The Mandala Newsletter of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies Center for Southeast Asian Studies Fall/Winter 2010-11 520 College View Court, DeKalb Illinois 60115 www.cseas.niu.edu 815-753-1771 Field school stories Students learn the art of the ethnographic interview in Cambodia Anthropology professor Judy Ledgerwood’s field school visits Angkor Wat in summer 2010. Page 13. Following Director’s SEAYLP Chair Turning action Forging new plans into initiatives one meaningful actions linkage at a time Page 16 Page 2 Southeast Asian studies. engineering, and possibly women’s studies and geography as well. Inside This Issue NIU has long boasted a strong infrastructure for Southeast Asian studies: Director’s Chair ..................................2 Expanding our orbit a large and well-known faculty researching Visiting Scholars ................................6 With these ambitious plans to expand the and teaching about the region; a vast Southeast Asia curricular program at NIU, Grantsmanship .................................. 8 Southeast Asia library collection of more the center is focused on expanding the Center Council News ......................9 than 120,000 volumes; a complex Internet number of faculty and students involved Feature: Field School ...................13 resource, SEAsite, for the study of the with Southeast Asia, both on campus and Feature: Following SEAYLP ......16 region’s languages and cultures; and a off. This is especially important in light Fellowship Notes ............................20 strong outreach program. Now we are of the retirement of three key CSEAS about to build on that strong foundation Outreach Update ............................24 associates since last spring. Associate by launching new courses and detailed, Professor Saw Tun, the first Burmese Museum Notes ................................26 course-specific curricula. What’s Coming Up ........................27 language instructor at NIU, retired in In fall, NIU became the first American June. Similarly, Anthropology Museum university to teach Malay, the national Director Ann Wright-Parsons, curator of language of Malaysia and Brunei, and NIU’s collection of 12,000 ethnographic Director’s Chair an official language of Singapore, in a and archaeological artifacts, half of James T. Collins full program of instruction. By opening which is from Southeast Asia, retired a course in beginning Malay, and effective Jan. 1 of this year. Her position The news cascaded into the Center for continuing to offer intermediate and is already being advertised so that the Southeast Asian Studies this past fall like advanced Malay, NIU has gone a long museum’s renovated collections storage birthday greetings way toward strengthening its language rooms and new exhibition gallery in Cole on Facebook: portfolio. Looking ahead, we plan to offer Hall will continue to maintain a strong Vietnamese in fall 2012 in order to provide profile for Southeast Asian studies on • the re-funding of the most comprehensive Southeast Asian the campus (see Museum Notes, page the online Malay language program in the country, offering 26). At the center, CSEAS staff member dictionary project instruction in all Caroline Quinlan, who for 2010–11; seven national By expanding the number masterfully oversaw • a second year languages of of NIU faculty working in the center’s transition of budgeting for Southeast Asia. from print publications Southeast Asia, particularly to enhanced Internet the Southeast Asia In addition to communications Youth Leadership Program (SEAYLP); language learning, in the professional colleges, in 2010, retired in • a Foreign Languages and Area Studies though, a strong we can diversify the profile December. (FLAS) program making it possible center must also and increase the number of for NIU to offer 17 undergraduate and offer innovative The first strategy for graduate students full fellowships in and diverse area NIU students committed to enlarging the CSEAS Southeast Asian studies; and studies courses. In studying about the region. circle aims at inviting fall, NIU offered a more NIU faculty • a new four-year designation as a new multidisciplinary course, History of into the field. Since fall 2009, CSEAS National Resource Center (NRC) for the Malay Language, in both graduate and has worked closely with faculty in the Southeast Asian Studies that secures undergraduate sections. Three other new public health program to encourage some CSEAS’s outreach and curriculum Southeast Asia-focused courses—History of them to choose Southeast Asia for programs. of Violence, Political Anthropology, and their research areas. Assistant Professor These announcements of solid federal Political Violence—were also taught for Tomiyuki Shibata, a new CSEAS affiliate, support, from both the U.S. Department of the first time. This spring, there are three was the first to make a solid commitment Education and the U.S. State Department, new courses: The State and Illegality in to Southeast Asian studies, first by were not only acknowledgments of the Southeast Asia, Global Islam, and The revising his EPFE 530: Comparative and hard work that CSEAS associates, staff, Politics of Identity: Ethnicity, Religion, International Education course syllabus and students have put in over the years, and Conflict. In the next four years, we this past fall to include 25 percent SEA but more importantly they were signposts are committed to developing new courses content and then by spending two for directions the center must take to in public health, history, political science, weeks at Hasanuddin University, our secure its place in the national network of business, public administration, and Indonesian partner university, to develop 2 joint research projects. Two more public health faculty members are working on a research planning team initiated by Shibata and including faculty from the geography department. Alecia Santuzzi (psychology) was made a center affiliate so that she and her students can help CSEAS maintain an effective evaluation program. Shi-Ruei “Sherry” Fang of the Family and Child Studies program, who has long taught about Southeast Asian families, joined CSEAS as an affiliate and is a member of the executive committee. Ambassador visits More than 150 NIU students, faculty, and others fill the room to hear new Indonesian By expanding the number of NIU faculty Ambassador to the United States Dino Patti Djalal speak Oct. 18 about his country’s working in Southeast Asia, particularly in developing democracy in an address, followed by a reception, at the Holmes Student Center. the professional colleges, we can diversify the profile and increase the number of commitment to our national clientele is Jan. 4–5 in Kuala Lumpur in cooperation NIU students committed to studying SEAsite, the country’s pioneering online with the University of Chicago’s NRC about the region. In the coming months, resource for Southeast Asian languages Center for East European and Russian/ we hope to identify more colleagues who and area studies. With the help of center Eurasian Studies (CEERES) and the can be appointed center affiliates. associate Jim Henry (computer science), National University of Malaysia’s Institute A second approach to increasing the the center has begun discussions to for Ethnic Studies (KITA). In another center’s reach is to link up with partner seek funding to renovate this important MAXIS initiative, Southern Illinois institutions in Southeast Asia. Our strong learning source for Southeast Asia studies. University - Edwardsville will join forces partnership with Hasanuddin University Moreover, through the Mid-America with the center to spearhead workshops has already heightened Southeast Asian Consortium for Southeast Asian Studies and panels about Southeast Asia and interest in NIU’s public health program. (MAXIS), which was founded by the Islam in the Mississippi River region with In November, NIU Provost Ray Alden center in 2009, CSEAS is coordinating CSEAS adjunct at Edwardsville, Nancy signed a memorandum of understanding efforts with community colleges and Lutz, working to establish this new linkage with Daing Nasir Ibrahim, vice chancellor other universities to increase education for the center. in the region about Southeast Asia. Since of Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP), Close to home Malaysia’s premier institution for the study fall 2009, CSEAS has collaborated with of engineering. With center assistance, Texas State University-San Marcos, a On the high school level, CSEAS NIU’s College of Engineering and the charter member of MAXIS, to assist in outreach coordinator Julie Lamb and International Training Office expect its development of an undergraduate center graduate student for outreach to organize a short course for UMP’s certificate in Southeast Asian studies. Laura Iandola early this year introduced students this spring, while NIU plans to In October, associates Kenton Clymer Southeast Asia in a two-hour “in-school send students to UMP beginning in June. (history) and Michael Buehler (political field trip” to about 300 Sycamore High By exchanging students, NIU’s faculty and science) accompanied me to Texas State School students taking World Cultures engineering students can learn more about for its fifth Southeast Asia workshop with classes (see Outreach Update, page 25). Southeast Asia. To further this endeavor, a sixth planned later this spring. With our This follows on a very successful program an undergraduate engineering course, cooperation, Texas State has launched