CSEAS-ARI Workshop：Joint International Workshop with National Univ. of Singapore Asia Research Institute on “Reassessing Ritual in Southeast Asian Studies”

Date: February 25-26, 2013
Venue: Large Conference Room, Inamori Foundation Building

Ritual and its importance in Southeast Asian cultures has long been a source of comment, stretching from the accounts of early Arab, Chinese and European travelers, to colonial officials and anthropologists. Academic discussions of ritual in the twentieth century were, however, often framed as a manifestation of local idiosyncrasy and of historical legacies that were fading in the face of accelerating modernization. Such views were often implicitly or explicitly informed by the particular historical experiences of post-Reformation Western Christianity, and this perspective served to turn much of the research focus on religion in Southeast Asia toward broader social movements for rationalizing religious reform. More recently, however, scholars working across diverse disciplines in the humanities in social sciences are developing new explorations of the ways in which ritual practice can serve to reconfigure human relationships even in the face of powerful trajectories of secularizing modernity. This workshop aims to build upon these broader conversations to rethink the ways in which the study of ritual might come to inform new research in Southeast Asian Studies.

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