Seminars/Symposia:FY 2004
May, 2004
- Special Seminar
-
- Topic："Aspects of Bangkok's Growth in the 19th and 20th Centuries"
- Speaker： Dr. Porphant Ouyyanont, Associate Professor School of Economics, Sukhothai
Thammathirat Open University, Thailand and CSEAS visiting research fellow
- Date & Time：15:30-17:00, May 28 (Fri.), 2004
- Place：Room 207 on the 2nd floor, East Building of CSEAS
- Abstract：
Bangkok holds a distinct place in urban history. The city grew from a traditional
dynastic foundation in 1782 to the modern primate "megalopolis"
of today, and did so outside the nexus of the typical " metropolitan-colonial"
structure which existed elsewhere in Asia. We can trace Bangkok's growth
through three phases: a royal fortified city based on tribute; a commercial
port growing through trade and immigration; and an industrial urban center
based on cheap labor. Crucial in the process were three factors: (1) Bangkok's
role as a government center, (2) the overall growth of Thailand's population,
and (3) the physical development of Bangkok from a city based on water
(river and canals) to one based on land. Key periods of transformation
occurred in two particular periods, roughly from 1890 to1920, and again
from around 1960-1980s.
The paper focuses upon the origins of Bangkok's emergence as a leading
Thai city from the early 19th century. A key theme is to account for the
transformation of Bangkok from a port- city dominated by Chinese migrants
to a manufacturing center based on cheap labor. It is suggested that demographic
change from the 1950s transformed the economy from one where indigenous
labor was relatively expensive to one where it was relatively cheap.
- Special Seminar by CSEAS Visiting Fellow
-
- Topic："Translations of Antisemitism: Jews, the Chinese, and Violence in
Colonial and Postcolonial Indonesia."
- Speaker： Dr. Jeffrey Hadler, Assistant Professor, Department of South and Southeast
Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A.
- Date & Time：16:00-, May 24 (Mon.), 2004
- Place：Room 409 on the 4nd floor, Common Building of CSEAS
- Abstract：
Scholars have assumed that Indonesian antisemitism is a case of "antisemitism
without Jews"; that current anti-Jewish rhetoric is borrowed from
Middle Eastern anti-Zionist propaganda. This viewpoint is limited. I analyze
the history and role of the Jewish community during the period of Dutch
colonialism in the East Indies. I assess the position of both Dutch and
"oriental" Jews in the economic and social life of the colony,
discussing the role of Zionism and imperial antisemitism, and paying particular
attention to the interactions of the Jews and the "native" Indonesians.
Indies Jewry cut across official colonial categories, with Dutch, Arab,
Chinese, and even native congregants. The community maintained a Zionist
newspaper, "Erets Israel," that was published from 1926 until
the Japanese occupation. Jews met in the one synagogue in Surabaya, and
held services in Masonic Lodges and Theosophical Halls (two other groups
reviled by conspiracy theorists today). In post-Soeharto Indonesia there
has been a revival of antisemitism, an effort to equate political "reformasi"
and Zionism and then fury at American (and therefore Israeli) actions in
the Middle East. I attempt to trace connections between antisemitic discourse
and anti-minority violence in Indonesia generally, reading antisemitic
discourse as a veiled substitution for more familiar bigotries outlawed
publicly by Soeharto's SARA laws.
- Intellectual Discourses of Southeast Asian Studies Co-sponsored by the
Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Bangk Liaison Office and the Asian
Scholarship Foundation ( Bangkok)
-
- Date & Time：May 7-8, 2004
- Place：Bangk Liaison Office, CSEAS in Bangkok
- Abstract：
The Workshop on Intellectual Discourses of Southeast Asian Studies (I)
will bring together 10 to 12 intellectuals at a one-day meeting in Bangkok,
Thailand, to discuss the present and future of Southeast Asian studies
in the region. Participants will include representatives of different areas
of expertise from academia, foundations, and cultural groups, with a balance
sought between well-established and younger people. The workshop will begin
an assessment that will continue in the participants’ home countries and
intellectual communities. The objective of the process will be to generate:
- self-reflective intellectual discourse about the state of Southeast Asian
studies (broadly conceived) that will feed into a coherent regional discourse;
- concrete suggestions for the future of Southeast Asian studies by Asians
in Asia;
- recommendations for consolidating regional initiatives to date with the
establishment of an organization for Southeast Asian studies in the region.
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