New Books in Southeast Asian Studies Podcast
1) Localisation of Islamic Arts in Malaysia
The Malay world boasts a wealth of diverse cultures. The arrival of Islam in the Malay world during the 12th to 13th centuries permanently transformed the aesthetic landscape, and even European coloni...Show More
2) Ruth E. Toulson, "Necropolitics of the Ordinary: Death and Grieving in Contemporary Singapore" (U Washington Press, 2024)
Can a state make its people forget the dead? Cemeteries have become sites of acute political contestation in the city-state of Singapore. Confronted with high population density and rapid economic gro...Show More
3) Matthew Bowser, "Containing Decolonization: British Imperialism and the Politics of Race in Late Colonial Burma" (Manchester UP, 2025)
In Containing Decolonization: British Imperialism and the Politics of Race in Late Colonial Burma (Manchester University Press, 2025), historian Matthew Bowser examines British imperialism in late col...Show More
4) Sam Dalrymple, "Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia" (William Collins, 2025)
Partition—the rapid, uncoordinated, and bloody split between India and Pakistan after the Second World War—remains the central event of South Asian history. But 1947 wasn’t the only partition, accordi...Show More
5) Islam, Society, and Politics in Indonesia: An Interview with Robert Hefner
Today’s episode focuses on the intersection of Islam, society, and politics in Indonesia, the world’s single-largest majority Muslim country and the world’s third biggest democracy. Indonesian Islam i...Show More
6) Timothy Barnard, "Imperial Creatures: Humans and Other Animals in Colonial Singapore, 1819-1942" (NUS Press, 2019)
In Imperial Creature: Humans and Other Animals in Colonial Singapore, 1819-1942 (National University of Singapore Press, 2019), Timothy Barnard explores the more-than-human entanglements between empir...Show More
7) Robert Cribb et al., "Detention Camps in Asia: The Conditions of Confinement in Modern Asian History" (Brill, 2022)
Why have Asian states - colonial and independent - imprisoned people on a massive scale in detention camps? How have detainees experienced the long months and years of captivity? And what does the c...Show More
8) Jamie Wang, "Reimagining the More-Than-Human City: Stories from Singapore" (MIT Press, 2024)
As climate change accelerates and urbanization intensifies, our need for more sustainable and livable cities has never been more urgent. Yet, the imaginary of a flourishing urban ecofuture is often dr...Show More
9) Iban Heritage and Culture in Malaysia
Every June, there is a significant cultural event in Malaysia, which is called the Gawai Dayak Festival, highly celebrated to mark the end of the harvest season and give thanks to the Iban agricultura...Show More
10) Stuck at Home: Pandemic Immobilities in the Nation of Emigration
In this episode, we are joined by Dr Yasmin Ortiga, Associate Professor of Sociology at Singapore Management University, to speak to us about her latest book, Stuck at Home: Pandemic Immobilities in t...Show More