Forefront Asia Signature Series -The Study of Southeast Asia Today: A Dialogue at NUS

Organisers: Department of Southeast Asian Studies & Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Date/Time: 14 & 15 August 2013, 9.00am – 6.30pm
Venue: AS7 Seminar Room B (Level 1)

Keynote Speakers:
1) Professor Anthony Reid, Australian National University
2) Assoc Professor Abidin Kusno, University of British Columbia
3) Professor Jonathan Rigg, National University of Singapore

The FASS’s Forefront Asia Signature Series was launched on 14 August 2013. The first conference of this signature series was on “The Study of Southeast Asia Today: A Dialogue at NUS”. Aimed at creating a forum for discussing the latest scholarship on Southeast Asia, this 2-day conference hosted three keynote speakers and 19 paper presenters. The keynote speakers were Professors Anthony Reid, Abidin Kusno, and Jonathan Rigg.  Anthony Reid’s paper was on a rethinking of Southeast Asian history while Jonathan Rigg’s focused on a re-evaluation of regional development. Abidin Kusno spoke about floods in Jakarta and the re-imagination of Southeast Asian city. Conference papers were divided into four panels: Rethinking “Region”, Law and Politics, Culture Technology and Society, and Political Economy.

On the second day of the Forefront Asia Signature Series, the faculty launched a new PhD programme in Comparative Asian Studies. A Graduate Roundtable bearing the theme of “Comparable Pasts: Intellectuals, Institutions, and the Making of an Area-Studies Career” was held in conjunction with this launch. The three keynote speakers of the conference shared their own intellectual histories and led discussions at this roundtable. For more information on these events, see http://blog.nus.edu.sg/fassnews/2013/08/20/forefront-asia-puts-southeast-asia-and-nus-at-the-forefront-of-asian-studies/

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