Join Media Studies and the Southeast Asia Program for a talk by Elmo Gonzaga, Associate Professor in the Division of Cultural Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK).

About the Talk

This talk discusses how the book Monsoon Marketplace applies an archipelagic method to trace the changing vernacular cultures of capitalist modernity, mass consumption, and media spectatorship in two Southeast Asian cities Manila and Singapore by looking at print, film, and audiovisual representations of commercial and leisure spaces including night markets, amusement parks, department stores, movie theaters, and shopping malls that captivated their populations at three important historical moments of colonial occupation in the 1930s, national development in the 1960s, and neoliberal globalization in the 2000s. Juxtaposing seemingly unrelated urban environments that have become unrecognizably and irretrievably transformed such as Calle Escolta and Raffles Place, the talk will examine lost spaces like Crystal Arcade and Change Alley, which had offered contrasting experiences of consumerism and sociality in times of upheaval.

About the Speaker

Elmo Gonzaga is Associate Professor in the Division of Cultural Studies and Director of the MA in Intercultural Studies Programme at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). He obtained his PhD in Rhetoric from the University of California, Berkeley. A native of Manila, he is a former Permanent Resident of Singapore. His work on Southeast Asian film and urban cultures has appeared in Cinema Journal, Cultural Studies, South East Asia Research, Verge: Studies in Global Asias, and the Journal of Asian Studies. He is the project leader of the Doing Theory in Southeast Asia online database, which was funded by a highly competitive Hong Kong Research Grants Council General Research Fund grant.

A simulcast film screeing and discussion, hosted by the GETESA consortium.

In conjunction with the International Decade of Indigenous Languages, GETSEA and the Bophana Center present four short films by Indigenous Cambodian filmmakers on the themes of “Healing, Memory & Care.”

Dull Trail (2020) – Directed by KHON Raksa, PEOU Mono & CHOEY Rickydavid, Bunong Language

My Wish (2021) – Directed by KASOL Sinoun, Jarai Language

Trung (2022) – Directed by Khamnhei HEA, Karvet Language

Alive Skin (2022) – Directed by Veasna OEM & Vantha RAT, Khmer Language

In-person screenings of GETSEA’s Simulcast Film Screening with the Bophana Center will be held at the universities across North America. Each university will connect via Zoom with the film makers located at the Bophana Center in Phnom Penh, Cambodia for introductions and a post-screening discussion of the films. Meanwhile, a virtual screening will be available for viewers across the globe at KhmerTV.com. Virtual-only viewers will also be able to join the in-person screening locations for the post-screening discussion with the film makers via Zoom.

RSVP HERE: https://cglink.me/2ee/r2262810

Indonesian Night 2024, brought to you by the Indonesian Association at Cornell (IAC), is an annual celebration aimed at showcasing the vibrant cultural heritage of Indonesia to the Cornell community. This event is a unique opportunity to dive into Indonesia's diverse traditions and arts, completely free of charge. Attendees will be treated to an evening filled with performances that highlight traditional Indonesian musical instruments, including a special performance by the Cornell Gamelan Ensemble, dance by our very own student members, cultural exhibits, and a vast selection of Indonesian cuisine including coffee, offering an authentic taste of the country's rich cultural tapestry.

In anticipation of this cultural gala, the Cornell Chimes will enchant the campus with a medley of Indonesian songs on the Friday before the main event.

Are you a first-time attendee of the Association for Asian Studies annual meeting? A PhD student or early career researcher with questions about how AAS works, how to navigate such a large event, and how to build community with people who share your interests?

Join the GETSEA consortium for an informal discussion with Tom Pepinsky (Cornell), Trude Jacobsen Gidaszewski (NIU), and Nida Sanglimsuwan (UCLA) about the ins-and-outs of the AAS for students and scholars of Southeast Asia.

Keynote address of the 26th SEAP Graduate Student Conference.

With its recent hit series Cigarette Girl, Netflix is shoring up its market position in Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country. Based on a novel by Ratih Kumala, Cigarette Girl weaves a tale of romantic family and business intrigue against a historical backdrop of postcolonial nationalism, political violence, and tobacco industry growth. Examining what Cigarette Girl reveals and conceals about the past, I argue that the series reproduces commodity nationalist aesthetics, fantasies, and ideologies that frame the clove cigarette (kretek) as indigenous cultural heritage. By centering the hand-rolled kretek and Javanese business rivalries, Cigarette Girl obscures how machine-rolled kretek and Chinese Indonesian families actually dominate the market. As the series grapples with other unresolved historical issues, including class and gender inequalities, the 1965/6 massacres, the military occupation of West Papua, and Indonesia’s tobacco-related disease epidemic, it also arrives at politically conservative conclusions.

Marina Welker is an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at Cornell University. She is the author of Enacting the Corporation: An American Mining Firm in Postauthoritarian Indonesia (University of California Press, 2014) and Kretek Capitalism: Making, Marketing, and Consuming Clove Cigarettes in Indonesia (University of California Press, 2024).