South Asia is experiencing rising authoritarianism. The targets of right-wing movements are progressive forces who are increasingly viewed as outsiders threatening the imagined purity of the nation. The label of “foreign agent” is now widely invoked against political opponents who are accused of sedition. The sedition law was formulated and used by the British against anti-colonial activists. On the other hand, popular sovereignty was established in confrontation with Empire, creating an insurgent and rebellious conception of “the people”.

As someone who is under trial for sedition in Lahore, I witnessed how this law became a weapon in the hands of the state to silence internal dissent. Today, it is being used against academics, journalists, students and trade unionists to suppress critical voices. Contestations over the meaning of sedition and patriotism are at the heart of political struggles in contemporary Pakistan.

I explore three consequences for political theory emanating from discussions on sedition. First, I argue that foreignness does not denote geographical belonging but is a metaphor to describe those exceeding the normative frameworks of power. Second, the category of the internal “enemy” always maintained a subterranean existence in liberal political theory. This repressed history of violence and erasure becomes central for understanding politics in Pakistan. Finally, the criminalizing of dissent and dismantling of popular power impacts our understanding of sovereignty. The permanent state of emergency in Pakistan not only targets the category of “the people” but also undermines the concept of the sacred in the country’s polity, triggering a crisis of legitimation for the state.

Ammar Ali Jan is an academic and activist based in Lahore. He completed his Masters from the University of Chicago and his PhD in History from the University of Cambridge. His doctoral research was titled “A Study of Communist Thought in Colonial India, 1919-1951” in which he examined the relationship between European and anti-colonial political thought. Instead of viewing the non-European world as a passive recipient of European ideas, this work showed how political actors in the colonial world reframed the contours of modern political theory as a response to specific questions emanating from anti-colonial struggles.

Upon his return to Pakistan in 2016, Jan began teaching in public sector universities, became involved in the student and trade union movement, and started writing a weekly column for The News International. He was eventually fired from his position and charged with sedition as part of a crackdown against dissenting voices. Currently he is a member of the Haqooq-e-Khalq Movement (People’s Rights Movement), Cabinet Member of the Progressive International and does a weekly show on NayaDaur. His forthcoming book is titled Rule by Fear: Eight Thesis on Authoritarianism in Pakistan.

Part of the Ronald and Janette Gatty Lecture Series.

William Noseworthy, Visiting Fellow, Cornell SEAP

Dr. Noseworthy is a Visiting Fellow with the Southeast Asia Program (SEAP) at Cornell University. He is a social historian of Southeast Asia who has completed most of his fieldwork and archival work to-date in Cambodia and Vietnam. In Southeast Asia, he benefited from being one of the many students in Vietnam trained in Cham language and script by the great Gru Hajan (Dr. Thành Phần) and Gru Sakaya (Dr. Trương Văn Món), as well as from a term as a Senior Research Fellow with the Center for Khmer Studies. He has also been an SSRC-Global Residential Fellow at Gottingen University in Germany and previously received his PhD from UW-Madison's Department of History.

For questions, please contact seapgatty@cornell.edu.

Gatty Lectures will be held in-person at the Kahin Center, with the option to attend virtually as well. To attend virtually, please register at https://cornell.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIrdeCprDkrGtHSzLD3ESseNvJrOv…?

In accordance with university event guidance, all campus visitors who are 12 years old or older must also present a photo ID, as well as proof of vaccination for COVID-19 or results of a recent negative COVID-19 test. If you are not currently participating in the Cornell campus vaccination/testing program, please bring proof of vaccination or the results of a recent negative test. More information on acceptable documentation is available here.

Part of the Ronald and Janette Gatty Lecture Series.

Hanisah Sani, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore

Hanisah Abdullah Sani is a comparative-historical sociologist of empire and state-formation, modernization, and development. Her research lies in the intersection of law and society, religion and politics, and social change; and she specializes in the colonial and modern histories of the Malay world and Southeast Asia. Dr. Sani received her PhD in sociology from the University of Chicago in 2019, and was a Visiting Associate at the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies at the University of Michigan from 2019-21. She was a National University of Singapore Overseas Graduate Scholar and Overseas Postdoctoral Fellow, where she is currently faculty member in Malay Studies at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

For questions, please contact seapgatty@cornell.edu.

Gatty Lectures will be held in-person at the Kahin Center, with the option to attend virtually as well. To attend virtually, please register at https://cornell.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJArduyoqzstEtwmPHhgHmsMS1nbIZ….

In accordance with university event guidance, all campus visitors who are 12 years old or older must also present a photo ID, as well as proof of vaccination for COVID-19 or results of a recent negative COVID-19 test. If you are not currently participating in the Cornell campus vaccination/testing program, please bring proof of vaccination or the results of a recent negative test. More information on acceptable documentation is available here.

Part of the Ronald and Janette Gatty Lecture Series.

Please note that this talk will not be held in person at the Kahin Center, and will take place on Zoom. Members of the SEAP community are welcome to come to the Kahin Center to watch the Zoom event together.

Will Smith, Alfred Deakin Institute for Globalization and Citizenship, Deakin University, Australia

Will Smith is an anthropologist and human geographer whose research is focused on human-forest interfaces, the social dimensions of agricultural production, and the politics of indigenous knowledge in both Australia and upland Southeast Asia. His current research is focused on the illegal wildlife trade in the Philippines and conservation-based solutions to zoonotic disease emergence.

For questions, please contact seapgatty@cornell.edu.

To attend virtually, please register at https://cornell.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJErcuyvqDwrGdUzm_nO7lx6bSgc3D….

In accordance with university event guidance, all campus visitors who are 12 years old or older must also present a photo ID, as well as proof of vaccination for COVID-19 or results of a recent negative COVID-19 test. If you are not currently participating in the Cornell campus vaccination/testing program, please bring proof of vaccination or the results of a recent negative test. More information on acceptable documentation is available here.

Part of the Ronald and Janette Gatty Lecture Series. ***This event is open to current Cornell NetID users only***

Kyaw Yin Hlaing, Center for Diversity and National Harmony

Dr. Kyaw Yin Hlaing is the executive director at the Center for Diversity and National Harmony. He earned M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Cornell University, and has taught at the City University of Hong Kong and the National University of Singapore. He is a former Advisor to President U Thein Sein, a former member of the National Economic and Social Council, and a former director of the political dialogue program at the Myanmar Peace Center. He has published four edited volumes and more than 50 articles and reports on Myanmar politics and society. His research and teaching interests include state- and nation-building, authoritarian politics, democratization, state-society relations, social movements, communal problems, and peace building. He is currently researching what has gone wrong with Myanmar’s democratic transition.

For questions, please contact seapgatty@cornell.edu.

Gatty Lectures will be held in-person at the Kahin Center, with the option to attend virtually as well. To attend virtually, please register at https://cornell.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIrcuyrrj0sHNNVeTzq4duFI-pfRm….

In accordance with university event guidance, all campus visitors who are 12 years old or older must also present a photo ID, as well as proof of vaccination for COVID-19 or results of a recent negative COVID-19 test. If you are not currently participating in the Cornell campus vaccination/testing program, please bring proof of vaccination or the results of a recent negative test. More information on acceptable documentation is available here.

Part of the Ronald and Janette Gatty Lecture Series.

Amy Liu, Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin

Amy Liu (PhD Emory University; BA Smith College) is an associate professor in the Government Department and codirector of the Politics of Race and Ethnicity Lab at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research and teaching focus on the intersection of ethnic politics, language politics, and migration politics. Her first book Standardizing Diversity: The Political Economy of Language Regimes (2015, University of Pennsylvania) examines how the recognition of lingua francas can be conducive for economic growth – in Asia generally and in Southeast Asia specifically. Her second book The Language of Political Incorporation: Chinese Migrants in Europe (2021, Temple University Press) looks at the linguistic networks of Chinese migrants and the implications for engagement with local authorities in Europe. She is working on a new book project examining the diversity and representation of government cabinets. Liu is the current chair of the APSA Southeast Asian Politics Research Group, a member of the leadership board for Women in Southeast Asian Social Sciences, and on the advisory council for the Center for Taiwan Studies.

For questions, please contact seapgatty@cornell.edu.

Please note that this talk will not be held in person at the Kahin Center, and will take place on Zoom. Members of the SEAP community are welcome to come to the Kahin Center to watch the Zoom event together. To attend virtually, please register at https://cornell.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0qc-qsqT8oGtOd0Kz8y6htLhRZIp….

Part of the Ronald and Janette Gatty Lecture Series. ***This event is open to current Cornell NetID users only***

Nay Yan Oo, Visiting Scholar, The Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University

Nay Yan Oo is a visiting scholar in the Southeast Asia Program (SEAP) at Cornell University. He previously worked as a technical advisor for the Governance Program at The Asia Foundation in Myanmar, a resident fellow at the Pacific Forum in Hawaii, and a Program Manager at the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom in Yangon. He ran for the Myanmar parliament in the 2020 election from the People’s Party and exposed several scandals of the National League for Democracy government (2016-20). He has a Master of Public Policy from the University of Oxford and an MA in Political Science from Northern Illinois University. His research interests include the politics of Myanmar, civil-military relations, democratization, civil service reform, and political parties and elections. He is the founder and host of Trends in Myanmar – a political talk show. In Ithaca, he is living with Dr. Rachel Safman’s family (a SEAP alumnus and PhD in Sociology, ’02).

For questions, please contact seapgatty@cornell.edu.

Gatty Lectures will be held in-person at the Kahin Center, with the option to attend virtually as well. To attend virtually, please register at https://cornell.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMpcuugpjsuGtHBEbUmkZ6me3g9Dl….

Part of the Ronald and Janette Gatty Lecture Series.

Geoffrey Robinson, Department of History, UCLA

Geoffrey Robinson is a Professor of History at UCLA, where he teaches and writes about political violence, genocide, and human rights, especially in Southeast Asia. His major works include: The Dark Side of Paradise: Political Violence in Bali; East Timor 1999: Crimes against Humanity; If You Leave Us Here, We Will Die: How Genocide Was Stopped in East Timor; and The Killing Season: A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965-66. Robinson earned his BA at McGill University and his PhD at Cornell, where he was a student of Benedict Anderson and George Kahin. Before coming to UCLA in 1997, he worked for six years at Amnesty International’s Research Department in London, and in 1999 he served as a Political Affairs Officer with the United Nations in East Timor. His current projects include a co-authored visual history of the mass violence of 1965-66 in Indonesia; and a study of the “Swedish Connection” to those events.

For questions, please contact seapgatty@cornell.edu.

Gatty Lectures will be held in-person at the Kahin Center, with the option to attend virtually as well. To attend virtually, please register at https://cornell.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcpduqoqDotG9E2aXkRLcYonZdd0V….

Part of the Ronald and Janette Gatty Lecture Series.

Andrew Weintraub, Department of Music, University of Pittsburgh

Andrew N. Weintraub is Professor of Music at the University of Pittsburgh, where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in ethnomusicology and popular music and directs the University Gamelan program. He is the author of Power Plays (2004) and Dangdut Stories (2010), editor of Islam and Popular Culture in Indonesia and Malaysia (2011), and co-editor of Music and Cultural Rights (2008) and Vamping the Stage (2017). Weintraub is the founder and lead singer of the Dangdut Cowboys, a Pittsburgh-based band that plays Indonesian popular music.

For questions, please contact seapgatty@cornell.edu.

Please note that this talk will not be held in person at the Kahin Center, and will take place on Zoom. Members of the SEAP community are welcome to come to the Kahin Center to watch the Zoom event together. To attend virtually, please register at https://cornell.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAocOqrrDktHNPFkrd24i3ECyRoEs….

Beverages will be served outside before the talk, and in accordance with current Cornell guidance we will be wearing masks indoors. Feel free to bring your own brownbag lunch and eat outside with us before the talk.

Part of the Ronald and Janette Gatty Lecture Series.

Sandy Chang, Department of History, University of Florida

Sandy F. Chang is an assistant professor in Modern Asian History at the University of Florida. She specializes in Chinese migration, gender, and sexuality studies in Southeast Asia and the British Empire. Her scholarly areas of interest also include global China, inter-Asian connections, modern border regimes, women’s history, and comparative colonialisms. She is currently working on a book project, Across the South Seas: Gender, Intimacy, and Chinese Migration to British Malaya, 1877-1941 that explores the border-crossing journeys of over a million Chinese women and their intimate lives across the Malay Peninsula. She received her PhD from the University of Texas at Austin.

For questions, please contact seapgatty@cornell.edu.

Gatty Lectures will be held in-person at the Kahin Center, with the option to attend virtually as well. To attend virtually, please register at https://cornell.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJArdOuhrDkpHNx7g2ky3ZfuJ_N1ej….

Beverages will be served outside before the talk, and in accordance with current Cornell guidance we will be wearing masks indoors. Feel free to bring your own brownbag lunch and eat outside with us before the talk.