SPAS Graduate Student Conference

Mahalo to all those who came to this year's SPAS Asian Studies Graduate Student Conference!

A big mahalo to our keynote speaker Thongchai Winichakul!

Mahalo nui to all of our panelists!

Thongchai Winichakul: Keynote Address
The Stranger: The Virtue of Intellectual Alienation
April 11, 3-5pm, Center for Korean Studies

The position/location of knowing is an important condition of the production of knowledge

in area/ Asian studies. It entails the possible politics and approaches of knowledge. But the center-
margin location is relative and relational. It is also scalar, i.e. the center of one sphere or at one scale

may be provincial to another. The dominant knowledge about Thailand produced in the country is
the royal-nationalism of Bangkok. It is, however, provincial in the global scale. It survives partly by
intellectual protectionism from the “stranger” – the alleged outsider or alien, or the alienated insider
from an intellectually odd location at home. These strangers are interlocutors across different
spheres and scales of knowledge who appear in various forms, even a clown or a ghost.

Come listen to our keynote speaker is Thogchai Winichakul at 3pm on Thursday, April 11 in the Center for Korean Studies.

Thongchai Winichakul is Emeritus Professor of History at University of Wisconsin-Madison, and currently Senior Researcher at the Institute of Developing Economies (IDE-JETRO) in Japan. His book, Siam Mapped (1994), was awarded the Harry J Benda Prize from the Association for Asian Studies (AAS, USA). He was a recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Award in 1994 and was President of the Association for Asian Studies by its members in 2013/14. His research interests are in cultural and intellectual history of Siam focusing on the intellectual foundation of modern Siam (1880-1930). His forthcoming book is, however, on the history of memories of the 1976 massacre in Bangkok, the tragedy he was a participant. He is also well-known critic of Thai political and social issues and has published six books and several articles in Thai.

Just a little over a month until the SPAS Asian Studies Graduate Student Conference.