Keynote address of the 27th SEAP Graduate Student Conference.

This talk, drawing upon years of fieldwork in Malaysia and South India has two main aims: First, in questioning the mobility and translatability of biomedical interventions given cultural conceptions of self, spirit, and wellness, I ask to what extent cultural difference really matters, as some have argued for South and Southeast Asia? Second, I query the extent to which mobility, modernity, and madness are inextricably linked, problematizing the very construction of inside and outside forces as sometimes naturalized by anthropologists, healers, and clinicians when writing on mental health, particularly when concerning spirit possession, that most “traditional” of afflictions. This binary, in turn, has effaced the complex entanglements of difference and difference-making, the heterodox and power-laden values that posit binaries by those powerful and vulnerable alike, albeit with different stakes. I argue that mobility and immobility within symbolic and semantic registers also matters, along with geographic and social mobility.

Andrew C. Willford is a professor of anthropology and Asian studies at Cornell University. His latest book, The Future of Bangalore’s Cosmopolitan Pasts: Civility and Difference in a Global City (University of Hawaii, 2018) examines the politics of language, religion, identity, and belonging in Bangalore, India. His previous research focused on forms of Tamil and Hindu displacement, revivalism, and identity politics in Malaysia.

The conference schedule is available here.

More details are also available on the conference website here.

A full packet with information about all papers being presented is available here.

How is Southeast Asia animated and made to move? Who crosses boundaries, who stays still, and what jams, messes, conscriptions, and inscriptions are we bound to?

Resisting both dreams of frictionless passage and fantasies of fixed origins, the theme of the 27th SEAP Graduate Student Conference waves in reflections on mobility and its constraints. We await explorations of that which is trans (-national, -Pacific, -imperial, -gressive) or in trans (-ition, -mission, -lation). We welcome interrogations on that which is mobile yet clandestine, unintended, or interrupted. What kinetic energies are released by diasporas in seeds, chemicals, finances, and tastes? What constitutes the motion in activist, insurgent, protest, or resistance movements, and who moves against the movers? What disturbed temporalities, what uncertain spatialities, what contingent choreographies are produced by the travel of soldiers, pollutants, scientists, viruses, and images of young hippos in Thai zoos?

Moo Deng and we invite submissions which agitate stagnant pools of nationality and syncopate staid rhythms of history. Viewing the academy itself as a site of stupor, we also welcome scholarship which unsettles the heavy dust of area studies.

The 27th SEAP Graduate Student Conference will be held on March 7-9, 2025 at Cornell University’s George McT. Kahin Center for Advanced Research on Southeast Asia in Ithaca, New York.

Please direct any questions to seapgatty@cornell.edu

The Southeast Asia Program presents in coordination with Cornell Cinema, "Song Lang".

About the Film:

Set against the lush, golden world of 1980s Saigon, Leon Le’s debut feature film follows a blossoming relationship between debt collector Dung (Lien Binh Phat) and folk opera singer Linh Phung (played by Vietnamese pop star Isaac). In a chance encounter while collecting payment from a local troupe, Dung is unexpectedly drawn to Linh Phung, captivated by the singer’s passion for cải lương, also known as reformed theatre. As their paths intertwine, initial misunderstandings fade, and Dung’s stoic veneer begins to melt, revealing a deeper, unspoken yearning. Beneath the curtains of a fading, once-glorious art form, Song Lang reveals the unfolding desires of two men, the stage that frames them, and the stillness that lingers between their glances.

"Song Lang" refers to a wooden, tempo-keeping instrument used in Vietnamese folk opera, cải lương, also referred to as reformed theatre. In Sino-Vietnamese, the term "Song Lang" can also mean "two gentlemen" or "two wolves."

Directed by Vietnamese American filmmaker Leon Le, Song Lang offers a nostalgic ode to Vietnamese folk opera and a contemplative reflection on quiet intimacy and unlikely bonds.

About the Series:

Join us for a two-part screening series offering tender glimpses into queerness centered on East and Southeast Asian contexts. Seen through the eyes of diasporic directors—Cambodian British Hong Khaou and Vietnamese American Leon Le—Lilting and Song Lang weave delicate, lyrical narratives to contemplate unexpected connections. Both debut feature films speak not only to the happenstance of those who enter our lives but also to the ephemerality of these relationships.

This series celebrates queer Asian filmmakers who employ cinematic language to traverse difficult spaces, reminding us of the playful gestures that films can offer to resituate our understanding of presence and absence, of memory and healing, and of intimacy and unspoken emotions.

Featuring:
Lilting (2014, dir. Hong Khaou)
Wednesday, March 5, at 6pm
Song Lang (2018, dir. Leon Le)
Wednesday, March 12, at 6pm

Sponsored by the East Asia Program and the Southeast Asia Program at the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies and co-presented by QGrads, Cornell’s LGBTQIA2S+ Graduate Student Association.

Free Admission! Part of our “Love, Loss, and Longing” series. Courtesy of Breaking Glass Pictures. In Vietnamese with English subtitles.