Afro-Brazilian cultures, fostering a deeper understanding of the historical and contemporary ties between Brazil and the broader Afro-Oriental world. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode features a conversation about the debates and land disputes surrounding the development of airports in Asia and Africa. As airport construction projects proliferate across the Global South – often seen as a fast-track to development and modernization – new tensions frequently emerge, particularly when it comes to the huge tracts of land required for these new infrastructures. My guests today have a new edited volume on this topic, Contested Airport Land: Social-Spatial Transformation and Environmental Injustice in Asia and Africa, just published by Routledge. That book was co-edited by Irit Ittner, Sneha Sharma, Isaac Khambule, and Hanna Geschewski. Unfortunately, Isaac – a professor of political economy at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa – had an urgent matter arise just before recording, so he was unable to join the conversation. But the other three co-editors were able to proceed with a wonderful conversation. Irit Ittner works as a senior researcher in the Programme Environmental Governance at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability in Bonn. Her research interests include unplanned urbanization, land tenure, social navigation, and processes of transformation in coastal West African and European cities. Sneha Sharma works as a Project Officer at Fairtrade International in Bonn after having conducted research at the University of Bonn (2015–2022). She is also the author of Waste(d) Collectors: Politics of Urban Exclusion in India (2022). Hanna Geschewski is a doctoral researcher in Human Geography at the Chr. Michelsen Institute and the University of Bergen in Norway. Her current research explores the socio-environmental dimensions of prolonged displacement, with a particular focus on agriculture, cultivation, and rural livelihoods of Tibetan refugees in South India. In addition to the co-editors, the episode also features Rose Bridger, who wrote the foreword to the volume. Rose is co-founder of the Map of Airport-related Injustice and Resistance and the Global Anti-Aerotropolis Movement. She is also the author of the book Plane Truth (Pluto Press, 2013). As listeners may know, for the past year, we at IIAS were planning a symposium entitled Aspirational Infrastructure Research: Mobilities, Airports, Place (AIR-MAP), which took place in Seoul on October 24-25. That event explored the aspirations and imaginaries surrounding airport mega-developments across the Global South, which have been relatively less examined compared to similar infrastructures in the Global North. On this episode of The Channel, the four guests touch on many of these themes as they discuss their new book as well as the motivations, ambitions, challenges, and outcomes that massive airport development entails. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Soheb Niazi interviews Laurence Gautier about the history of two Muslim educational institutions – Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia – and what these reveal about the politics of Muslim identity and the position of Muslims in post-Partition India. That topic is the subject of Gautier's new book, Between Nation and ‘Community': Muslim Universities and Indian Politics after Partition, published earlier this year by Cambridge University Press. Soheb Niazi was formerly a Research Fellow here at IIAS, and he is currently a Gerda Henkel Postdoctoral Fellow at the Freie Universität, Berlin. Laurence Gautier is a researcher at the Centre de Sciences Humaines, New Delhi. She completed her PhD in History at the University of Cambridge and taught for four years at O.P. Jindal Global University, near Delhi. She writes on Muslim politics, secularism, nation-building, and university politics in post-independence India. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thomas Berghuis is a curator and historian of Asian art based in The Netherlands. Berghuis recently curated the exhibition Home and the World in Museum Van Loon, an historical building in the canal district of Amsterdam. In this exhibition, fourteen contemporary artists from all over the world used different spaces of the Van Loon canal house to explore the intricate connections between colonialism and nationalism, past and present. In this episode, Berghuis elaborates on the themes of the exhibition, on its peculiar location, and on the importance of alternative perspectives on how to feel at home in a world beyond the “colonial state” and the “nation-state.” In addition to thanking Thomas Berghuis for this interview, we are grateful to Johan Kuiper and Victor van Drielen at the Museum Van Loon for providing images and soundbites from the exhibition. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode brings together two historians who have recently published biographies of 20th-century Indian radicals. The first guest, Ole Birk Laursen is an historian whose work focuses on anarchism and anti-colonialism from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century, with a focus on South Asian activists in exile. His first book, Anarchy or Chaos: M. P. T. Acharya and the Indian Struggle for Freedom, was published last year by Hurst & Co. He is currently a Researcher in the Department of History at Lund University, Sweden, where he is working on the history of anarchism and syndicalism in Scandinavia. The second guest, Nico Slate, is a professor in the Department of History at Carnegie Mellon University. His research examines struggles against racism and imperialism in the United States and India. His latest book is The Art of Freedom: Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay and the Making of Modern India, published this year by University of Pittsburgh Press. In each of their new books, Ole and Nico take on big questions of freedom, ideological commitment, anti-colonial activism, and transnational radicalism through deeply-researched portraits of a particular figure. Although covering very different people, both works offer fascinating points of overlap and resonance as well as interesting points of contrast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is guest hosted by Liberty Chee, who is currently a visiting researcher here at the International Institute for Asian Studies. While in Leiden, Liberty is working on a book manuscript that examines recruitment and employment agencies in Southeast Asia, their relations to other state and non-state actors, and how these structure the experiences of domestic migrant workers themselves. For this episode of The Channel, Liberty organized a conversation about the ILO Convention on Domestic Work (C189), which is a global norm-setting instrument that formalizes domestic work and serves as an important advocacy tool. To date, only one country in Asia – The Philippines – has ratified the Convention, even though more than half of the world's domestic workers live and reside in the wider region. Asia is also host to a significant number of migrant domestic workers, both moving within and across regions. In this episode, Liberty interviews two advocates and organizers: Elsa Ramos-Carbone and Jec Sernande. Elsa Ramos-Carbone is a founding member of Samahan ng Mga Manggagawang Pilipino sa Belgium (Association of Philippine Migrant Workers in Belgium). Previously, she was Director of Equality and Youth at the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICTFU), and Senior Specialist for Workers' Activities at the International Labour Organization (ILO), Asia-Pacific Regional Office in Bangkok. Jec Sernande is a migrant domestic worker of 17 years. She is Secretary of the Hong Kong Federation of Asian Domestic Worker Union and Executive Committee Member of the International Domestic Workers Federation. In describing their experiences organizing as workers in and across different contexts, their discussion illuminates key moments, alliances, and discourses which made C189 and its ratification possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Here at IIAS, the upcoming edition of our flagship publication The Newsletter (June 2024, #98) comes out next month, just in time for the ICAS 13 conference in Surabaya, Indonesia. This edition of The Newsletter is meant to engage in various ways with the conference theme, “Crossways of Knowledge.” The special Focus section of this issue presents a collection of articles by authors from the Indigenous Ta-u community of Lanyu Island off the coast of Taiwan. Echoing the theme of maritime connections so central to this iteration of ICAS 13, the authors of The Focus reflect on multiple dimensions of Ta-u life, including traditional practices like fishing and boat-building as well as contemporary challenges posed by tourism, migration, and ecological disruption. As a teaser for the Indigenous collection in the upcoming issue, we asked two authors – both members of the Ta-u community – to come on the podcast and give our audience a sense of the Ta-u language through its stories and poetry. In this episode, Syaman Lamuran gives a brief introduction before Syaman Rapongan, an elder of the community, offers two recitations: first, some ceremonial words spoken during the Summoning Flying Fish ritual; and second, a poem reflecting the importance of boats and fish to the Ta-u culture. Finally, Syaman Lamuran returns to reflect and translate these recitations into English. If you'd like to know more about traditional Ta-u culture and contemporary Ta-u lives, be sure to pick up Issue #98 of The Newsletter. In addition to Syaman Lamuran and Syaman Rapongan, we'd also like to thank Eric Clark, Annika Pissin, and Huei-Min Tsai, who co-edited the upcoming Focus section in collaboration with members of the Ta-u community. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode features a conversation about development, state-owned enterprises, and the political economy of resource extractivism, with a special focus on the case of Brazil. Jewellord “Jojo” Nem Singh is an Assistant Professor in International Development at the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, part of Erasmus University Rotterdam. In 2020, Jojo was awarded a grant from the European Research Council for the five-year project Green Industrial Policy in the Age of Rare Metals: A Trans-regional Comparison of Growth Strategies in Rare Earths Mining (GRIP-ARM), for which he is also affiliated with us here at IIAS. His new book is Business of the State: Why State Ownership Matters for Resource Governance, forthcoming later this year from Oxford University Press. The book includes analysis of multiple sites, including the case of the State-Owned Enterprise (SEO) Petrogras in Brazil. The guest interviewer, Pietro Erber, worked for Eletrobras for many years and was a consultant for the World Bank and for the World Energy Council. He was also the director of the Brazilian Energy Efficiency Institute and writes for newspapers on economics and energy policy. In their conversation, Jojo and Pietro dive deep into the context of Brazil and its relationship to extraction, State-Owned Enterprises (SEOs), as well as corruption and the Lava Jato scandal in Brazil. In covering these topics, they also explore what it all might reveal about growth strategies for states in Global South more broadly, particularly in an era of decarbonization and the race for cleaner technologies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode of The Channel, we're bringing you a full episode from our friends over at The Chicken-Neck (TCN) Podcast. TCN is Northeast India's first policy-based podcast offering an informed take on culture, language, food, clothes, history, politics, law, policy, and much more. The particular episode we're re-posting features an interview with Aditya Kiran Kakati, who was formerly a Research Fellow here at the International Institute for Asian Studies. Aditya's primary research project concerns the global history of Indo-Myanmar borderlands during and after World War II. Beyond this, as you'll hear in the interview, Aditya has wide-ranging interests, including a personal as well as academic engagement with food and culinary cultures. In this crossover episode, Aditya discusses the diverse cuisines of Northeast India, as well as the heritages, politics, and taboos that food brings to the fore. If you like this episode, subscribe to The Chicken-Neck (TCN) podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains discussion of trauma and sexual violence that some listeners may find difficult.On this episode, Kate McGregor joins for a discussion of so-called "comfort women" of Indonesia. McGregor's new book is Systemic Silencing: Activism, Memory and Sexual Violence in Indonesia, published in 2023 as part of the Critical Human Rights series at the University of Wisconsin Press. In the 1930s and 1940s, the Japanese military imposed a system of prostitution across East and Southeast Asia. Since the 1990s, survivors of the system, euphemistically called “comfort women,” have sought recognition of and redress for the sexual violence they endured. Systemic Silencing explores this history, its fallout, and ongoing activism of its survivors in the context of Indonesia. Kate McGregor is Professor in Southeast Asian History in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne. She specializes in Indonesian historiography, with particular interests in memories of violence, the Indonesian military, Islam, identity, and historical international links between Indonesia and the world. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode features a conversation about political geology with Adam Bobbette, who serves as a Lecturer in Political Geology at the University of Glasgow. After studying architecture and landscape at the University of Toronto, Adam earned his PhD in geography from Cambridge. His research examines the intersections between politics and environmental and earth sciences, with a special regional focus on Indonesia. His new book is The Pulse of the Earth, which was published in 2023 by Duke University Press. As many listeners of this podcast already know, the next meeting of our flagship conference, the International Convention of Asia Scholars, or ICAS 13, will take place in Surabaya, Indonesia from July 28th through August 1st, 2024. In the run-up to that conference, we are hoping to familiarize our network with the local Javanese context to enrich the ICAS experience and deepen our engagement with the city. This episode is part of that project. As you'll hear, Adam's work offers a unique and transdisciplinary view onto questions of science, imperialism, Indonesian cosmologies, and contemporary politics, all while introducing listeners to geologic features of the Javanese landscape. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Soheb Niazi and Julien Levesque discuss Muslim caste organizations in India. Soheb Niazi is an historian who specializes in the social and economic history of modern India. He is particularly interested in studying the history of non-elite (non-ashrāf) Muslim actors in South Asia to understand the formation of caste and class relations among them. Soheb is currently a Research Fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS). During his stay here in Leiden, he is working on his book manuscript, tentatively titled “Contesting Genealogies: Hierarch and Social Mobility among Muslim Occupational Classes in Colonial North India (1870-1940).” Julien Levesque is a political sociologist whose work focuses on socio-political dynamics in South Asian Muslim societies. His first monograph, published in French in 2022 by the Presses universitaires de Rennes, looks into nationalism and identity construction in Pakistan with a focus on the southern Sindh province. Julien currently serves as a Lecturer & Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. His ongoing work examines caste-based political mobilization among Muslims in India. In today's conversation, Julien and Soheb talk about their recent collaboration as guest editors of a special section in the journal Contemporary South Asia, entitled “Caste Politics, Minority Representation, and Social Mobility: The Associational Life of Muslim Caste in India.” As guest editors, the two curated the collection and also co-authored its substantial introduction. In the following conversation, we discuss the topic of Muslim caste associations generally, and how these organizations reflect and contest political dynamics within the Muslim community, but also beyond into the broader Indian polity. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As listeners may know, this year marked the 10th edition of the ICAS Book Prize (IBP). The prize was established in 2003 by our flagship conference, the International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS), to recognize outstanding publications in the field of Asian Studies. The award brings wider visibility to the latest and most impressive books, and it has become one of the most prestigious book prizes in the discipline. Since its inception, the IBP competition has expanded in many ways. It now includes various editions in multiple languages, including French, Chinese, German, Spanish and Portuguese, Japanese, and Korean. Beyond books, the English Language Edition also includes Dissertation Awards in both social sciences and humanities categories to recognize the groundbreaking work of recently minted PhDs. The competition now also includes the “Best Article on Global Hong Kong Studies” award. For all editions and prizes, IIAS depends on partner institutions who organize and/or sponsor the competitions. Along with the many colleagues who serve on our reading committees, they make the IBP what it is, and we are grateful for their work. For more information on these sponsors and the full results of the IBP 2023, visit https://icas.asia/winners-ibp-2023 or check out the special supplement booklet included in the most recent edition of The Newsletter: https://www.iias.asia/the-newsletter/newsletter-96-autumn-2023.On today's episode, we bring you interviews with the two winners of the English Language Edition: Victoria Lee, who won in the Humanities category, followed by John Lie, who won in the Social Sciences category. Victoria Lee is Assistant Professor of the History of Science and Technology at Ohio University. Her winning book is The Arts of the Microbial World: Fermentation Science in Twentieth-Century Japan, published in 2021 by the University of Chicago Press. John Lie is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. His winning book is Japan, the Sustainable Society: The Artisinal Ethos, Ordinary Virtues, and Everyday Life in the Age of Limits, published in 2021 by the University of California Press. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This bonus episode is guest hosted by Cha-Hsuan Liu, an Affiliated Fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies and the editor of the online collection "Global Health Matters" on IIAS' The Blog. To explore the topic of cultural healing and humanistic approaches to health and wellbeing, Cha-Hsuan is joined by four guests: Aditya Kiran Kakati, An-Bang Yu, Marian Markelo, and Fatima Gay Molina. Aditya is a political historian and anthropologist from India. Beyond his scholarship, he is also a practitioner of Pranic Healing, which is a part of the culture in the region where he grew up. Marian Markelo is a well-known Winti priest with a Surinamese background. She was the face of the exhibition "Ritual Specialists" in many Dutch museums. Fatima Gay Molina is a trained anthropologist and currently works for Adventist Disaster and Relief Agency. Her recent research investigates the cultural practices of healing after disasters. Finally, An-Bang Yu was an associate research fellow at the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan. His areas of research include Indigenous psychology and cultural healing, Chinese culture, desire and emotion, the Chinese concept of the person, and the Chinese concept of achievement. In this conversation, Cha-Hsuan and the four guests discuss what is meant by "cultural healing" and how it fits into broader conversations about health, wellbeing, and science. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode features a conversation about poetic traditions in East Africa. Earlier this year, Brill published In This Fragile World: Swahili Poetry of Commitment by Ustadh Mahmoud Mau. Ustadh Mau is a spiritual leader and popular poet from Lamu, Kenya. When he visited the Netherlands in May 2023, a local bookshop in Leiden hosted a reading to launch this new collection of English translations. In this episode, we will be playing some recordings from that event to give listeners a sense of the poems in their original Swahili (see also the audio recordings that supplement the book itself). To guide us through the poems and introduce their broader context, the podcast was pleased to welcome Clarissa Vierke and Annachiara Raia, who served as editors and translators of In This Fragile World. Clarissa Vierke is a professor of Literatures in African Languages at the University of Bayreuth. Her PhD examined the specific poetics of a narrative poetic genre from the Swahili Coast in Eastern Africa. Since then, she has worked on manuscript cultures in Eastern Africa and travelling texts along the East African Coast from Kenya to Mozambique and across the Indian Ocean. Annachiara Raia is a University Lecturer at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS). She specializes in African languages and literatures, and her research focuses on the role of texts and performative practices in forging Swahili Islamic networks across Muslim lands of the Indian Ocean and the African continent. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On October 13, 2023, the International Institute of Asian Studies celebrates its 30th anniversary, and The Newsletter will be releasing a special issue as part of this celebration. More than just a three-decade retrospective, the issue is meant to reflect on the contemporary state of Asian Studies and the role of institutions like IIAS in the discipline's future. As regular readers will know, every edition of The Newsletter includes a special section entitled "The Region," in which partner institutions submit curated collections of short articles meant to highlight ongoing Asian Studies research from different parts of the world. In this episode of the podcast, Paramita Paul (Chief Editor at IIAS) hosts a conversation with representatives of four such partner institutions: (1) ISEAS—Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, represented by its Deputy Chief Executive Officer Terence Chong; (2) New York University - Shanghai, represented by Lena Scheen, Assistant Professor of Global China Studies; (3) Seoul National University Asia Center, represented by Hong Kong Research Professor Ilhong Ko; (4) The Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne, represented by Edwin Jurriëns, Associate Professor in Indonesian Studies, as well as Cathy Harper, editor of the Melbourne Asia Review. In their conversation, the colleagues discuss the nature of their work with The Newsletter, the value of academic collaboration, and the possible future of such work in Asian Studies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode features two colleagues having a discussion about gender in East Asian Religions. The first guest, Jingjing Li, is a University Lecturer in Chinese and Comparative Philosophy at Leiden University. Her primary work examines theories of mind and consciousness across East Asian and Continental traditions, particularly Chinese Wei Shi philosophy and Edmund Husserl's phenomenology, respectively. The second guest, Yingruo Show, was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore and now serves as Research Coordinator with the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre (SCCC). She specializes in the intersection of gender and Chinese Buddhist practice. Earlier this summer, Jingjing and Yingruo led an international workshop here in Leiden entitled “Re-staging the Periphery as the Center: Women Communities in East Asian Religions.” The interdisciplinary event was organized by the Leiden University Center for Intercultural Philosophy (LUCIP) with the support of the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS). The workshop also received generous funding from the Leiden University Fund and the Dutch Research Council (NWO)'s Veni programme. In the following conversation, Jingjing and Yingruo discuss the event as well as the special issue of the journal Religions that they co-edited earlier in the year. In the course of our discussion, they touch on a variety of topics, including canonical religious texts, lay and monastic practices in East Asia, philosophies of mind, and how all of these are both challenged and invigorated through an interdisciplinary analysis of gender. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode features a conversation between Sally Anne Param and Paul Gnanaselvam. Sally, who serves as the guest host, is a sociologist who has conducted research about the Indian community in Malaysia. Paul Gnanaselvam is an Ipoh-born writer and poet whose work often focuses on the experiences, issues, and identity conflicts of those in the Indian diaspora. His latest collection, The Elephant Trophy and Other Stories was published by Penguin Random House SEA in 2021. Sally recently wrote a review of the collection for the IIAS book reviews platform, which led her to contact Paul himself, who graciously agreed to an interview. In addition to his writing, Paul lectures at Universiti Teknologi MARA (Perak Campus) in Malaysia. As you'll hear, his fiction is deeply concerned with social scientific questions about marginalization, belonging, social hierarchy, exclusion, and identity, all of which are explored in this episode as well. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hedwig Waters is a cultural and economic anthropologist with research interests in topics of debt, wildlife, and moral economic transitions in Mongolia. She currently works as a Horizon Europe ERA Postdoctoral Fellow at Palacky University in the Czech Republic. Earlier this month, her first book – Moral Economic Transitions in the Mongolian Borderlands: A Proportional Share – was published by University College London Press as part of their series “Economic Exposures in Asia.” Since the 1990s, Mongolia's transition to a market democracy has shifted the economic, political, and cultural landscape of the country. The book examines "Magtaal," a pseudonym for the rural township on the Chinese border in which Waters conducted her fieldwork. Through a careful ethnography, the book links the broader transformation of Mongolia to local borderland lives, especially with respect to debt and wildlife. In this episode of the podcast, Hedwig discusses her ethnographic research, her theoretical intervention within economic anthropology, and the process of shaping such work into her new book. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode features a conversation hosted by Aarti Kawlra, the Academic Director of the Humanities Across Borders program here at IIAS, in which she speaks with three guests: Daan van Dartel, Curator of Popular Culture and Fashion at the National Museum of World Cultures in the Netherlands; Lipika Bansal, a researcher, social designer, and the founder of Textiel Factorij in Amsterdam; and, finally, Kirit Chitara, an artist based in India. In September 2022, IIAS and Humanities Across Borders hosted an In Situ Graduate School entitled Textiles and Dyes as Transnational, Global Knowledge. As Aarti and others collaborated on this event with various textile-related institutions, she met this group and heard the story of Kirit, who had previously found the artwork of his grandfather hanging in the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam. This raised all sorts of perennial questions about power in the production and display of art, and in this conversation, the groups discusses such issues of provenance and attribution, of curation and collaboration. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sanderien Verstappen is Assistant Professor of anthropology at the University of Vienna. In addition to her writing, she is also a filmmaker and the founding director of the Vienna Visual Anthropology Lab. Sanderien's latest book is New Lives in Anand: Building a Muslim Hub in Western India, published last year by University of Washington Press. In 2002, when widespread anti-Muslim violence broke out across Gujarat, India, the town of Anand was perceived as something of a safe haven. Against this historical backdrop, the book ethnographically explores contemporary Anand. In the decades since 2002, the town became a hub for Muslims at multiple scales – an aspirational destination for rural villagers, a regional center in western India, and a place linked to diasporic sites abroad. In this episode, Sanderien discusses her multifaceted work in Anand, touching on themes of transnationalism, place-making, and multi-sited ethnography. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today on the podcast, we welcome Jia Zhao and Darunee Terdtoontaveedej, both of whom are on the team that organizes the CinemAsia Film Festival. Jia is the Artistic Director for the festival, and Darunee is a Film Programmer for CinemAsia and helps organize special events, particularly focusing on LGBTQ programming. CinemAsia is one of the largest and longest-running Asian film festivals in Europe. For nearly two decades, CinemAsia has sought to bring greater attention to Asian cinema and Asian filmmakers. This year's festival took place from March 7 through March 12 in Amsterdam, and Jia and Darunee took some time during the festival to come on The Channel. In this episode, we discuss the history of CinemAsia and how it fits into broader cultural conversations about diasporic cultures, Asian identity, and the politics of representation onscreen. You can find more information about the festival and its various programs at https://cinemasia.nl/en/. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode of The Channel, we're bringing you a full episode from our friends over at the Center for South Asia at Stanford University. SASSpod is hosted by Lalita du Perron and features a regular stream of excellent, in-depth discussions. According to the show's website, “The podcasts feature a wide range of topics, ranging from poetry to politics, from manuscript collecting to music, from business to Bollywood. Every podcast consists of an informal and infative conversation about South Asia and its meaning in the world, in our lives, and at Stanford.” We recommend that all of our listeners tune in and subscribe. In the episode of SASSpod that we're playing today, Lalita du Perron talks to Thenmozhi Soundararajan of Equality Labs about her forthcoming book The Trauma of Caste, survivor power, caste in Silicon Valley, the importance of mentorship, and healing for all. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For our first episode of 2023, we're bringing you a full episode from our friends over at East Asia for All, a podcast dedicated to all things East Asian pop culture. East Asia for All is hosted by Melissa Brzycki and Stephanie Montgomery, and according to the show's website, “As pop culture nerds who also have a decade of experience living and traveling in East Asia, they have personally seen how people from outside of the region are engaging with its popular culture with increasing intensity and richness, but also how differences in language and culture often result in a limited understanding of pop cultural works.” On each episode, they discuss pop cultural products as both fans and academics, blending consumer appreciation with critical insight, and their episodes often come with pedagogical resources as well. It's a great podcast, and we encourage you to tune in and subscribe to East Asia for All wherever you get your podcasts. In this crossover episode, the hosts – along with Gail Hershatter, Distinguished Professor of History at the University of California Santa Cruz – have a fascinating discussion of the 2017 documentary Hooligan Sparrow, feminist activism, and political repression in contemporary China. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode, we welcome four guests to discuss democratic backsliding and rising authoritarianism in Southeast Asia, and also grassroots mobilizations in response to such phenomena. The first iteration of this group came together as a roundtable at the conference of the Canadian Council for Southeast Asian Studies in 2021. The convenor and chair of that roundtable was Nhu Truong. Nhu is Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and Public Affairs at Denison University. She was joined by two more of our guests: Erik Martinez Kuhonta, Director of the Institute for the Study of International Development and Associate Professor of Political Science at McGill University; and Maggie Shum, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Penn State Erie. Our fourth guest, Megan Ryan, was not part of the original roundtable, but her research is right in line with the theme of rising illiberalism in the region. She is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the University of Michigan and was a 2020 United States Institute of Peace Scholar. In their conversation, the guests chat about political repression and resistance across Southeast Asia, comparing and contrasting different cases while always keeping the more global trend towards authoritarianism in view.This will be our last episode of 2022, and we want to thank everyone for tuning and making our first year such a success. We will be back next month, but in the meantime, we wish all of our listeners a happy holiday season and Happy New Year! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Birgit Abels is professor of cultural musicology at the University of Göttingen. She has conducted ethnographic and ethnomusicological research in multiple sites across Asia, and she is the Principal Investoigor on the European Research Council project Sound Knowledge: Alternative Epistemologies of Music in the Western Pacific Island World. Today we are talking about Birgit's new book, Music Worlding in Palau: Chanting, Atmospheres and Meaningfulness. The book was released in 2022 as part of the Global Asia series published by IIAS and Amsterdam University Press. Chanting holds a special place in Palau. In this conversation, Birgit discusses the theoretical dimension of her work and walks listeners through some specific field recordings. As you'll hear, sound and music offer a window into much broader issues, raising questions of the self, community, politics, and becoming. Music Worlding in Palau was also released as an Open Access title, so it is free to download at the Amsterdam University Press website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Edwin Pietersma is an historian and anthropologist who specializes in modern and colonial Asian history. Broadly, his research focuses on the concepts of modernity and colonialism in Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand. Edwin is an alumni of a special initiative here at IIAS, the Dual Degree in Critical Heritage Studies of Asia and Europe. This program encourages an interdisciplinary, multi-sited, and critical approach to issues of heritage, broadly conceived. It is a partnership between multiple institutions, enabling students to study at multiple institutions over the course of the program. Through this course of study, Edwin received his MA in Asian Studies from Leiden University and his MA in Anthropology from National Taiwan University in Taipei, in addition to a certificate in Critical Heritage Studies from IIAS. In this conversation, Edwin and I discuss his experience of the program. For more information on Edwin's ongoing research, visit http://www.historywithedwin.com/. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode features a conversation with Cecily Cook, former Director of Programs at the Asian Cultural Council in New York. Cecily has had a long career at the intersection of Asia and the arts. Over the course of decades, she has worked in various roles, and at various institutions, in support of the artistic and cultural exchange between different Asian countries and the United States. In addition to serving as Director of Programs for the Asian Cultural Council, she has also worked as a consultant, a curator, and a director for organizations dedicated to the visual and performing arts. In this episode, Cecily discusses her background in folklore and how that led to a career in Asian arts. In so doing, she describes the importance of art and artists, as well as the role of knowledge infrastructure systems—like the Asian Cultural Council—to foster artistic work and make a impact in the world. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode explores the ins and outs of academic book publishing through a conversation with Chunyan Shu. Chunyan received a PhD in Chinese Studies from Leiden University in 2013, and she currently works as an Acquisitions Editor at Brill. Brill was founded in Leiden in 1683, and it has since become a well-known publishing house around the globe, particularly with respect to Asian Studies. The world of academic publishing can often feel daunting for young scholars, especially for those who have not received much guidance in the process of crafting and pitching an academic monograph. As someone with lots of experience as both a scholar and academic editor, Chunyan is an ideal guest to help demystify these processes. In this conversation, we discuss all manner of things related to the current landscape of Asian Studies publishing—from the history of Brill itself to what makes a compelling book proposal, from common misconceptions to the future of academic books. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the final episode in our four-part mini-series on River Cities as Method (RCM), a new project under the umbrella of Urban Knowledge Network Asia (UKNA) at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS). The goal of River Cities as Method is to promote ecologically and socially inclusive revitalizations of rivers and the cities/neighborhoods that coexist with them. In this episode, Satya Patchineelam, PhD candidate at Erasmus University and academic advisor for the RCM project, turns to the "revitalizations" theme of the RCM agenda. In the case of Satya's work among the Riverines in Brazil, this includes the history of activism against the construction of a dam, the politics of infrastructure-induced displacement, and the community's ongoing fight for a better future. This research also serves as the pilot project for RCM, so we also discuss how this theme will be mobilized across the RCM network.If you are currently researching the relationship between cities and rivers, and you think that your work might fit in well with River Cities as Method, check out RCM's recent Call for Expressions of Interest. The deadline for submissions is August 15, 2022! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is the third in a four-part mini-series on River Cities as Method (RCM), a new project under the umbrella of Urban Knowledge Network Asia (UKNA) at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS). The goal of River Cities as Method is to promote ecologically and socially inclusive revitalizations of rivers and the cities/neighborhoods that coexist with them. In this episode, Satya Patchineelam, PhD candidate at Erasmus University and academic advisor for the RCM project, turns to the overtly spatial dimensions of her work with the Riverines of Brazil. This includes discussions of traditional territories, infrastructural projects (i.e., dams), and the Riverines' relationship with both the Xingu River and the city of Altamira. This research also serves as the pilot project for RCM.If you are currently researching the relationship between cities and rivers, and you think that your work might fit in well with River Cities as Method, check out RCM's recent Call for Expressions of Interest. The deadline for submissions is August 15, 2022! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is the second in a four-part mini-series on River Cities as Method (RCM), a new project under the umbrella of Urban Knowledge Network Asia (UKNA) at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS). The goal of River Cities as Method is to promote ecologically and socially inclusive revitalizations of rivers and the cities/neighborhoods that coexist with them. In this episode, Satya Patchineelam, PhD candidate at Erasmus University and academic advisor for the RCM project, delves deeper into the history and life ways of the Riverine community in Brazil. This research also serves as the pilot project for RCM.If you are currently researching the relationship between cities and rivers, and you think that your work might fit in well with River Cities as Method, check out RCM's recent Call for Expressions of Interest. The deadline for submissions is August 15, 2022! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is the first in a four-part mini-series on River Cities as Method (RCM), a new project under the umbrella of Urban Knowledge Network Asia (UKNA) at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS). The goal of River Cities as Method is to promote ecologically and socially inclusive revitalizations of rivers and the cities/neighborhoods that coexist with them. In this introductory episode, Satya Patchineelam, PhD candidate at Erasmus University and academic advisor for the RCM project, introduces her own ethnographic work among the Riverine community in Brazil. This work serves as the pilot project for RCM, so our conversation explores her particular project research well as the the larger River Cities project that is currently being developed. If you are currently researching the relationship between cities and rivers, and you think that your work might fit in well with River Cities as Method, check out RCM's recent Call for Expressions of Interest. The deadline for submissions is August 15, 2022! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode features a conversation about the mechanics of writing well. Tom Robertson is a scholar at Kathmandu University in Nepal. Trained in history, Tom's academic research focuses on international development, with a special emphasis on the environment. Our conversation on The Channel, however, focuses on a different dimension of Tom's work. During Covid-19, Tom launched two initiatives aimed at teaching practical writing techniques, particularly in nonfiction genres. The first of these initiatives is a free series of YouTube videos called Mitho Lekhai. Each video in the series presents tips for clear and effective writing. The second initiative is called Writing Journeys, a series of essays by prominent Nepali journalists and authors about the craft of writing. Tom's mission to teach writing emerged in the particular context of Nepal, and he delivers his YouTube series is primarily in the Nepali language. Nevertheless, as he makes clear in our conversation, the tips and strategies he describes are useful for students, academics, and professionals working in any language. In this episode, we talk about these initiatives as an entry point into a discussion of the art of nonfiction more broadly. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Newsletter, our flagship publication that comes out three times a year, has an issue coming out in June 2022. As part of that edition, we're very pleased to have a special section guest edited by Jona Mooren and Klaas Stutje. The section will include a collection of essays that grew out of something called PPROCE, or the Pilotproject Provenance Research on Objects of the Colonial Era. The project was carried out under the direction of the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies in collaboration with other institutions, including the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and the National Museum of World Cultures. The project formally began in November 2019 with the goal of researching the provenance of various colonial artifacts and acquisitions. It concluded in March 2022 with a series of detailed provenance reports as well as formal recommendations about restitution and repatriation. On March 17, 2022, the PPROCE project presented their final report ­to government officials at an event in the Museum Volkenkunde in Leiden. Unfortunately, Jona, a leader of the project, was ill and unable to attend. But Klaas gave brief introductory remarks that we would like to play here in anticipation of their forthcoming Focus section in The Newsletter. In his statement, Klaas introduces the various dimensions of the project and the challenges it entailed. The project's final report, “Clues: Research into provenance history and significance of cultural objects and collections acquired in colonial situations,” is also freely available to the public in Dutch, English, and Bahasa Indonesia.We're very excited for the forthcoming special section co-edited by Jona and Klaas, and we hope that our listeners will read the case studies when the issue comes out in June. Until then, this episode features the introductory remarks made by Klaas at the March 17 event. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today's podcast features a conversation about art, politics, and public space with Dr. Meiqin Wang, Dr. Hong Kal, and Dr. Minna Valjakka. We came together to discuss the new book Socially Engaged Public Art in East Asia: Space, Place, and Community in Action, published this year by Vernon Press. Meiqin served as the editor of the volume, and all three of this episode's guests contributed chapters to the project. The book includes case studies from across East Asia. As Grant Kester writes in his Foreword to the volume, the book “offers the first comprehensive survey of new forms of socially engaged art in the region.” The following conversation explores the importance of public art as a mode of political engagement, urban contestation, and community action.Dr. Wang is a Professor of Art History at California State University, Northridge; Dr. Hong Kal is Associate Professor in the department of Visual Art and Art History at York University; and Dr. Minna Valjakka is Professor in contemporary art history and theory from a global perspective at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Alicia Izharuddin is a sociologist of gender and religion, and she has held research and teaching positions at Harvard Divinity School and at the University of Malaya. Broadly, her work explores the intersection of emotion, affect, and Muslim publics in Malaysia. Currently a research fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies, Alicia is working on a book manuscript entitled The Work of Romance: Love in Affective Muslim Publics. This presentation – “From the factory floor to the page: Space and mobility in modern Malay print romance" – was recorded during a live webinar event that occurred on March 30, 2022. Drawing on ethnographic material, Alicia considers the significance of space and place for modern Malay print romance, a popular literary sub-genre in Malaysia with connective roots to social and anti-colonial consciousness. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based in Toronto, Marty Gross has spent decades in the film industry as a producer and director. With a special focus on Japan, Marty's films include Potters at Work, As We Are, and The Lovers' Exile. For our purposes, Marty also founded and manages a project to restore, enhance, and preserve recordings that document the history of the Mingei Movement and its ongoing legacy in the world of contemporary ceramics. Established in the 1920s in Japan, the Mingei Movement championed the beauty of everyday, homemade objects. Over the past few years, Marty has been supervising the restoration and remastering of a vast collection of films from Japan, Korea, England, and the United States, covering the period from 1925-1976. In this conversation, he discusses pottery, filmmaking, the Mingei Movement, and the archive he is building at the intersection of these interests. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Olivier Arifon is a professor at Université Catholique de Lille, and he has held visiting professorships at universities around the world. He also works as a communications consultant and trainer for diverse clients in academic, diplomatic, and other spheres. His new book, Le Récit Politique Chinois: Soft Power, Communication, Influence, was published in 2021 by L'Harmattan. The book examines China's changing reputation in the world. It explores how China is viewed globally and also how Chinese officials work in many domains to cultivate a particular image. In the course of an email exchange about his new book, Olivier mentioned the relevance of China for the ongoing war in Ukraine. This seemed like a topic worth exploring, and one which would not feel out-of-place on a platform – like this one – primarily concerned with Asian Studies. After the initial shock of the invasion of Ukraine itself, recent days have seen more attention paid by the media to other geopolitical dimensions to the conflict. One of the big question marks, as Olivier and I sat down to record, was precisely what steps or actions China might take with respect to the conflict, and what geopolitical consequences those might entail. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode was originally recorded during a live webinar event that occurred on February 23, 2022. In the presentation, Simanti Dasgupta discusses her research with Durbar, a grassroots sex workers' collective in Sonagachi, the iconic red-light district in Kolkata. Simanti offers an overview of her broader project about the emergence of sex work subjectivity, followed by a critical examination of anti-trafficking work and its tendency to frame sex workers in terms of “rehabilitation” and “victimhood.” Currently a Research Fellow at IIAS, Simanti Dasgupta is associate professor of anthropology and director of the International Studies Program at the University of Dayton, USA. You can view video recordings of IIAS webinars on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/asianstudies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode was originally recorded during a live webinar event on February 9, 2022. In the presentation, Rafael Abrão discusses the multiple geopolitical dynamics shaping Brazil's engagement with China and the United States. Rafael is a Research Fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies, where he is part of the joint research agenda “Energy Program Asia: The Political Economy of the Belt and Road Initiative and its Reflections.” He is also a PhD candidate at the Federal University of ABC in Brazil. His research explores the implications of the Belt and Road Initiative in Latin America. You can view video recordings of IIAS webinars on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/asianstudies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Caroline Grillot, a social anthropologist and independent scholar affiliated with the Lyon Institute of East Asian Studies, and Prof. Nelcya Delanoë, an ethnohistorian and formerly professor of American history at the Université Paris Nanterre, are the authors of the book Casablanca-Hanoi: une porte dérobée sur des histoires postcoloniales (“Casablanca-Hanoi, an historical side-door onto postcolonial stories”). Published in 2021 by Editions L'Harmattan, with a preface by François Guillemot, Casablanca-Hanoi is a story that spans decades and takes place across nations. It traces the history of Moroccan-Vietnamese families in mid 20th-century Vietnam, and their descendants in the 21st century across the planet. Through these individuals' lives' trajectories, it is also an exploration of questions of postcolonialism, citizenship, globalization and Asia-Africa relations. Equally, the book is the story of the process of conducting research itself: of how two researchers meet and connect, and of circumstances and coincidences that shape investigation and inquiry. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Michael Herzfeld is the Ernest E. Monrad Research Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University. He also holds academic appointments at Leiden University, Shanghai International Studies University, the University of Rome-Tor Vergata, and the University of Melbourne. Herzfeld has authored numerous books and articles on a wide array of ethnographic, geographical, and theoretical topics. His latest book, Subversive Archaism, explores the politics of culture and national heritage through a comparative analysis of two sites: (1) Zoniana in Crete, Greece, and (2) Pom Mahakan in Bangkok, Thailand. In the following discussion, Herzfeld describes subversive archaism and some related concepts to explore their utility for contemporary cultural theory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.