TALK: Southeast Asia: Is there a “there” there?

It’s a play on the famous saying by Gertrude Stein about her hometown of Oakland, California, “there’s no there there.” Gertrude ran away to Paris with her girlfriend to get to someplace with a “there” in it. Picasso and Hemingway were “there,” so she probably got what she was looking for. But are Southeast Asianists getting what they’re looking for?

The talk will be about whether there is any reality to the concept of “Southeast Asia” [and therefore “Southeast Asian Studies”] other than a simple set of lines on the map of the earth.

It will be about the angst that a lot of SEAsianists seem to feel about the topic, go into the history of how the idea of SEAsia came about, and Professor O’Harrow’s own idea of a socio-linguistic reality that could be said to unite the region into a reasonable unit for continued study.

Event Sponsor
Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Mānoa Campus

More Information
Thang, (808) 956-2688, cseaspr@hawaii.edu, http://www.cseashawaii.org/2015/09/southeast-asia-is-there-a-there-there/

Tweet