[Tlc] Lao Studies update

[justinm at ucr.edu]

FYI, a New Year's update from laostudies.org.
Best,
justin

Lao Studies Updates
January 4, 2007
Lao Studies Updates are available at:
http://laostudies.org/conferences/cls-updates.html

Sabaidee Pii Mai—Happy New Year Everyone. 

I.  The Center for Lao Studies has a new phone number.  It is
1-415-874-5578.  Please give us a call, even just to say
"sabaidee."

II. The Second International Conference on Lao Studies
Abstracts are due on January 22, 2007.  Please send a one page
abstract in English to icls2 at asu.edu.  For more information
visit the Center for Lao Studies website at www.laostudies.org

III. MOU signed between the Center for Lao Studies and the
Lao-American College
On December 4, 2006 the Center for Lao Studies and the
Lao-American College (LAC), Vientiane, Lao PDR signed a
Memorandum of Agreement (MUO). Some of our collaborative work
will include: exchange program between US and Lao students and
professionals; scholarship for rural Lao students to attend
LAC; computer donations and others.

IV.  Dr. Phoumy Bounkeua at the Aloha Medical Missions is
recruiting medical volunteers to Luang Prabang, Lao PDR, March
1-10, 2007.  For further information, please email Dr. Phoumy
at drphoumy at gmail.com  or visit their website at:
www.alohamedicalmission.org


V. Art, Business and Social Responsibility: An Evening with
Carol Cassidy, Founder, Lao Textiles 

Date: January 11th
Time: 5:30 pm registration, 6:00 pm program followed by reception 
Location: Northern California
B. Mori &Co., 450 Ninth St. (between Harrison and Bryant), San
Francisco, CA
Cost: $5 Member/Student, $12 Non-Member
Phone: 415.421.8707
Please join the Asia Society in welcoming celebrated weaver
and development advisor Carol Cassidy to San Francisco.
Building on the traditional designs and techniques of skilled
weavers from ethnic groups within Laos, Carol Cassidy has
bought new vitality to the weaving heritage of this Southeast
Asian country. Although weaving had been a part of Laotian
culture for centuries, 100 years of social upheaval had forced
weavers to seek other occupations. In 1989, Carol was sent to
Laos by the U.N. to revive the dying art of weaving. She
arrived before Laos had a constitution, paved roads, or
telephone lines and founded one of the country's first foreign
businesses. Carol's enterprise, Lao Textiles, has restored Lao
weaving to prominence in the world textile markets.

Specializing in 100 percent hand-woven silk, Lao Textiles
produces exquisitely crafted wall hangings, scarves, shawls,
and custom furnishing fabrics. The company is the first in
Laos to provide employee benefits, bringing economic
empowerment to Lao women. Carol recently started a similar
project in Cambodia employing rural landmine victims. At the
program, she will discuss her work as well as display a range
of works from Lao Textiles. A selection of her textiles will
also be available for purchase.  For more information please
visit:
http://www.asiasociety.org/events/calendar.pl?rm=detail&eventid=16329&date=12%2F19%2F06&filter_region=0&filter_category=3&keywords=
 


VI. Learn Lao and Hmong at SEASSI

The Southeast Asian Studies Summer Institute (SEASSI) offers
university-level instruction in Burmese, Filipino, Hmong,
Indonesian, Khmer, Lao, Thai and Vietnamese languages at
multiple levels.
Instruction is also offered in Javanese if enrollments are
sufficient.

In addition, a special focus is made on Heritage language
instruction at SEASSI in Filipino, Hmong, Khmer, Lao and
Vietnamese languages
and cultures.  Heritage instruction is specifically geared toward
native-speakers of those five languages who wish to learn to
read or write and/or improve their formal speaking skills.  If you
already possess basic or intermediate-level reading and
writing skills
in your Southeast Asian language, there are higher level classes
available at SEASSI in all of the above five languages. If you
cannot speak or
understand the language of your parents/grandparents at all,
SEASSI also offers beginning level classes, for which no previous
knowledge of the language is required.

To see examples of Filipino, Hmong, Khmer, Lao and Vietnamese
teaching materials used at SEASSI, student work, photos, and
videos of
classroom activities and student projects, visit:

http://www.seassi.wisc.edu/heritage/index.html

SEASSI will take place at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
from June 18 to August 10, 2007.  SEASSI is an intensive language
program where students have an opportunity to study only
Southeast Asian
languages, five days a week, for two months.  Students receive
one year
(2 full semesters) of foreign language credit for the program.

Several types of financial aid are available for SEASSI students,
including the Heritage Fellowship.  Please note that the
deadline for applying for Heritage Fellowships and Foreign
Language Area
Studies (FLAS) Fellowships is February 2, 2007, which is fast
approaching.  The deadline for applying for Tuition Reduction
Scholarships is
April 2, 2007.  For more information about applying to SEASSI,
including applying for financial aid, visit:

http://www.seassi.wisc.edu

VII.    Professor of Political Science, Australian National
University

The Australian National University's Department of Political
and Social Change seeks an outstanding scholar for
appointment as Professor of Political Science. The position
is primarily for research. It carries only modest teaching
responsibilities but the successful candidate will serve as
Head of Department.  Applicants should have a distinguished
publication record, extensive experience in postgraduate
education and supervision, and demonstrated achievement in
academic leadership.  Significant research experience on
Southeast Asia as well as ability in one or more regional
languages are also essential.  In addition to pursuing his
or her own research interests, the appointee will work with
other Department members and provide academic leadership; co-
operate in the multidisciplinary environment of the Research
School of Pacific and Asian Studies and the College of Asia
and the Pacific; liaise with relevant bodies locally,
nationally and internationally; and promote the work of the
Department. For selection criteria, other details, and
application procedure, please go to
http://info.anu.edu.au/hr/jobs/ or contact Gabrielle
Cameron, T: +61 2 6125 4444, E: Gabrielle.Cameron at anu.edu.au
or Professor Robin Jeffrey, T: +61 2 6125 2221, E:
director.rspas at anu.edu.au. Closing Date: 30 March 2007.

VIII.    Call for Papers

Panel Title: The Cold War in Southeast Asia (1948-90): New
Sources and Interpretations

EUROSEAS 2007: Naples, 12-15 September 2007
Chair: Anthony Reid, Director Asia Research Institute

The goal of this Panel is to bring together scholars working
of diverse aspects of the history of the Cold War in
Southeast Asia so as to explore new resources, new
perceptions and new possibilities in this area. In the light
of the emergence of hitherto closed archival materials in
China, Russia and in Southeast Asia itself, the appearance
of new memoirs by revolutionary strategists and fighters,
and a willingness on all sides to examine anew the history
of the years 1948-90, it is hoped that through new
interpretations of the period it will be possible to better
address and overcome the cleavages which emerged in
Southeast Asia during those years.

Papers could address any of the following areas of
investigation:

1) The collection, translation and analysis of the fast-
disappearing memories of key members of the Communist Party
of Malaya and the Sarawak Communist Party, analogous figures
in the labour movement and various fronts, and of the key
figures involved in their suppression. We are looking
particularly for hitherto obscure evidence of connections
between Southeast Asia and China, and among SE Asian parties
and peoples.

2) Ditto for communist and united front movements in
Thailand, Indonesia and Burma and, if papers are offered,
Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos and Cambodia.

3) Accessing the newly-opening archives of Beijing, and
those of Taiwan, on the relations of the CCP and the KMT to
Southeast Asian movements on both sides of the Cold War.

4) Documenting the cultural expressions of both the
political left and the right in the 1950s-1970s, including
the Southeast Asian expressions of socialist realism and the
Cultural Revolution, and the invasion of US popular culture
and its local adaptations.

5) The battle for history, in terms of the textbook
constructions of the new states on both sides of the bamboo
curtain of their respective histories and identities.

6) Analysis of the way in which the Cold War affected the
longer-term adjustments of Asian states to modernity,
including the international diplomatic and security systems,
national integration and majority-minority relations,
national culture, and the viability of the new states in
themselves.

Please submit expressions of interest or proposals and short
(up to 350 words) abstracts to:
Geoff Wade
Asia Research Institute
National University of Singapore,
AS7, 5 Arts Link, Level 4
Singapore 117570
Email: arigpw at nus.edu.sg
Tel: (+65) 6516 4562

Further details of the conference are available at:
http://www.euroseas..org/2007/indexe.php

NB: Unfortunately, the organizers have no financial
assistance to offer to participants in this panel.


IX. Call for Papers
Graduate Student Conference - Cornell University Southeast
Asia Program

The Cornell Southeast Asia Program invites submissions for
its 9th Annual Southeast Asian Studies Graduate Student
Conference. This year's conference will take place at the
Kahin Center for Advanced Research on Southeast Asia,
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY on March 16-18, 2007.

We welcome submissions from graduate students engaged in
original research related to Southeast Asia. Graduate
students working in the following disciplines as well as
other related fields that contribute to the understanding of
Southeast Asia are encouraged to apply:

History, literature, art history, sociology, musicology,
religion, anthropology, archeology, architectural history,
gender studies, political science, economics, and
linguistics.

We ask that interested graduates students submit a one-page
abstract describing their paper and a curriculum vitae by
January 15, 2007.

Abstracts and CVs must be written in English and formatted
as either a MS Word or PDF document. Selected authors will
be asked to give a 20-minute presentation on their paper
(not including a 10-minute discussion session).

Submissions should be sent to swl3 at cornell.edu and
tnp5 at cornell.edu.

Authors of accepted submissions will be given until February
23, 2007 to send in the full version of their final paper.

A limited number of modest travel grants are available.
Please indicate in your email when you submit the abstract
if you would like to apply for a travel grant.

This year's keynote speaker will be Patricia Spyer,
Professor of the Anthropology of Contemporary Indonesia,
Leiden University, The Netherlands.  Patricia Spyer is the
author of The Memory of Trade: Modernity's entanglements on
an Eastern Indonesia Island (Duke, 2000) and editor of
Border Fetishisms: Material Objects in Unstable Spaces
(Routledge, 1998).  Her current research focuses on the role
of mass and small media in the dynamics of the violence and
reconciliation processes in the Moluccas, Indonesia.

More details about the conference including abstract format
and submission guidelines may be found here:
http://www.einaudi.cornell.edu/southeastasia/academics/studen
t_symposium.asp

X.  Call for Papers
Regional Animalities: Humans & Animal Relations in Southeast
Asia

FOCAS, Forum On Contemporary Art & Society 6: [FOCAS, Forum
On Contemporary Art & Society, is a not-for-profit dialogue
and publishing initiative that engages issues of
contemporary art, politics and social change—primarily but
not exclusively—in Southeast Asia. FOCAS is dedicated to
interdisciplinary criticalexchange among scholars, activists
and practitioners.]

FOCAS is back with our sixth volume, Regional Animalities:
Humans & Animal Relations in Southeast Asia. For this
volume, we are collaborating with Documenta 12, the
international contemporary art event based in Kassel,
Germany. Both the publication as a whole and selected
articles from the forthcoming issue will be featured in
documenta 12 magazines, the online editorial project
bringing together independent publishing initiatives on art
and culture from around the globe.

In this context we are sending out a call for visual or
textual responses from practitioners, scholars, writers and
activists, to the themed sections detailed below:

Please send a maximum 500-word proposal or a file with
maximum 5 low-resolution images to focas at pacific.net.sg.
Deadline for submissions: 30th December 06. Deadline for
final input: 1st March 07.

I. Main Themed Section: Regional Animalities

The main theme for this sixth issue in the focas publication
series concerns ways in which human animal exchanges and
relationships are imagined, represented and performed in a
range of different artistic and cultural political contexts—
 primarily, but not exclusively, in Southeast Asia.

We encourage input from art writers, practitioners and
activists, as well as writers from the social and natural
sciences.

Proposals may choose to respond to, reject or transcend the
following:
• How do a multiplicity of real and imagined beasts brush,
buzz, slink, stink and scuttle in and out of the everyday
fantasies and signifying practices of contemporary Southeast
Asian societies?
• How are these phantoms and presences projected through
human-human exchanges?
• How do human-animal and animal-animal exchanges subvert,
rupture, invade and expand upon human symbolic orders and
signifying practices?
• Which animals are eaten? Which are adored? Which animals
are feared? Which animals are expelled? Which animals are
sacred? Which profane? Which animals persist? Which animals
are lost?
• What historical/"indigenous" assumptions, representations,
embodiments of other living creatures exist in human
cultures in the region? How do these relate to contemporary
animal rights and conservation discourses?
• How do vernacular attitudes to animals bleed into "shark
tales", "Hello Kitties" and other animated icons?
• How have various creatures been represented and received
in global and vernacular, experimentary and commercial
cultural production, such as visual art, film, television,
animation, advertising and fashion?
• How do animals remap/reinvent human territories, spaces
and places, waters and skies, cities and kampungs,
skyscrapers and rubbish mountains?
• How have recent outbreaks and invocations of SARS, bird
flu and dengue fever recast human animal relations in the
region?

II. Art & Activism in Singapore 2004­6:
Artists, Animals, Transients & The Death Penalty

In the past two years in Singapore, three civil society
movements have gained considerable visibility in an
 otherwise infamously disciplined social, political and media
arena:

• The animal welfare movement, buoyed by the public outcry
over the Singapore Government's culling of stray cats during
the SARS outbreak in 2003.
• A movement to lobby for basic labour and health rights for
transient workers.
• Artist and activist mobilisations against the mandatory
death penalty for drug trafficking in Singapore—a hitherto
no-go area for activist groups as it was considered just too
difficult an issue to tackle.

A number of the same actors, musicians, artists, are active
in all three camps. In this section we are soliciting and
commissioning reports on artist/activist involvement in all
three issues.

There are indeed links between the treatment of migrant
workers, hoarded onto open trucks like livestock, and a
dehumanisation/animalisation process in the ways in which
death row
prisoners (a number of whom are migrant drug peddlers) are
impounded and eventually hanged.

But what is also immediately apparent with these
juxtapositions is how juicy, pleasurable, rich and evocative
the writing and making of art about animals, conservation
and animal welfare is, in contrast to a tired greyness of
writing on labour and the absolute authority of (human)
death, which overshadows attempts to respond to the death
penalty in Singapore in art or theory. Indeed, there have
been discussions in the editorial as to whether we even
should be speaking of the death penalty in an art context.
However reflexively and sensitively we handle this, are we
inevitably just going to fuel the ravenous hunger of
contemporary art and theory for the latest trauma of the
human Other..

III. FOCAS on Censorship focas will be continuing to debate
and document instances of censorship in the art and writing
in Southeast Asia. This section will be compiled in
 collaboration with the international organisation Reporters
Without Borders.

XI. CALL FOR PAPERS AND PANEL PROPOSALS
8th Annual Association of Pacific Rim Universities Doctoral
Student Conference
Topic: The Emerging Future of the Pacific Rim: Alliances,
Collaboration, and Networking

The 8th Annual Association of Pacific Rim Universities
Doctoral Student Conference (APRU DSC) will take place from
30 July to 3 August 2007 at the Mita campus of Keio
University, Japan. Doctoral students from all disciplines,
including the social sciences, the humanities, and the
natural sciences are invited to attend and present a paper
related to their doctoral research. The main title of the
conference is "The Emerging Future of the Pacific Rim:
Alliances, Collaboration, and Networking." We need to
collaborate and network with one another so as to meet the
challenges of the diverse problems in the Pacific Rim in
this global age. Our purposes are: 1) to deepen and widen
our research interests through discussions with other
participants from diverse academic backgrounds; 2) to
develop our intellectual curiosity by sharing our
experiences as students with our international colleagues;
and 3) to build lifelong friendships among PhD students with
bright futures. The conference will be composed of plenary
sessions, workshops, contributed paper sessions, and panel
sessions. Papers presented in the contributed paper and
panel sessions are expected to be drawn from all academic
disciplines including, but not limited to, the following
disciplines: Anthropology, Archaeology, Arts, Biology,
Business, Chemistry, Commerce, Computer Science, Earth
Sciences, Economics, Education, Engineering, Health Care,
History, Information Technology, International Relations,
Law, Life Sciences, Linguistics, Literature, Mathematics,
Medicine, Philosophy, Psychology, Physics, Political
Science, and Sociology.

Paper presenters at the DSC will either present their paper
in a contributed paper session organized by the Keio
Organizing Committee, or in a panel session organized by a
doctoral student, but not both. The panel sessions are a new
initiative to encourage doctoral students to form panel
sessions focused on a specific area or issue so as to
generate more focused discussions. Participants in this
conference are strongly encouraged to organize their own
panel sessions with the idea of getting three or four papers
in a session focused on one area or one question/issue. The
Keio Organizing Committee hopes the planning of these panel
sessions will encourage doctoral students to talk to one
another before they submit their papers. The official
language of the conference is English. Abstracts, paper
presentations and all conference materials will be in
English. Approximately 80 doctoral students will be selected
to present papers at the Doctoral Student Conference at Keio
University. Information about registration will be provided
on the conference web site in due course.

The key dates for the conference are as follows:
31 December 2006: Deadline for the on-line submission of
panel proposals (at most 500 words)
10 January 2007: Notification of acceptance of panels
10 February 2007: Deadline for the on-line submission of
abstracts (at most 250 words)
10 March 2007: Notification of acceptance of abstracts
25 June 2007: Deadline for the submission of full papers
30 July ~ 3 August 2007: Doctoral Student Conference at Keio
University

Notes for Abstracts
1. Abstracts and any accompanying paper should be submitted
in English using the On-Line Registration system.
2. Each abstract should contain a 250 word description of
the paper, and include details of the title, the author's
name, institutional affiliation, nationality, and
discipline, at most 5 keywords, and a panel preference
(optional). The keywords are designed to provide a guide to
the areas/issues covered by the paper, and will be used by
the Keio Organizing Committee to allocate papers to
appropriate sessions.
3. The Keio Organizing Committee will upload details of the
accepted panels on 7 December 2006 onto the conference web
page.
4. Where there is more than one author, the author
presenting the paper at the DSC should be clearly indicated
in the abstract.
5. In principle, the person presenting the paper must be a
doctoral student enrolled at a university that is a member
of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU) at the
time they submit their abstracts.
6. The Keio Organizing Committee will allow a small number
(up to around five) of doctoral students enrolled at
universities that are not members of APRU to present their
papers at the DSC conference. In this case, the papers
should have some connection to the Asian-Pacific region, and
students must provide a letter of recommendation from a
member of the faculty or department where they are enrolled.
7. If the total number of submissions exceeds 80, the Keio
Organizing Committee reserves the right to screen abstracts
on the basis of the quality of the abstract (and, if
submitted, any accompanying paper), taking into account the
need for a balance in presentations across countries,
universities, and disciplines. In the case of applications
from students enrolled at universities that are not members
of APRU, the Keio Organizing Committee will also take into
account the relationship of the paper's content to the Asian-
Pacific region, and whether there is any exchange agreement
between Keio and the student's university.
8. Abstracts that are accompanied by a full or partial paper
will be given preference in the screening process.
9. Information on the submission of full papers will be
announced later.

Notes for Panel Proposals
1. Panel Proposals should be submitted using the On-Line
Registration system.
2. You may organize a panel for the DSC of about 3 or 4
papers, which will be independent from the sessions
organized by the Keio Organizing Committee.
3. Each panel proposal should include a title for the panel
title, the organizer's name, and the details of all
presenters.
4.. Panel members should contain presenters from at least
three different universities or three disciplines.
5. It is expected that panel organizers will chair the
panels they organize, and be involved in the selection of
papers for their panels.

Correspondence
All correspondence should be directed to the International
Center of Keio University at dsc07-info at adst.keio.ac.jp

Financial Support
DSC participants will be provided with six nights of free
accommodation for the nights of 29, 30, 31 July and 1, 2, 3
August at a hotel near the Mita campus of Keio University.
No registration fees will be charged for the 8th Annual
Association of Pacific Rim Universities Doctoral Student
Conference.

Further information
For further information, please see the conference web site:
http://www.ic.keio..ac.jp/apru/index.html

XII. COUNCIL OF AMERICAN OVERSEAS RESEARCH CENTER FELLOWSHIPS
FOR ADVANCED MULTI-COUNTRY RESEARCH

Targeted Fields: Humanities. Life Sciences. Physical
Sciences. Social Sciences. School of Public Affairs.

Open To: Students Working on Doctoral Dissertation.
Postdoctoral Scholars.

Citizenship: Open only to U.S. citizens.

Eligibility Requirements: Doctoral candidates who have
completed all PhD requirements with the exception of the
dissertation, and established postdoctoral scholars.
Preference will be given to candidates examining comparative
and/or cross-cultural questions requiring research in two or
more countries.

Stipend: Stipend of up to $9,000.

Deadline: 1/12/2007

Program Description: Ten awards will be given to scholars
who wish to carry out research on broad questions of multi-
country significance. Tenure must be of at least 3 months
duration.

For More Information:
Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC)
Multi-Country Research Fellowship Program
Smithsonian Institution
P.O. Box 37012
NHB Room CE-12, MRC 178
Washington, DC 20013-7012
(202) 633-1599
fellowships at caorc.org
http://www.caorc.org/
-- 
Vinya Sysamouth, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Center for Lao Studies
www.laostudies.org


______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
951-827-4530
justinm at ucr.edu