Planning for study abroad? No matter how you identify or where you're studying, early planning is the key to a successful study abroad experience.

Join us for a facilitated discussion with fellow students about navigating your intersectional identities while studying abroad. A panel of returned study abroad students will share their experiences, knowledge, and advice for expressing your whole self in a different culture. This is a great opportunity to ask questions and think about your identity in a new context—outside the norms of Cornell, your hometown, or your home country.

This global freedom of expression event is an opportunity to explore critical issues related to free expression of your identity and how you encounter the world. As a student abroad, you have a deeply personal chance to experience cultural exchange, collaborate productively in a global context, and have challenging conversations while staying true to yourself—all vital skills for successful participation in democracy.

The Office of Global Learning is here to help as you think about your identity in a global context, learn about new norms and ways of life, and find the support you need.

In-Person Event

Attend the panel in Statler Hall 165

The Geopolitics of Empire and Espionage

Alfred "Al" William McCoy, the Fred Harvey Harrington Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, will focus on the interplay between geopolitics and individual historical actors, explaining how geopolitical ruptures in hegemonic control during the Cold War created a momentary void in the world order that allowed a latter-day “man on the spot” the autonomy to put his fingerprints on the crime scenes of this global conflict.

Instead of the gentlemen adventurers like James Brooke and T.E. Lawrence of the British imperial age for whom the term was coined, our Cold War analogues are usually covert operatives. Like Africa, Southeast Asia during postwar decolonization abounds in these characters, so my talk will present the general thesis and some case studies from Southeast Asia—the region where the most famous, and notorious, of these figures first appeared.”

This seminar is part of the Gatty Lecture Series.

About the speaker
Alfred "Al" William McCoy is an American historian and educator. He is the Fred Harvey Harrington Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He specializes in the history of the Philippines, foreign policy of the United States, European colonization of Southeast Asia, illegal drug trade, and Central Intelligence Agency covert operations. He is the author of In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power. His newest book is To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change (Dispatch Books).

Host
Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

Co-Host
Southeast Asia Program

Gatty Lecture Series

Join us for a talk by Boreth Ly (Art History, Visual Culture, University of California, Santa Cruz), who will discuss the politics and optics of how the sultans of Java ‘accidentally’ became colonial brides.

This Gatty Lecture will take place at the Goldwin Smith Hall, G22. For questions, contact seapgatty@cornell.edu.

About the Talk

Black and white photographs from the Dutch colonial eras captured the Sultans of Java and the Dutch governor residents standing side by side comparable to a bride and groom in a wedding photograph. This talk looks both closely and broadly at these “Happy Marriage” photographs of the Sultans of Java and the Dutch Resident Governors and considers the cultural and political legibility of these photographs within historical and postcolonial contexts. About the Speaker

Born in the cosmopolitan village of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Boreth Ly is an associate professor of Southeast Asian art history and visual culture at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She coedited with Nora A. Taylor, Modern and Contemporary Art of Southeast Asia (2012). In addition, she has written numerous articles and essays on the arts and films of Southeast Asia and its diaspora. Academically trained as an art historian, Ly employs multidisciplinary methods and theories in her writings and analysis, depending on the subject matter. Last, Ly’s research focuses on the intersection between memory and historical trauma. She authored, Traces of Trauma: Cambodian Visual Culture and National Identity in the Aftermath of Genocide (University of Hawai’i Press, 2022).

Gatty Lecture Series Join us for a talk by Daniel Whitehouse, (ERSC postdoctoral fellow based at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology, SOAS), who will discuss network politics at an elite Thai school. This Gatty Lecture will take place at the The Kahin Center, 640 Stewart Ave. Lunch will be served. For questions, contact seapgatty@cornell.edu. About the TalkScholars posit that Thai politics is dominated by opaque and unaccountable networks that work to frustrate democracy and maintain control of a ‘parallel’ or ‘deep state’. The late King Bhumibol, suggests McCargo, sat atop an enigmatic and powerful ‘network monarchy’ that retained loyal proxies through strategic placement. Some of these elite networks have a strong dynastic component; Nishizaki shows relations of kin and marriage are important structuring features. In this seminar, I introduce ‘network institutions’ as a critical site of study to understand how these important relations of power are forged and maintained in contemporary Thailand. I show that many of these cliques centre around a handful of understudied ‘network institutions’—elite secondary schools and military academies that prepare young men for power via induction into a close-knit fraternal community.
I take as a case study Suan Kularb Wittayalai, Thailand’s oldest state-administered secondary school and alma mater to seven prime ministers. Drawing on extensive archival analysis, life histories, and twelve months fieldwork at Suan Kularb, I explore the processes by which the school maintains elite syndicates that operate across the military, bureaucracy, and commerce. Specifically, I propose that Suan Kulap’s network politics are not merely an expression of traditional patronage models. Rather, such relations are consciously facilitated by the school through the elaboration of an idiosyncratic and unusually ritualized institutional culture, much of which utilizes colonial pedagogic practices introduced by a succession of former British headmasters. Such technologies—which include novel mechanisms of surveillance, invented tradition, and disciplinary practices— integrate with local epistemic practices to generate life-long sentiments of obligation and collective exceptionalism. This, in turn, underpins the political culture and distribution of power in contemporary Thailand. About the SpeakerDaniel Whitehouse is a ERSC postdoctoral fellow based at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology, SOAS. His research is concerned with the cultural legacy of colonialism in Thailand, the anthropology of elites, and institutional ethnography. His is currently writing Learning to Govern, an historical ethnography of Suan Kulap Wittiyalai, the so-called ‘Eton of Thailand’. Before studying his PhD at Durham University, Daniel worked as a broadcast journalist at Voice TV, a Thai language news channel based in Bangkok.

Go global in summer 2024! Global Internships give you valuable international work experience in fields spanning global development, climate and sustainability, international relations, communication, business, governance, and more.

All Global Interns receive an award totaling at least $3,000. Apply by February 1.