Outreach > Brown Bag Series > Spring 2009
The Spring 2009 Brown Bag Series is complete, but the talks are still available on-line. Click here to download the audio portion of the lectures via the CSEAS Podcast.
Join the Center's Outreach E-mail Newsletter for the complete precis for and locations of brown bag lectures.
April 24 - Thai TV Dramas - Sutraphorn Tantiniranat
April 17 - Dancing in Shadows - Benny Widyono
April 17 - Justice in Cambodia - Benny Widyono
April 14 (Tues) - Vietnamese Catholics in the Early Period - Nhung Tuyet Tran
April 9 - Christianity, Identity and Marian Devotion in Indonesia - Barbara Watson Andaya
April 3 - Historiography of Archaeology in the Philippines - Victor Paz
April 1 - Vietnamese Ethnobotany - My Lien Thi Nguyen
March 5 (Thurs) - Rendering Culture through Subtitles - Paseng, Rausch
February 27 - Southeast Asian Political Science Colloquium - Kimura, Kerkvleit, et. al
Friday, April 24, 12:00., Moore Hall 319 (Tokioka Room)
Images of Thai Women
Presented Through Female Antagonist in Thai TV Drama Series
This is a study of images of Thai women presented in a Thai TV drama series shown in 2004 entitled “Saloeybaab”. Broadly, the study explores how the drama presents its female antagonist as well as the protagonist. Both characters fall into the binary opposition of the “bad” and the “good” woman stereotypes respectively. More specifically, the researcher discusses the purposes and the meanings of the presentations. Negative images of the female antagonist reflect that Thai society still values the notion of “kulasatri” or the “ideal” woman as can be seen from ideologies on women attached to the story. The attitudes towards Thai women reinforce the power structure of Thai patriarchal society where women have been controlled by social rules and norms through the process of socialization including the mass media.
Sutraphorn Tantiniranat earned an M.A. in English from Chiang Mai University, Thailand. She has been teaching English at Mae Fah Luang University, Chiang Rai Thailand. Her areas of interest are Foreign Language Teaching and Women Studies. She is currently a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant at the Thai Language Program at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Friday, April 17, 2:30 p.m., Saunders Hall (Friedman Room, Level 6)
Dancing in Shadows
Lessons from the Cambodian Tragedy for Today
Benny Widyono will discuss his five years of international service in Cambodia from 1992 to 1997, first as a member of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), and later as the UN Secretary-Generalÿs Representative in Cambodia. From his perspective as part of UNTAC's top administration, he observed the mission's ultimate failure. Prior to UNTAC, Dr Widyono was stationed at the UN headquarters in New York where he witnessed the Cold War manipulations of the Cambodian tragedy by the big powers. Cambodia's experience with the United Nations shows that the latter's capability to solve world problems continues to be distorted by the dominance by the five powers who won World War II sixty four years ago.
Dr. Benny Widyono, an Indonesian, served as a United Nations civil servant in Bangkok, Santiago, New York and Cambodia between 1963 and 1997. In 1992-93 he served as UNTAC's Provincial Director of Siem Reap; subsequently in 1994-97 he served as the UN Secretary-General's Political Representative to the Royal Government of Cambodia. His recently published book, Dancing in Shadows: Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge and the United Nations was written while he was a visiting scholar at Cornell University. Dr Widyono holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Texas and is currently a professor of Economics at the University of Connecticut at Stamford, CT.
Copies of the book will be available for sale.
Friday, April 17, 12:00 p.m., Moore Hall 319 (Tokioka Room)
Justice in Cambodia
Lessons from the Cambodian Tragedy for Today
In February 2009, the long awaited trial of remaining Khmer Rouge leaders began in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. In this talk, Professor Benny Widyono will analyze why these trials against the Khmer Rouge, who killed 1.7 million Cambodians during their reign of terror between 1975 and 1979, were delayed for thirty years. The answer to this question, Widyono will argue, can be found within the international political dynamics of the cold war, Hence, instead of putting the Khmer Rouge on trial after they were driven from power by the Vietnamese army in January 1979, the United Nations, instigated by the United States and China, continued to recognize the genocidal Khmer Rouge as the legitimate government of Cambodia for another eleven years. In his analysis, Prof. Widyono will draw heavily from his recently published book, Dancing in Shadows: Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge and the United Nations in Cambodia, his personal chronicle of five years in Cambodia during the peace process (1992-97).
He will end on a cautiously optimistic note that the trials, though late, herald a long awaited process of healing and national reconciliation.
Dr. Benny Widyono, an Indonesian, served as a United Nations civil servant in Bangkok, Santiago, New York and Cambodia between 1963 and 1997. In 1992-93 he served as UNTAC's Provincial Director of Siem Reap; subsequently in 1994-97 he served as the UN Secretary-General's Political Representative to the Royal Government of Cambodia. His recently published book, Dancing in Shadows: Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge and the United Nations, was written while he was a visiting scholar at Cornell University. Dr Widyono holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Texas and is currently a professor of Economics at the University of Connecticut at Stamford, CT.
Copies of the book will be available for sale.
Thursday, April 9, 12:00 p.m., Moore Hall 319 (Tokioka Room)
Easter in Larantuka, Flores
Christianity, Identity, and Marian Devotion in Indonesia
Over the centuries Marionology, the study of the veneration of Mary, has generated an enormous body of literature. In Southeast Asia Mary’s position in local Christianity has been well documented in the Philippines, but there is now increasing interest in Marian devotion in other Catholic communities, such as Vietnam and Indonesia. Because popular belief focuses on Mary’s role as an intercessor, special value is attached to pilgrimages to sites where she is believed to have appeared or with which she has a personal association. In Larantuka, eastern Flores, Mary is regarded not merely as the town’s patron and protector, but as its Queen. However, her image is only available for viewing once a year, from Easter Friday until Easter Saturday, and during this time thousands of pilgrims flock to view “Bunda Maria,” Mother Mary. While including some comparative remarks, the presentation will offer some historical explanations for the special status of Mary in Larantuka, and for the veneration accorded her during the Easter celebrations.
Barbara Watson Andaya is Professor of Asian Studies and Director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Hawai‘i. She is currently working on a history of the localization of Christianity in Southeast Asia.
April 3, 12:00 p.m., Moore Hall 319 (Tokioka Room)
History and the Historiography of Archaeology in the Philippines
Study of the human past in the Philippines can not be done in any substantial depth without meshing archaeological, historical and time-depth sensitive approaches. In the wake of the confluence of inter-disciplinary study of the Philippines, we are in a better position to understand the role of human agency. This talk will present a periodization of the history of archaeology within the framework of Philippine historiography. This event is sponsored by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, the Center for Philippine Studies, and the Luce Asian Archaeology Program of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Hawaii.
Victor Paz received A.B. and M.A. degrees in History from the University of the Philippines Diliman and a Mphil and Ph.D. in Archaeology from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
His research interests are focused on the intersections of history and archaeology of the Philippines and Island Southeast Asia, and advancing archaeobotanical studies in the region with the objective of elucidating human-plant and human-landscape relationships in the past. His dissertation dealt with the archaeobotany of Wallacea and its place in studies of Austronesian dispersal. He is now the director of the Archaeological Studies Program at the University of the Philippines.
April 1, 12:00 p.m., Moore Hall 319 (Tokioka Room)
Vietnamese Ethnobotany
New understandings of Refugees, the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and the Iron Triangle
HEARING THE WORDS “refugees,” “the Ho Chi Minh Trail,” or “the Iron Triangle” in the context of Vietnam may create a miasma of images for a listener, perhaps evoking the terrible depictions of war on American television news. Rarely, however, are those phrases understood fully in relation to the history of Vietnam. This presentation about three research projects in Vietnam will create new images and a better understanding of those words – and further cultivate that understanding through an exploration of ethnobotany and conservation in that country.
The discussant, My Lien Thi Nguyen, received a Ph.D. in Botany from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Dr. Nguyen has conducted ethnobotanical research in her hometown of Bien Hoa, Vietnam, as well as in collaboration with Vietnamese scientists in the northern, central and southern regions of Vietnam. Her presentation will introduce three of these projects and the scientists.
This brownbag is co-presented by the Department of Botany at the University of Hawaii and the students of Botany 498 (Mekong Ethnobotany).
Thursday, March 4, 12:00 p.m., Moore Hall 319 (Tokioka Room)
Rendering Culture through Subtitles
THIS TEAM TALK/DEMONSTRATION focuses on the development (2007) of an Asian studies course designed to teach advanced Southeast Asian language students at the University of Hawaii the skills associated with translating and subtitling film from Southeast Asia. Examples of student work will be featured, and the challenges associated with the translation and the development course will be discussed.
Rohayati Paseng is librarian and bibliographer in the Southeast Asia Collection. Born and raised in Indonesia, she speaks four languages, but is baffled by Javanese. Paul Rausch is associate director and outreach coordinator at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies. He works feverishly to bring Southeast Asian film into the wider film community, and spends most of his waking hours trying to figure out the technology needed to subtitle film from the region.
Friday, February 27, 12:00 p.m., Korean Studies Building Auditorium
Area Studies and Political Science: The Case of Southeast Asia
RECENTLY PUBLISHED, Southeast Asia in Political Science: Theory, Region, and Qualitative Analysis (Stanford, 2008) calls for "concerted efforts to improve and invigorate scholarly synergy between region and discipline." In demonstrating that Southeast Asianists have accumulated a body of qualitative knowledge that can make a significant contribution to political science theory, the book affirms that area studies and comparative politics are complementary and mutually enriching.
In this panel discussion, one of the editors of the volume, Erik Kuhonta (Assistant Professor, Political Science, McGill University and currently Visiting Fellow, East-West Center), and two authors,Benedict Kerkvliet (Emeritus Professor, Australian National University; Graduate Affiliate Faculty, Political Science, UH) and Richard Doner (Associate Professor, Political Science, Emory University), will speak to some of the issues raised in this timely book. Peter Manicas (Professor, Political Science, UH) and Barbara Watson Andaya (Professor, Asian Studies, UH) will serve as commentators, and the panel will be chaired by Ehito Kimura (Assistant Professor, Political Science, UH). Copies of Southeast Asia in Political Science will be available for purchase.
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