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Previous Conferences

25th Cornell SEAP Graduate Student Conference

March 10-12, 2023

Chairs: Tamar Law & Timothy Ravis

The Graduate Student Conference was held March 10-12, 2023 in a hybrid format. The theme for the 25th conference was Crossing Boundaries, Sustaining Connections. This year’s theme called for the reflection on our positions as scholars of Southeast Asia. We make our own field, but we do not make it as we please. Climate change, authoritarian revanchism, pandemics, political polarization, new modes of association—these are problems that demand the adaptation of old tools for new ends. 

Associate Professor of Anthropology, Magnus Fiskesjö, delivered the keynote address, titled “Cambodia’s Stolen Heritage: A Global Drama," which explored the significance that the repatriation of stolen Cambodia art has on concept of world heritage and nationalism.

24th Cornell SEAP Graduate Student Conference

March 11-13, 2022

Chairs: Brian Sengdala & Nikita Sukmono

The Graduate Student Conference was held March 11-13, 2022 in a hybrid format, returning back to a sense of normality while catering to the opportunity to bring together participants and attendees from all over the world. 

The theme for the 24th conference was (De)constructing Southeast Asia. A theme that thought about the dynamic ways we come to, work with, and move from the region as a constructed space. With these considerations, (De)Constructing Southeast Asia is an inquiry which brings these strands together, tugs at them, or perhaps pulls them apart. Senior Lecturer in Music, Christopher J. Miler, delivered the keynote address, titled “(Re)Producing Knowledge: Gamelan and Southeast Asian Music within and without Academe," asking how musical Southeast Asianists contributes to the construction of Southeast Asia and also calling for the inclusion of those from in, around, and outside academia in the study of Indonesian music. 

23rd Cornell SEAP Graduate Student Conference

March 19-21, 2021

Anna Koshcheeva & Kara Guse

The Graduate Student Conference was held March 19-21, 2021 online, catering to the opportunity to bring together participants and attendees from all over the world, and powered by SEAP web-platforms.

The theme for the 23rd conference was Links and Fractures. A theme that ties in the physical limitations arising from COVID-19 that have produced severe economic and personal fractures, to the patterns that have long existed before COVID-19 in Southeast Asia, arising out of historical processes of colonization and decolonization, religion, commodity and cultural exchanges, migration, language, information technology, economic expansion, social unrest, political upheaval, and more. Assistant Professor at Cornell University, Juno Salazar Parreñas, delivered the keynote address, titled "Fracture or Linked? Southeast Asia after Area Studies Died," diving into the significance and resilience of Southeast Asian Studies as it links what may feel like fractured engagements with planetary problems.