Past Events at the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies
February 2019
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Thursday, February 7th Colonial Secularism, Buddhism and the Continuing Violence of Burmese Women's ‘Freedom’
Date Time Location Thursday, February 7, 2019 4:00PM - 6:00PM External Event, Room 2098, Natalie Zemon Davis Conference Room, Sidney Smith Hall, University of Toronto, 100 St. George Street + Register for this Event Print this Event Bookmark this Event
Description
The idea that Burmese women enjoy greater freedom than either their Asian or European counterparts has been a persistent theme in both British colonial and Burmese nationalist discourse of the last two centuries. While Burmese feminists challenge the empirical reality of this myth of women’s freedom, in this talk I will explore the history and conceptual underpinnings of this discourse and its devastating consequences. At three moments in Burmese history (late 1920s, 1950s and 2015) the defense of Burmese Buddhist women’s freedom against perceived oppression of Islam, has mobilized anti-Muslim sentiment and violence. While many diagnose this Burmese Buddhist nationalism as illiberal excessive religion, I will argue instead that the discourse of Burmese women’s freedom and the ways it has been used to construct difference between Buddhists and Muslims finds its origins in colonial secularism and its ways of knowing and order in the world. Working from the frameworks laid out by Saba Mahmood and Talal Asad, this talk explores how colonial secularism enmeshed constructions of religion and gender in order to shed light on the current crisis in Burma.
Alicia Turner is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Humanities at York University in Toronto. Her first book Saving Buddhism: Moral Community and the Impermanence of Colonial Religion explores concepts of sāsana, identity and religion through a study of Buddhist lay associations. She is currently working on a book, entitled Buddhism’s Plural Pasts: Religious Difference and Indifference in Colonial Burma, that offers a genealogy of religious division.
If you are attending a Munk School event and require accommodation(s), please email the event contact listed above to make appropriate arrangements.
Disclaimer: Please note that events posted on this website are considered to be public events – unless otherwise stated – and you are choosing to enter a space where your image and/or voice may be captured as part of event proceedings that may be made public as part of a broadcast, webcast, or publication (online and in print). We make every effort to ensure your personal information is kept and used in compliance with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA). If you have any questions please get in touch with our office at munkschool@utoronto.ca or 416-946-8900.
March 2019
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Friday, March 1st Development and Impact of the Thai Military’s Political Offensive
Date Time Location Friday, March 1, 2019 10:00AM - 12:00PM Seminar Room 208N, 1 Devonshire Place + Register for this Event Print this Event Bookmark this Event
Description
Abstract:
It is recognized that the military coups in Thailand in 2006 and 2014 were the orchestrated attempts of the anti-democratic alliance of the old powers against the rise of electoral politics. After the coups, they have tried to establish firm control through various measures, including the constitutions of 2007 and 2017 and strengthening the bureaucracy. However, little attention has been paid to the Thai military’s expansive civil affairs projects, including rural and urban development programs, mass organizations and mobilization campaigns, ideological and psychological programs. Puangthong argues that the Thai military has always paid great importance to its civil affairs projects as a political offensive to control popular politics since the counter-insurgency period. The conservatives craftily manipulated legal and moral legitimacy in order to protect and expand the army’s role beyond its combatant sphere. The entrenchment has been more apparent and aggressive since the 2006 coup. Old apparatuses were reactivated and new ones were created. Power of the army over other state agencies increased more than ever. On one hand, the military’s civil affairs projects allow the military and conservative elites to dictate the country’s long-term political direction. This potent tool, on other hand, effectively polarizes the populace deeper and thus makes democratization in the future difficult.Biography:
Puangthong R. Pawakapan is Associate Professor of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. She is currently a visiting scholar at the Harvard Yenching Institute, Harvard University, 2018-2019. Her recent works include “The Central Role of Thailand’s Internal Security Operations Command in the Post-Counter-insurgency Period,” Trends in Southeast Asia (ISEAS: Singapore 2017); “The Foreign Press’ Changing Perceptions of Thailand’s Monarchy.” Trends in Southeast Asia. (2015); State and Uncivil Society in Thailand at the Temple of Preah Vihear, (2013).
If you are attending a Munk School event and require accommodation(s), please email the event contact listed above to make appropriate arrangements.
Disclaimer: Please note that events posted on this website are considered to be public events – unless otherwise stated – and you are choosing to enter a space where your image and/or voice may be captured as part of event proceedings that may be made public as part of a broadcast, webcast, or publication (online and in print). We make every effort to ensure your personal information is kept and used in compliance with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA). If you have any questions please get in touch with our office at munkschool@utoronto.ca or 416-946-8900.
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Friday, March 22nd – Saturday, March 23rd Beauty, Brutality, and the Neocolonial City
Date Time Location Friday, March 22, 2019 9:30AM - 3:00PM Seminar Room 108N, University of Toronto Saturday, March 23, 2019 4:00PM - 6:00PM External Event, University of Toronto + Register for this Event Print this Event Bookmark this Event
Description
Please use the registration button above to sign up for the lecture on March 22. To sign up for a reading on March 23, please click here to register on Eventbrite.
This two-day event brings together international scholars and critics to explore the complexity, dynamism, and significance of Manila within and beyond Asia. As a city that has experienced the multiple vestiges of empire, the disciplinary machinations of dictatorial rule, the effects an infamous “war on drugs”, and the continued realities of uneven resource distribution, Manila serves as a productive physical and ideological space to explore the dialogic nature of beauty and brutality—as these concepts intertwine in the urban repertoires of the global south. On March 22, speakers will reflect on how Manila influences their work as diasporic critics scholars. On March 23, renowned Filipino American author Jessica Hagedorn will have her Toronto debut and read from her most famous works. She will also converse with Lucy San Pablo Burns (UCLA), discussing her thoughts on the city, and Manila, as an imaginative space for her artistry and craft. Books can be purchased at the venue, in collaboration with Another Story Bookshop.
FRIDAY, MARCH 22
108N – NORTH HOUSE, MUNK SCHOOL OF GLOBAL AFFAIRS AND PUBLIC POLICY,
1 DEVONSHIRE PLACE
Program:
9:30 AM – 10:00 AM – Welcoming Remarks
10:00 AM – 12:00 PM – Dialogue 1: Sensing the City
SPEAKERS: Ferdinand Lopez (Toronto); Gary Devilles (Ateneo De Manila); Paul Nadal (Princeton); Genevieve Clutario (Harvard)
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM – Lunch
1:00 PM – 3:00 PM – Dialogue 2: Intimacies and the City
SPEAKERS: Robert Diaz (Toronto); Denise Cruz (Columbia); Martin Manalansan (Minnesota); Christine Balance (Cornell); Allan Isaac (Rutgers)***********************
SATURDAY, MARCH 23
NEXUS LOUNGE, 12TH FLOOR, OISE (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education), 252 BLOOR ST. W.
A Reading with Noted Author Jessica Hagedorn, in Conversation with Lucy Mae San Pablo Burns (UCLA)
Program:
4:00 PM – 4:10 PM – Welcoming Remarks
4:10 PM – 4:30 PM – Performance by Patrick Salvani
4:30 PM – 6:00 PM – Reading with Jessica Hagedorn, and Conversation with Lucy Burns (UCLA)
If you are attending a Munk School event and require accommodation(s), please email the event contact listed above to make appropriate arrangements.
Disclaimer: Please note that events posted on this website are considered to be public events – unless otherwise stated – and you are choosing to enter a space where your image and/or voice may be captured as part of event proceedings that may be made public as part of a broadcast, webcast, or publication (online and in print). We make every effort to ensure your personal information is kept and used in compliance with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA). If you have any questions please get in touch with our office at munkschool@utoronto.ca or 416-946-8900.