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Encouraging knowledge and enhancing the study of Asia iias.asia 8884 The Newsletter The Focus Online Resources for Asia Scholars The Portrait A virtual exhibition for remote times The Study Explaining low crime Japan 2 Contents In this edition of the Focus From the Director is a free 3 Imagining the university The Newsletter periodical published by IIAS. in the post-COVID world As well as being a window into Online the institute, The Newsletter also links IIAS with the The Study community of Asia scholars and the worldwide public 4 What kind of history can we resources interested in Asia and Asian studies. The Newsletter bridges write of the Song dynasty? the gap between specialist Christian de Pee knowledge and public discourse, 5 Explaining low crime Japan and continues to serve as for Asia a forum for scholars to share Laura Bui research, commentary and 6-7 Sex and trade in seventeenth century opinion with colleagues in academia and beyond. Siam: Osoet Pegu and her Dutch lovers Wil O. Dijk scholars Postal address 8 Knock, knock! The great success PO Box 9500 of ideophones in Korean journalism 2300 RA Leiden Sonja Zweegers and The Netherlands Cristina Bahón-Arnaiz Alessandra Barrow 9 Creative ways to help believers: Visitors Indonesian female Islamic leaders Rapenburg 59 Leiden offer COVID-19 relief to families No one has escaped the effects of the T +31 (0) 71-527 2227 under pressure COVID-19 pandemic; we were forced [email protected] Mirjam Künkler and Eva F. Nisa indoors, sequestered to our ‘home 10-11 Indonesia in ‘3D’: development, Colophon dictatorship and democracy offices’. The online world has become The Newsletter No. 88 Spring 2021 Jean-Luc Maurer very familiar to all of us. And so, for this Managing editor: issue of The Newsletter, and as a way Sonja Zweegers The Region to highlight our ever expanding list at Editorial assistant: Alessandra Barrow www.iias.asia/resources a Focus section 12-15 News from Southeast Asia Editors for The Focus: 16-18 News from Northeast Asia like no other, designed specifically for Sonja Zweegers the time in which we find ourselves: and Alessandra Barrow Regional editors: The Review an exploration of online resources that Su-Ann OH (ISEAS) and Ilhong Ko may assist (or at least entertain) the (Seoul National University Asia 20-25 Selected reviews from newbooks.asia Cente) 26-27 New reviews on newbooks.asia Asia scholar. The Review pages editor: Wai Cheung 28 New titles on newbooks.asia The Network pages editor: Sandra Dehue The Focus Digital issue editor: Thomas Voorter 29-43 Online resources for Asia scholars Graphic Design: Sonja Zweegers and Alessandra Barrow Paul Oram Lava Printing: The Network EPC, Belgium 44-47 Reports Submission deadlines 48-49 Humanities Across Borders Issue #89: 15 March 2021 50-51 Announcements Issue #90: 15 July 2021 Issue #91: 1 Dec 2021 52-53 IIAS Research Submission enquiries The Portrait [email protected] More information: 54-55 A virtual exhibition for remote times iias.asia/the-newsletter The Museum of Nepali Art (MoNA) Free subscriptions Ute Jansen is the new Go to: iias.asia/subscribe 56 IIAS Fellowship Programme To unsubscribe, to make changes IIAS Deputy Director (e.g., new address), or to order multiple copies: [email protected] n 1 January 2021, the International Institute for Asian Studies welcomed Ute Jansen as its new Deputy Director. Rights O Responsibility for copyrights and The International Institute for facts and opinions expressed for Asian Studies (IIAS) is a global Ute Jansen has longstanding experience as in this publication rests exclusively an executive manager in several development with authors. Their interpretations Humanities and Social Sciences cooperation organisations, including Médecins do not necessarily reflect the views institute and a knowledge Sans Frontières (MSF), the Dutch organisation of the institute or its supporters. for internationalisation in education (NUFFIC) Reprints only with permission from exchange platform, based in and Oxfam Novib. Besides collaborating with the author and The Newsletter Leiden, the Netherlands, with local partners on humanitarian projects, she editor [email protected] programmes that engage Asian was involved in higher education capacity building projects, with a special focus on and other international partners. Indonesia, Bangladesh and countries in iias.asia Subsaharan Africa. IIAS takes a thematic and Her interest in Asia started 30 years ago multi-sectoral approach to with first a Master's degree in Japanese and Korean languages, and later, a position at the the study of Asia and actively Embassy of Japan in Germany. After adding involves scholars and experts a Master's programme in Humanitarian Assistance, Ute worked in numerous countries, from different disciplines and including Uganda and Burundi. She has now regions in its activities. lived in the Netherlands since 2004. Ute takes over from Willem Vogelsang, who Our current thematic research served IIAS as Deputy Director for more than 9 years. Willem plans to use his retirement to clusters are ‘Asian Heritages’, pursue his passion for researching, writing ‘Asian Cities’ and ‘Global Asia’. and curating. The Newsletter No. 88 Spring 2021 3 From the Director societies saw as valuable knowledge, as a mark of their ultimate superiority, exclusive of the immediate communities from which they emanated, and of the world Imagining the in all its ecological and human diversity. But as the pandemic has shown (or reminded) us, we live in an inter- connected, complex world, in which university in the human-nature relations and the different forms of knowledge drawn from them are all entangled. We now understand that the virus is a consequence of our relentless post-COVID world encroachments on the environment and its biodiversity. By getting rid of our anthropo- ethno-cultural provincialism, along with our neoliberal obsessions, we can imagine Philippe Peycam a more sober, anchored, multi-centred, horizontal and inclusive experience of Academia. One that combines collective ne of the disquieting questions the by the latter. This rift was accentuated by and providers (universities), thereby bypassing activities embedded in our local environ- pandemic has forced us to consider is, the economic crisis and the introduction of the traditional (public) role of the latter as ment (human and natural), in dialogue OWhat will universities, now partially neoliberal policies from the 1980s onward. part of the so-called new ‘platform economy’. with colleagues from other ‘ecosystems’ if not totally deserted, look like in the post- It has since encysted into a ‘them-and-us’ A direct consequence for higher education in the world, for a mutually beneficial COVID world? The massive use of online socio-political culture, and has led to the therefore may be a trend towards its effective collaborative educational and research virtual instruments means that the old model, perception amongst many that universities dematerialisation, and the gradual depletion of process. This modus operandi can make use in which universities physically concentrate are primarily instruments of social segregation. the university as a brick-and-mortar campus, of online devices, but without falling prey all their activities in one single location, as Meanwhile, the university model has remained and with it, the communities of faculty and to the Tech platforms and their deadly logic. the Western university was built after, may a luxury for most countries in the South, where students forged through inter-personal Facilitating structures like IIAS can no longer completely hold true. In fact, the the ratio student/national population has encounters and interactions. play an important role in this reinvention tendency towards an online environment remained much lower.3 In most decolonising When EdTech reaches maturity, D’Souza process. Because it operates on the basis of was already on the rise with the advent nations, a number of emblematic new predicts it will no longer operate on the collaboration, as a versatile multi-function of e-learning, MOOCs, open universities, establishments served as national development basis of a cycle of semesters spent by the platform (I here want to reclaim the word!), etc., and their increasing grip on the higher pillars. In Nehruvian India for instance, state students at a physical campus, but mostly the institute and its world counterparts can education ‘market’. interventionism in the 1950s and 1960s led to through online connections from anywhere help universities rediscover their civic role. the creation of a network of public universities in the world, driven to accrue à la carte With its capacity to forge connections of I recently revisited an article that appeared and the now renowned Indian Institute of courses provided by a few platforms. These different kinds while promoting locally- in June 2020, at the height of the first wave of Technology (IIT) system. Yet, those who benefit platforms will attract much larger numbers situated/globally-connected knowledge the pandemic, by Rohan D’Souza. The author from this public system, even if it has continued of online ‘students’ without the hard costs production streams, IIAS can help bring characterised the struggles between three to expand, remain a tiny minority of the of maintaining buildings, libraries or a vast forward the kind of approach that no university paradigms or ‘ideal types’, and what population, which is a situation that has invited number of employees, faculty included. Quite EdTech will ever achieve. they mean for the future of ‘the university’: the development of a large private higher naturally, as already the case for other service This is the effort IIAS has unleashed the original ‘Humboldtian’ model, built around education sector, not always synonymous businesses, we may see algorithm-operated through a number of coalitions of willing the idea of turning students into autonomous with high quality. platforms like Amazon or Google forge partners such as ICAS, SEANNET and HaB.