Knowing Southeast Asian Subjects

The essays in Knowing Southeast Asian Subjects ask how the rising preponderance of scholarship from Southeast Asia is de-centering Southeast Asian area studies in the United States. The contributions address recent transformations within the field and new directions for research, pedagogy, and institutional cooperation.

Contributions from the perspectives of history, anthropology, cultural studies, political theory, and libraries pose questions ranging from how a concern with postcolonial and feminist questions of identity might reorient the field to how anthropological work on civil society and Islam in Southeast Asia provides an opportunity for comparative political theorists to develop more sophisticated analytic approaches. A vision common to all the contributors is the potential of area studies to produce knowledge outside a global academic framework that presumes the privilege and even hegemony of Euro-American academic trends and scholars.

Laurie J. Sears is professor of history at the University of Washington. The other contributors are Carlo Bonura, George Dutton, Judith A. N. Henchy, Ariel Heryanto, and Celia Lowe.

Preface

Introduction: Knowledges That Travel in Southeast Asian Area Studies / Carlo Bonura and Laurie J. Sears

Part One | Southeast Asian Subjects

1. Postcolonial Identities, Feminist Criticism, and Southeast Asian Studies / Laurie J. Sears

2. Can There Be Southeast Asians in Southeast Asian Studies? / Ariel Heryanto

3. Recognizing Scholarly Subjects: Collaboration, Area Studies, and the Politics of Nature / Celia Lowe

Part Two | Collaborations, Collections, Disciplines

4. Southeast Asian Studies in the United States and Southeast Asia: Missing Links / George Dutton

5. Disciplining Knowledge: Representing Resources for Southeast Asian Studies in the Libraries of the U.S. Academy / Judith A. N. Henchy

6. Political Science, the Anxiety of Interdisciplinary Engagement, and Southeast Asian Studies / Carlo Bonura

Bibliography

Notes on Contributors

Index