Southeast Asia Program
Abby Cohn

Professor, Linguistics
Abby Cohn is a professor of linguistics and Southeast Asian studies. Her research interests include the Austronesian languages of Indonesia, with a particular focus on their phonetics, phonology, and morphology.
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Andrea Bachner

Professor, Comparative Literature
Andrea Bachner is a professor of comparative literature. She was the director of the East Asia Program for the term 2019-22 and a member of the East Asia Program steering committee and the CEAS editorial board.
She holds an MA from Munich University, Germany, and a PhD from Harvard University. Her research explores comparative intersections between Sinophone, Latin American, and European cultural productions in dialogue with theories of interculturality, sexuality, and mediality.
Additional Information
Program
Role
- Faculty
- EAP Core Faculty
- SEAP Faculty Associate
Contact
Email: asb76@cornell.edu
Phone: 607-255-6795
Eric Tagliacozzo

Director, Comparative Muslim Societies Program and Southeast Asia Program
Eric Tagliacozzo is the John Stambaugh Professor of History at Cornell University. He is the director of the Einaudi Center's Comparative Muslim Societies Program and Southeast Asia Program, and a core faculty member of the Southeast Asia Program and South Asia Program.
His research centers on the history of people, ideas, and material in motion in and around Southeast Asia, especially in the late colonial age.
Geographic Research Area: Southeast Asia, South Asia
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Program
Role
- Faculty
- CMSP Director
- SAP Core Faculty
- SEAP Core Faculty
- SEAP Director
- Einaudi Faculty Leadership
- Executive Committee
Contact
Email: et54@cornell.edu
GETSEA Receives $1 Million Luce Grant

Led by Southeast Asia Program
The Graduate Education and Training in Southeast Asian Studies (GETSEA) consortium has been awarded a $1 million grant.
Launched in 2020, GETSEA is a national consortium dedicated to advancing Southeast Asian studies through resource sharing, coordinated programming, and developing innovative ways to support graduate students across U.S. institutions. The four-year Henry Luce Foundation grant supports the creation of an adaptive infrastructure to sustain the field amid mounting federal challenges.
Current partner institutions include the University of California–Berkeley; University of California–Los Angeles; University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa; University of Michigan; Northern Illinois University; University of Washington; and University of Wisconsin–Madison. GETSEA partners hope to expand the consortium to include other institutions actively engaged in graduate education in Southeast Asian studies.
Grant principal investigator Abigail Cohn, professor of linguistics in the College of Arts and Sciences and a founding member of GETSEA, said, “I am gratified by this very tangible recognition of the work and collaborative framework that GETSEA has accomplished, and I look forward to furthering these innovative collaborations over the life of the grant and beyond, especially as we navigate a new era beyond Title VI.”
Since its inception, GETSEA has launched a suite of virtual initiatives, including graduate mini-courses, professional development workshops, a simulcast documentary screening series, and collaborative programming designed to support early-career scholars and sustain language and regional expertise. With the new funding, the consortium will deepen these efforts, expand access to shared resources and courses, and build new pathways for interdisciplinary research and training.
SEAP is part of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, Cornell’s hub for global area and thematic studies. Area studies programs in the United States are under increasing pressure as universities face budget constraints, federal funding cuts, and critiques from both ends of the political spectrum. At the same time, the need for deep regional expertise has never been greater.
“The Luce grant not only recognizes Cornell’s leadership in Southeast Asian studies, but also supports a project that should serve as a model for programs focused on other regional areas,” said Einaudi Center director Ellen Lust. “It fosters collaboration across the country and shows the power of working together in the face of increased constraints.”
As universities confront questions about the value of global research, GETSEA’s new phase represents an opportunity to create a model for sustaining capacity in the most rarely taught languages and provide meaningful networking opportunities for early-career scholars as teaching modalities shift.
Founded in 1950, SEAP is one of the oldest and most distinguished centers for Southeast Asian studies in the United States. As GETSEA’s administrator, SEAP will take a leading role in charting the future of area studies.
For 160 years, Cornell has carried out groundbreaking international work that turns bold ideas into solutions and improves lives abroad and in the United States. Learn more from Global Cornell about why international research matters—for national security, competitiveness, public health, and education.
The Henry Luce Foundation seeks to deepen knowledge and understanding in pursuit of a more democratic and just world. Established in 1936 by Henry R. Luce, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Time, Inc., the Luce Foundation advances its mission by nurturing knowledge communities and institutions, fostering dialogue across divides, enriching public discourse, amplifying diverse voices, and investing in leadership development.
Additional Information
Program
New Book on Global Democratic Erosion

Inspired by Einaudi Conferences
The collection is edited by DTR faculty lead Ken Roberts (LACS), Valerie Bunce (IES), Tom Pepinsky (SEAP), and Rachel Beatty Riedl (IAD).
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WRFI Talks to Magnus Fiskesjö about Chinese Students Studying in the U.S.

Magnus Fiskesjö, EAP/PACS/SEAP
Magnus Fiskesjö talks about Chinese students studying in the United States who continue to be under surveillance of their own home government, punished if they try to speak against it, and sometimes even forced to spy for it.
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Peace, Security, and U.S. Presence in the World

September 4, 2025
12:00 pm
Clark Hall, 700
U.S. foreign policies are changing dramatically, with profound implications for peace and security throughout the world. The administration of Donald J. Trump has broken with many decades of precedent by expressing sharp criticism of NATO and historical allies, while expressing admiration for historic adversaries such as Russia. U.S. support for Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion has wavered, with Trump even suggesting that Ukraine rather than Russia is to blame for the conflict. U.S. humanitarian aid to many of the world’s most needy people has ended or been sharply reduced. Changes in migration policy are also placing many groups at heightened risk of political violence. The administration has bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities, acting in violation of international law and suggesting a preference for military action over diplomacy. And changes in trade policy, particularly with China, have the potential to reshape military capabilities and alliances around the world.
These changes raise several questions. Is the re-arming of Europe a necessary bulwark against an expansionist Russia, or a new arms race that encourages nuclear proliferation and increases the risk of war? Will the cancellation of humanitarian aid encourage other nations to increase their capacity, or simply leave the world’s most vulnerable people without hope? What other nations might step in to fill the vacuum left by the loss of such aid, and will these nations be more or less exploitative than the United States? How will changing U.S. policies affect regional security alliances, for example between Russia and China? This panel will provide perspectives on how recent changes to foreign policy are likely to affect issues of peace and security in several regions around the world.
Panelists
Jok Madut Jok, Professor of Anthropology, Syracuse University
Jok’s areas of specialization include security, governance, democracy and development in South Sudan and Sudan. He has also written extensively about gender, sexuality and reproductive health, humanitarian aid, ethnography of political violence, gender-based violence, and war and slavery and the politics of identity in South Sudan and Sudan. He is the author of Breaking Sudan: The Search for Peace (Oneworld Publications, 2017), Sudan: Race, Religion and Violence (One World Publication, 2007), War and Slavery in Sudan (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), and Militarization, Gender and Reproductive Health in South Sudan (Edwin Mellen Press, 1998). He also co-edited The Sudan Handbook (with J. Willis, J. Ryle and S. Baldo, James Currey, 2011). Before joining Maxwell he was visiting professor of anthropology at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Linacre College. He also served in the government of South Sudan as undersecretary in the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, 2010-13. He is the founding director of the Sudd Institute, a public policy research center.
Kaija E. Schilde, Associate Professor of International Studies, Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University
Professor Schilde’s research focuses on the political economy of security, with a particular emphasis on defense industry politics and the political development of the European Union. In July 2021 she was named Acting Director of BU’s Center for the Study of Europe and in January 2022 she received the Jean Monnet Chair in European Security and Defense. Her book, The Political Economy of European Security (Cambridge University Press, 2017) investigates the state-society relations between the EU and interest groups, with a particular focus on security and defense institutions, industries, and markets. Her research interests span multiple dimensions of the historical institutionalism of security organizations, including the causes and consequences of military spending; the relationship between spending, innovation, and capabilities; defense reform and force transformation; the politics of defense protectionism; and the international diffusion of internal and border security practices.
Zheng Wang, Professor at the School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University
Professor Wang’s research interests lie in three closely connected areas: (1) identity-based conflicts, nationalism, and the politics of historical memory; (2) peace and conflict management in East Asia, with a special focus on China’s rise and its impact on regional peace and security; (3) foreign-domestic linkages in Chinese politics and foreign relations. He is the author of Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations (Columbia University Press, 2012), which received the International Studies Association’s Yale H. Ferguson Award in 2013. He is also author of Memory Politics, Identity and Conflict: Historical Memory as a Variable (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) and editor of COVID-19 and U.S.-China Relations (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024). He is currently under contract with the Oxford University Press to write a book about the rise of nationalism and populism and the crises in the US-China relations. He is Director of the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPCS) at Seton Hall University.
Diego Chaves-González, Senior Manager for Latin America and Caribbean Initiative, Migration Policy Institute
Chaves-González’s research focuses on forced displacement, legal pathways, integration, migration and development, and regional cooperation in migration management. He previously worked for the World Bank and the United Nations. While at the World Bank, he helped expand the scope of the Global Concessional Financing Facility (GCFF). He also co-authored the 2019, 2020, and 2021 GCFF annual reports, and helped coordinate the Secretary of the Multilateral Development Bank platform. While working for the United Nations, Mr. Chaves-González initiated a platform in Colombia to coordinate the work of UN agencies, NGOs, and their partners in response to migrant and refugee situations. He also helped develop a strategy to involve victims of conflict and internally displaced persons in the peace deal negotiations that ended Colombia’s civil war. Chaves-González also played an essential role as a presidential advisor in the registration and regularization of 500,000 migrants in Colombia and helped provide advice on how to structure similar initiatives in Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Peru. Since the start of the Venezuelan crisis, he has assisted Latin American governments in developing policies to integrate arriving migrants and refugees into receiving communities, accommodating both newcomer and local needs.
Additional Information
Program
Einaudi Center for International Studies
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
East Asia Program
Southeast Asia Program
Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Institute for African Development
Institute for European Studies
South Asia Program
Migrations Program
Off the Main Road in Siem Reap

A reflective field note from CU in Cambodia, January 2025.
Hello everyone! You are hearing from both Cindy and Maya today about our only free day in Cambodia.
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SEALC-GETSEA Language Tuition Support Application 2025-2026

Application Deadline July 14
With support from the Henry Luce Foundation, the Southeast East Asian Language Council (SEALC) and the Graduate Education and Training in Southeast Asian Studies (GETSEA) consortia awards financial assistance to students who incur tuition fees when studying a Southeast Asian language via synchronous distance learning during the academic year at an institution other than their home institution.
This award is intended to facilitate cross-institutional collaboration and increase access to Southeast Asian language instruction. Eligibility requires that the proficiency-oriented course is credit-bearing at a North American institution and that the applicant is a full-time student at a North American institution. Priority will be given to graduate students, but all are encouraged to apply. SEALC and GETSEA encourage applicants to consider attending the Southeast Asian Studies Summer Institute (SEASSI) which serves as an excellent resource for summer language instruction. This award is intended to improve access during the academic year so that students can obtain multi-year instruction in a timely manner.
What does the assistance cover?
The award provides tuition reimbursement, minus a modest contribution from the student, for synchronous distance learning of a SE Asian language taught by a lecturer at a North American institution. Applications for tutoring arrangements or courses taught by FLTAs will not be accepted.
Application Deadline: The deadline for the 2025 – 26 academic year is July 14, 2025. Applications will only be considered complete once the SEALC has received 1) the online application and 2) a letter of recommendation from the applicant’s advisor, submitted via email to southeastasialanguagecouncil@gmail.com. Please direct your questions to southeastasialanguagecouncil@gmail.com.
Link to Application: tinyurl.com/getsealc25
Additional Information
Exposed - Forthcoming

Exposed tells the story of the orchestrated mass violence of 1965–1968 in Indonesia and its aftermat. By highlighting visual imagery, Geoffrey Robinson and Douglas Kammen fill a void in existing accounts, challenge distorted official narratives, and establish a basis on which new social memories and interpretations might be formed.
Book
53.95
Additional Information
Program
Type
- Book
Publication Details
Publication Year: 2025
ISBN: 9781501780592