New Books in Southeast Asian Studies

Mar 28 2025 612 ep. 47 mins 1.2k
New Books in Southeast Asian Studies Podcast artwork

Interviews with Scholars of Southeast Asia about their New Books

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

  Society & Culture  History
RSS feed Share
Copy RSS


Subscribe on Podcast Addict


Syaifudin Zuhri, "Wali Pitu and Muslim Pilgrimage in Bali, Indonesia: Inventing a Sacred Tradition" (Leiden UP, 2022)

Mar 28 2025 70 mins  
Syaifudin Zuhri’s book Wali Pitu and Muslim Pilgrimage in Bali, Indonesia: Inventing a Sacred Tradition (Leiden, 2022) is a detailed examination of the recent emergence of the Wali Pitu (“Seven Saints”) tradition in Bali, Indonesia. The study is a multi-sited ethnography of pilgrimage traditions to the grave sites of the Wali Pitu, which is a part of a larger context of risin

Sustainable Teamwork and Team Leadership in Southeast Asia

Mar 13 2025 26 mins  
The workplace is forever facing new challenges. These challenges are also unique in the context of Southeast Asia. Effective team work and leadership are at the core of organisational success. Yet much remains under investigated in how we can best help organisations and their teams and leaders in navigating shifts in the business environment. To think about these issues in a Southe

Andrew G. Walder, "Civil War in Guangxi: The Cultural Revolution on China's Southern Periphery" (Stanford UP, 2023)

Mar 09 2025 85 mins  
Guangxi, a region on China's southern border with Vietnam, has a large population of ethnic minorities and a history of rebellion and intergroup conflict. In the summer of 1968, during the high tide of the Cultural Revolution, it became notorious as the site of the most severe and extensive violence observed anywhere in China during that period of upheaval. Several cities saw urban

Ian G. Baird, "Champassak Royalty and Sovereignty: Within and Between Nation-States in Mainland Southeast Asia" (U Wisconsin Press, 2024)

Mar 01 2025 45 mins  
Before the creation of the European colonial states in the nineteenth century, Southeast Asia had hundreds of royal families, large and small. Today, only a small number survive. In his book, Champassak Royalty and Sovereignty: Within and Between Nation-States in Mainland Southeast Asia (U Wisconsin Press, 2024), Ian Baird uncovers the history of one of these royal lineages, the Ho

Kishore Mahbubani, "Living the Asian Century: An Undiplomatic Memoir" (Public Affairs, 2024)

Feb 27 2025 43 mins  
Kishore Mahbubani, longtime Singaporean diplomat and academic, opens his new memoir with a provocative line: “Blame it on the damn British.” Kishore, who later served as Singapore’s ambassador to the UN and founding dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, was born to poor migrants in Singapore, studied philosophy on a government scholarship—and from there, somehow

David R. Saunders, "Chasing Archipelagic Dreams: The Expansion of Foreign Influence in Sabah amid the End of Empire, 1945–1965" (Cornell UP, 2024)

Feb 25 2025 66 mins  
In Chasing Archipelagic Dreams: The Expansion of Foreign Influence in Sabah amid the End of Empire, 1945–1965 (Cornell University Press, 2024), Dr. David R. Saunders demonstrates that the withdrawal of the British imperial state from Sabah did not result in the decolonization of the territory. From the late 1940s to the 1960s, international anti-colonialism interacted with region

Joshua Barker, "State of Fear: Policing a Postcolonial City" (Duke UP, 2024)

Feb 16 2025 56 mins  
The relationship between fear people experience in their lives and the government often informs key questions about the rule of law and justice. In nations where the rule of law is unevenly applied, interpreting the people involved in its enforcement allows for contextualized understanding about why that unevenness occurs and is perpetuated. Joshua Barker’s State of Fear: Policin

Agricultural and Resource Economics in Vietnam

Feb 13 2025 23 mins  
Agriculture remains a key sector of the economies of most Southeast Asian countries. It is supposed to provide nutritious, affordable, accessible and safe food to the people of SE Asia, and livelihood to more than 400 million farmers across the region. How is agriculture affected by climate change, and how can farmers cope with it? What is the relationship between farming and renew

Bertil Lintner, "The Golden Land Ablaze: Coups, Insurgents and the State in Myanmar" (Oxford UP, 2024)

Feb 13 2025 48 mins  
Four years ago, on Feb. 1 2021, the Burmese military overthrew the fledgling democratic government in the Southeast Asian country of Burma, officially known as Myanmar. That sparked a civil war that continues today–with neither the military junta nor the various rebel groups coming closer to victory. How did the country get here? Veteran Asia journalist Bertil Lintner tackles the

Magic, Death, and Necromancy with Justin McDaniel

Feb 05 2025 58 mins  
**Warning: This episode contains potentially disturbing content!** On this episode of the Black Beryl, I sit down with Justin McDaniel, a scholar of Theravada Buddhist literature and art. Together we explore the darker side of Thai Buddhism, including meditation on decomposing bodies, fetus spirits, corpse oil, and the spectrum of white and black magic. We discuss the logics of rit