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Rujaya Abhakorn
Professor of Northern Thai history and expert in Buddhist literature
and history in Laos and Northern Thailand. Published several studies
on these topics and actively involved in manuscript preservation
in Northern Thailand. See: Abhakorn Rujaya, "Towards a collective
memory of mainland Southeast Asia : field preservation of traditional
manuscripts in Thailand , Laos and Myanmar ," IFLA Journal
, vol. 23, n°2, 1997.
A composer, performer and improviser living in San Diego, California. His music draws upon over a decade of research into the traditional musics of Thailand and Laos and a background in mathematics. He is a foremost performer of traditional and new music for the khaen, a free-reed mouth organ from Laos and Northeast Thailand. As a pianist and conductor, he has performed with many of the West coast's finest improvisers, and he performs contemporary solo and ensemble repertoire and is pianist and composer-in-residence for the San Diego New Music resident ensemble NOISE. He received Ph.D. and Master's degrees in composition from Duke University and Bachelor's degrees in music composition and in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he is currently an Associate Professor at the University of San Diego.
John Aloia
Occupation: Department of State Foreign Service Officer Currently posted to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Previous postings include Chiang Mai, Thailand and Manila, Philippines.
Ph.D. candidate and Senior Teaching Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, TX, U.S.A. My research experience in Laos includes preliminary research in Vientiane from May - August of 2004 and dissertation research in and around Vientiane from December 2005 - December 2006. I am currently writing my dissertation, which focuses on the intersections of tourism, gender and religion in Vientiane during the post-socialist period. My research interests include: symbolism, identity construction, ritual, tourism, gender, nationalism, and immigration.
Geography Department, University of British Columbia, specialising on southern Laos and northeastern Cambodia
Nicola Benda
Sociologist at the Center of Civic Studies at Munich University of Applied Sciences. Working on the topic of Civil Society in Southeast Asia. At the moment she is preparing a research project which tends to explore civic structures, traditions and actions in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS).
Graduate student at the California State University Northridge. PHD candidate seeking to develop a project to bridge understanding and acceptance of Lao culture, identity, and community between native Lao youths and diaspora Lao youths through education and performing arts.
involved with the Laotian communities in the San Francisco Area for about 30 years. I have been to Thailand 12 times and Laos 7 times. I have local friends in each country. I am involved in Lao & Burmese organizations in my area. I have donated a private SE Asian library collection to the Lao Community in my area.
Douangdeuane Bounyavong
Director of his new Mahasila Viravong Memorial Library, which will
open to the public in December, 2004. She is also the head of Dokked
Publishing and bookstore in Vientiane . Her most recent work is
in the dissemination of Lao literature (in English and Lao) for
use in public education in Laos : Bounyavong Douangdeuane, A comparative
study on the political ideology expressed in the Thao Hung Thao
Cheaung epic, with reference to local chronicle of Lao-Thai groups
, Tokyo : Institute of Asian Cultures , Sophia University , 1995.
Vanina Boute
Finishing a PhD in Paris on the Phunoi. Recently offered a paper
on her work at the "Workshop on Laos " at the National
University of Singapore.
Received an MA in Anthropology/Museum Studies at Arizona State University (1995) and has curated the William W. Sage Collection of Laotian Ethnographica at the ASU Museum of Anthropology. Her interest has been in material culture, textiles and costumes of Thailand and Laos, and she is author of Yao Design in Northern Thailand (1981) and editor of New Laos, New Challenges (1998). Her thesis research was on amulet practices in Laos and Thailand.
Graduated from The George Washington University in 2008 with a B.A. in international affairs and anthropology. He has conducted research in Cambodia and China, and currently works for the Initiative on Global Organ Trafficking, an NGO that fights the black market in human organs. Though he currently resides in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, he plans to attend graduate school in the 2009-2010 school year. His research interests include the effects of globalization on human rights, NGOs, and anthropological theory applied to international affairs.
Sarah Calhoun is a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
and is currently working on a project involving an exploration of
the words which are used to describe religion in Thai, and the interaction
between fiction, religion, and the development of self-identity.
More broadly, she works with Theravada Buddhist literature (in various
languages, including Pali and Thai), mainly in Thailand and Sri
Lanka.
A graduate student in the Department of Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago. She recently returned from fieldwork in Thailand, where she was conducting a compartive study of Buddhism in Northern Thai and Karen communities in Amphur Mae Chaem.
Thak Chaloemtiarana
Thak Chaloemtiarana is Director of the Cornell Southeast Asia Program
and a member of the Department of Asian Studies. Although trained
as a political scientist, he has become more and more fascinated
with intellectual history, the epistemology of the Thai novel, and
the political novels of Si Burapha. He taught politics at Thammasat
University from 1974-1981 and still visits Thailand regularly to
observe and to comment on the political shenanigans (of which there
are ample) there.
James Chamberlain
Received his Ph.D. Theoretical Linguistics (specializing in Comparative
and Historical Tai and Linguistic Anthropology), University of Michigan
1977. Now 39 years professional experience in Lao studies, including
more that 33 years in the field in Laos and Thailand . My research
interests include Historical Tai, Lao/Tai Literature, Ethnobiology,
Biocultural Diversity Conservation, and Social Research. Recently
in Laos he has been involved with numerous surveys and social analyses,
including the Participatory Poverty Assessment, social impact assessments,
socio-economic studies, ethnic group development plans, public involvement
plans, institutional and policy analyses, evaluations, and technical
studies. Presently he is involved with simultaneous projects with
the WWF, ADB, UNICEF, WorldBank, and SWEDECO ( University of Lund
).
Adam Chapman
Recently published (2003) an article in the Yearbook for Traditional
Music on compositional methods/improvisation among performers of
Lao vocal music (molam). Prior to this (2001) also published on
Tone-Melody relationships in Lao vocal music. Both of these articles
stem from his doctoral thesis which he is revising for publication.
Currently he is engaged in a project on transnational Lao music
and how it and technology are contributing to a reconstruction of
identity. Adam Chapman completed his PhD in ethnomusicology at Monash
University 's School of Music-Conservatorium in 2002. His thesis "Regional Traditions of Lao Vocal Music" is the first
English language account of the Lao vocal music known as khap-lam
in almost twenty-five years.
Received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the State University of New York at Binghamton in 2004. He has conducted research on the health effects of war among adult Hmong and Lao refugees in the United States and French Guiana. He is currently an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
Carol J. Compton
Professor at the University of Wisconsion , Madison is working on
an extensive collection of polysyllabic phrases in Lao which may
occur either in oral or written discourse. She is currently focusing
on the types of four-word phrases that occur in the Lao data and
discuss aspects of the patterns found in them. She sees such knowledge
of four-word phrases and related patterns (five- to eight-word,
for instance) as significant in developing a deeper understanding
of the Lao lexicon and syntax, and of Lao discourse and poetics.
She believes that exploration of this topic could have value for
exploring discourse structures and poetics in other Tai languages
as well. She has presented the findings of her work in Lao linguistics
at the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society (SEALS) at Northern Illinois
University (2002: SEALS 12) and the University of California at
Los Angeles (2003: SEALS 13). She will be presenting another paper
on this at SEALS 14 at Thammasat University in Bangkok . The SEALS
12 paper is about to be published. The reference to it is as follows:
Compton, Carol J. 2004. "Four-Word Phrases in Lao Discourse:
yuu 4 dii 2 mii 3 hEEN 3 ." In Papers from the Twelvth Annual
Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society 2002, edited
by John F. Hartmann and Ratree Wayland. Tempe : Arizona State University
Program in Southeast Asian Studies. The SEALS 13 paper was entitled
"The Role of Four-Word Phrases in Lao Narrative Discourse."
The SEALS 14 paper is entitled "The Role of Four-Word Phrases
in Lao Descriptive Discourse." Another area of research that
she has worked on for many years is that of the use of pronouns
and kinship terms in Lao discourse. See especially: Compton, Carol
J. 2002. "Uses of Lao Pronouns and Kinship Terms in Lao Performance
Texts." In Papers from the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Southeast
Asian Linguistics Society 2000, edited by Marlys Macken, pp. 115-126.
Tempe : Arizona State University Program in Southeast Asian Studies.
I am Curator for Ceramics at the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. In addition to ongoing research on ceramics in Japan and India, since 1989 I have become interested in both historical and present-day ceramic production in Mainland Southeast Asia. Leedom Lefferts and I are making a long-term and widespread study of present-day village-based stoneware and earthenware production in the region.
Catherin Dalpino
I have been teaching at Georgetown (and occasionally at George Washington
University) since 1997, when I left the State Department. (I was
a Clinton appointee, and served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for
Democracy.) I was also concurrently a Scholar at the Brookings Institution
from 1997 to 2003. Southeast Asia specialists in the Washington
academic community are relatively rare, and so we all cover a broad
part of the waterfront. My specialty is political development, but
I also teach Southeast Asian security and SEA international relations.
With my new duties as Director of Georgetown's Thai Studiesprogram
I teach an inter-disciplinary introduction to Thailand and am designing
a few more specialized courses. I'm also co-founder and co-editor
of the Georgetown Southeast Asia Survey, an annual look at developments
in Southeast Asia and their significance for US policy.
Erik Davis
Erik Davis is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Chicago,
in the History of Religions program. He is currently finishing up
his fieldwork in Cambodia, and will begin writing his dissertation
Fall 2006. His work examines Cambodian Buddhism, thematically focussing
on the themes of Death, Memory, and the Imagination. He enjoys collaborative
work and research, and welcomes inquiries.
Henry D. Delcore
Assistant Professor of Anthropology at California State University,
Fresno. His research focuses on economic and environmental changes
in northern Thailand and the nature of the response from NGO activists,
farmers, and monks. Past publications include analysis of representations
of the past by Thai NGO workers, the life history of a Thai farmer
leader, and tree ordinations sponsored by ecology monks and their
allies. His current research project concerns ethnic relations among
Tai Lue, Hmong and Lua people living in and around a national park
in Nan Province, northern Thailand.
Nancy Eberhardt is Professor of Anthropology at Knox College in Illinois. Her research has focused on the Shan of northwest Thailand, with special attention to gender, religion, human development and ethnopsychology. Her most recent publication is the book _Imagining the Course of Life: Self-Transformation in a Shan BuddhistCommunity_ (University of Hawaii, 2006).
Currently a third year of the doctoral program at the University of California, San Diego‘s Anthropology Department. His work examines the intersection between Development, Democracy, Citizenship, and Urban Planning in Thailand. More specifically, his dissertation which will analyze Thailand‘s nation-wide slum upgrade initiative: The Baan Mankong, "stable housing" project directed aims to upgrade 200 impoverished and insecure communities throughout Thailand.
PhD student at the University of Illinois at Chicago. I am looking for medicinal plants in the palm leaf manuscripts of Laos, concentrating on indications of malaria and tuberculosis and trying to deduce which plants may have been used for treatment in the past. Findings will be followed by interviews in the regions where the manuscripts originated to determine if the same plants are being used for the same treatments. Hopeful plants will be collected and analyzed for active compounds. This research also hopes to affirm intellectual property rights for traditional medicines of Laos. I welcome any discussion on any of the above topics.
Nick Enfield
Former visiting student at the National University of Laos (Dong
Dok) and professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Melbourne.
He is working on a project on "linguistic epidemeology"
and deicdic gesture in the Lao language. His most recent work is:
"How to define 'Lao', 'Thai', and 'Isan' language? A view from
linguistic science," Tai Culture , vol. 7.1 (June 2002).
Grant Evans
Australian scholar who has been teaching Anthropology at Hong Kong
University for the past 15-16 years. He also has done some work
on China , Hong Kong and Vietnam , and general anthropology. Currently
he is near the end of a book which may be described as a documentary
history of Lao royalty, tentatively titled: The Last Century of
Lao Royalty. Also, there is a Lao and a Thai translation of his
Short History of Laos is in the works.
Social Anthropologist and Research Fellow at the Centre for East- and Southeast Asian Studies, Lund University, Sweden. Until recently researcher and lecturer at Göteborg University, Sweden. My research concern the intersection of gender, Buddhism and social change in Thailand. I have during the last couple of years carried out research on gender and Socially Engaged Buddhism in Thailand and I am currently working on a research project on gender, Buddhism and ways of recovery after the tsunami in Thailand. I have published a series of articles in English and Swedish on gender and Buddhism and the monograph Making Fields of Merit: Buddhist Nuns and Gendered Orders in Thailand will be published later this year.
Jaqueline Filliozat and Anatole-Roger Peltier
These two French scholars known separately for their work on Sri
Lankan, Siamese, Burmese and Shan Pali manuscript collections (Filliozat)
and Khoen literature (Peltier) now run the: Programme associé
: Manuscrits de Birmanie et de ses périphéries (Bangkok,
Chiang Mai, Vientiane, Sri Lanka) . Connected with the "Les
collections privées du fonds des "Fragile palm-leaves" à Bangkok et d'autres fonds à Chiang Mai, ainsi que
les collections birmanes et siamoises, publiques et privées
de Sri Lanka ( Colombo , Kandy , Matara). In Laos specifically they
work with the l'Institut de recherche sur la culture à Vientiane.
Teaches anthropology and Asian studies at Cornell University. He was educated in Sweden, China, and the US. Since 1995 he has done field research in Wa country in the China-Burma border region, and his PhD dissertation (University of Chicago, 2000), “The fate of sacrifice and the making of Wa history” has been followed by writings on Wa naming and Wa concepts of health and illness; on the status of minorities in China and Southeast Asia; on museums, archaeology and heritage issues across Asia, and beyond, as well as other topics.
Currently with Nanyang Technological University, Singapore where he is Associate Professor, Systems and Engineering Management. He is Editor of Chinese Management Studies, Emerald Publishing. Recently he was ILO Consultant to Vietnam on Industrial Relations. His Laos: No Cola, Pepsi Only is published by White Lotus. He had completed his other volumes on his consulting and lecturing experiences in Vietnam and Myanmar.'
Bernhard Gay
Scholar and bibliographer. His recent work is an 1100 page, 14,000
entry bibliography of Lao Studies ("Bibliographie du laos "
(1975-2003)). It is available on CD-Rom. It is a "must have" for any scholar of Lao Studies or SE Asian Studies.
James Giles
Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Guam with
research interests in Theravada and Mahayana East-Asian Buddhism
and in comparative philosophy. His publications include No Self
To be Found: The Search for Personal Identity (1997).
Kathleen Gillogly
Kathleen Gillogly recently presented a paper on "The Drug War
in Lisu Households: Social Transformations with the End of the Opium
Economy" at the April 2005 Society for Applied Anthropology
meetings. She will be editing papers from that session for a book
on The Political Ecology of International Drug Interdiction. She
recently finished writing her dissertation on transformations in
Lisu kinship structures under development in northern Thailand and
is currently teaching as an adjunct at Chicago State University
and Columbia College Chicago.
Ph.D student, Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA. My research focus is the prehistoric archaeology of mainland Southeast Asia. For my dissertation, I will be working in northern Laos. I am also interested in public archaeology, heritage management, and cultivating indigenous archaeology infrastructure and educational curricula.
Volker Grabowsky
Volker Grabowsky is Professor of South East Asian history at the
Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität
Münster. He has specialised on the history and culture
of the Tai peoples in northern Thailand and Laos. From 1996 to 1999
he taught traditional Lao literature as a DAAD lecturer at the National
University of Laos, Vientiane. Together with his former colleagues
from Department of Lao Language and Literature (NUOL) he edited
three volumes on 19th century Lao literature (Kap Müang
Phuan, San LÃpphasun and PhÃn Wiang).
During recent years he has published several studies in the history
and historiography of Chiang Khaeng/Mueang Sing.
I am currently finishing writing my dissertation in the Department of Anthropology at Cornell University. My dissertation, which is entitled "The Knowledge of Violence: solidarity, repression and historiography in northern Thailand, " is about how farmers and students in Chiang Mai and Lamphun worked together in alliance to challenge landholding elites and the Thai state in the mid-1970s. By the very act of their alliance, as well as the organizing they undertook together, I argue that the farmers and students challenged both the significant material interests of the landholding elite, and the ruling order itself. The magnitude of this challenge was indicated in the violent reactions with which state, para-state, landholding, and right-wing actors greeted it. I theorize how harassment, intimidation, assassination, and arbitrary arrest are indications of social and political transformation by examining the explicit links between the challenges to state, para-state, and landholding elites posed by farmer-student alliances and the violence with which they were met. In a broad sense, my academic interests include violence, agrarian struggle, radical politics, gender studies, nationalism and silence, human rights, and sovereignty.
Rebecca is currently completing her dissertation in art history at UCLA on Buddhist banners in northern Thailand and Laos and hopes to continue this research project further to include other banners of the region. Her interests include textiles and the local or rural Buddhist arts that are made, donated, and displayed outside of the region's major cities.
Scott A. Hipsher is an instructor at Bangkok University (I am also teaching a course at Mahidol University now), I teach mostly business related topics. I am also in the final stages of finishing my dissertation on the internationalization strategies of Thai firms in their operations in Cambodia (I just got back to Thailand from Cambodia today). I have written a few conferences papers about business in the Greater Mekong sub-region and I am currently co-authoring a book with deans at two different Thai universities entitled, The nature of Asian Firms: An evolutionary perspective. I think I might be able to contribute something to the organization and I expect it would be a great source of information and a chance for collaborative research efforts with other members.
The director of the Lao-German Joint Preservation Program at the National Library of Laos. He has published on Northern Thai colophons, the Yuan script and manuscript collection issues in Laos .
Professor at Tenri University in Nara , Japan and undertaking a project on the manuscript collections of Lao literature at Wat mahathat in Northeast Thailand . Most recent publication:
Iijima Akiko, "Study of the short chronicle of Vientiane : introductory remarks," (in Thai with an English summary), in Sarasawadee Ongsakul, Yoshiyuki Masuhara (eds.), Studies of history and literature of Tai ethnic groups , Bangkok : Amarin Printing and Publishing, University of Chiang Mai , 2002.
PhD. student in Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His dissertation research is on the religious and political conflict in Southern Thailand, focusing especially on the role of Buddhist monks and Islamic educators. Previous work has been early Indian Theravadin Buddhism and the Institutional demise of the Mongolian Sangha.
Founder and publisher of Silkworm Books and Mekong Press. Silkworm Books is a general publisher based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We specialize in select markets and quality English-language books, and, as shown in the accompanying catalogue, have to date published 160 titles.
PhD student at Cornell, interested in Northern Thai cities; Chiang Mai in particular. MA from George Washington University (2002) and BS from the College of William and Mary (1999). Other interests include cosmopolitanism, the middle class, and ghosts and spirit mediums.
PhD student in linguistics at Arizona State University. My area of research is in planning multilingual education programs in minority language communities. Recently, I returned from a year in Thailand where I interviewed parents in a Prai community (Mon Khmer language) and teachers about their perceived literacy and education needs. I spent 15 years of my life in Northern Thailand.
Dara Viravong Kanlaya
Based at the National Library of Laos, she is a scholar of Lao religious
literature. She began writing short stories, novels, poetry at the
age of 18. From 1963-1979 she translated foreign language novels
in Lao. In 1979, she became the Co-editor of Vannasinh Literary
Magazine, then 1990 Chief Editor 1988-94. In 1992 she became the
director for the "Project for Inventory of Lao palm Leaf Manuscript
in 6 provinces." In 1996 she became director of the "Preservation
of Lao Palm Leaf Manuscript Programme" and now serves as a
permanent advisor to the project. Her latest project is: Translation
and Publication of "In Search of Southeast Asia" Hawaï
Press 1987 Edition, in Lao language. In 1990 she published: Kanlagna
Dara, « La fin de la vie de mon père » (en lao),
in Comité des sciences sociales de la RDP Lao (éd.),
Maha Sila Viravong: vie et ouvre , Vientiane : Impri-merie d'État.
She has also published some 60 short stories and novels in Lao.
Susan F. Kepner
Susan F. Kepner teaches Southeast Asian cultures and literatures
at the University of California, Berkeley (where she earned her
PhD), as well as Thai language and modern literature at all levels.
Kepner has lived and taught in Vietnam and in Thailand, and has
translated many novels, short stories and scholarly works from Thai.
She is the author of The Lioness in Bloom: Modern Thai Fiction about
Women, and Married to the Demon King: Sri Daoruang and Her Demon
Folk. Forthcoming works are A Siwilai Woman: M.L. Boonlua of Siam
(a biography), and How We Live Now in Siam, an anthology of contemporary
Thai literature.
Bhoj Raj Khanal
Mr. Bhoj Raj Khanal is currently working as Research Manager in the Research Department of the Mekong Institute (MI) Khon Kaen , Thailand . He has over 9-year professional experiences in the community based organization management, rural development, micro-finance, agro-forestry, community forestry, agricultural planning, marketing, and environmental management. He has been involved in process monitoring of researches in the GMS member countries conducted through Mekong Institute Research Advisory Committee (MIRAC) as a part of MIRAC Research Consortium 2006-07. Additionally, he is involving in the research training for young GMS researchers and revision of their proposals to submit the donor agencies. Before joining to the MI, Mr. Bhoj had worked as Research Associate in the Greater Mekong Subregion Academic and Research Network at Asian Institute of Technology , Thailand .
Kelly Bornt Kidson researches Traditional Southeast Asian Herbal Medicine with a focus on Laos & Thailand. She is currently studying Lao through the Center for Southeast Asian Studies online program at Northern Illinois University. She is the founder of The Mango Grove, LLC a Southeast Asian Herbal Apothecary. She lives in Rhode Island were she maintains a small private practice. She will be returning to Laos in 2008 to further her studies and finish her forthcoming book on the medicinal plants and healing traditions of Laos.
Peter Koret recently joined the faculty at the University of California
, Berkeley . He has published several seminal articles on the nature
of Lao literature, its use in rituals and its internal structure.
His dissertation from the School of Oriental and African Studies
at the University of London is the first comprehensive work in English
on classical Lao poetry. He recently completed a book (in the process
of being sent off to publishers) on a Lao poem Leup Phasun, which
discusses the aftermath of the war between Siam and Chao Anou, and
how the poem takes on new meanings in its interpretation. He is
also working on an article on the prophetic literature of the 19th
century in Laos and Northeast Thailand and putting together a more
general book on traditional literature in Laos .
A visiting scholar in the Carnegie Endowment's China Program. Kurlantzick is assessing China's relationship with the developing world, including Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Kurlantzick's new book, Charm Offensive: How China's Soft Power is Transforming the World (Yale University Press), focuses on how China uses its soft power-culture, investment, academia, foreign aid, public diplomacy- to influence other countries in Southeast Asia. Additionally, Kurlantzick is currently a fellow at the USC School of Public Diplomacy and the Pacific Council on International Policy.
PhD candidate University of Cambridge writing a dissertation: Gifts,
ethics and the state: Buddhism in postsocialist Laos " (preliminary
title) Duration: 2002-2006. He has studied Social Anthropology and
Sociology at the University of Muenster ( Germany ), Edinburgh,
EHESS (Paris) and is now a PhD-candidate at the University of Cambridge
. The thesis aims to explore theories of exchange in a Theravada-Buddhist
context (offerings, donations, the gift of the self in initiation-ceremonies
etc.), but also refers to other traces of the gift in a specific
Lao context relating e.g. to transnational donations from Lao living
in exile, kathin-ceremonies reflecting the relation between Thailand
and Laos and the relation of power and giving in a 'postsocialist'
urban setting.
Christian Lammerts is pursuing his PhD in Asian Religions at Cornell University. His research concerns Burmese, Pali, and Sanskrit law texts and legal culture, and he is editing and translating several early Burmese dhammasats. He has a particular interest in Burmese manuscripts and epigraphy and is involved in manuscript documentation and conservation efforts in Myanmar. http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/dcl33/
Michelle Legge is a PhD candidate within the Resources Management Program at the Australian National University. She holds a Master degree in Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development from the ANU. Her special interest is social impacts of resettlement in Laos and she also lived in SW Cambodia for 1 year.
Nantawan Boonprasat Lewis is Professor of ethnic and religious studies and Chair of the Department of Ethic and Religious Studies at Metropolitan State University, St Paul/Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is the author of numerous articles on religion and violence against women in SE Asia and the United States. She has served as editor and co-editor of several anthologies and a special issue of a journal on the subject. Nantawan Lewis is a member of the editorial board of Journal of Religion and Abuse. She is currently completing a manuscript on When Justice Collapes: Poverty, Sexual Slavery and AIDS in SE Asia (Eerdmans, forthcoming).
A PhD student in political science at Université du Québec à Montréal. His research focuses on the relationship between religion and politics in Thailand, international relations in Pacific Asia, and transnational theologico-political movements.
Bruce Lockhart
Received his PhD in Southeast Asian history from Cornell in 1990.
Specializes in Vietnamese, Thai, and Lao history with particular
interest in monarchy and historiography. Has published book chapters
on monarchy and decolonization in Indochina and on narrating 1945
in Lao history. Is currently working on projects related to post-colonial
Lao narratives of pre-colonial history.
Colin Long and Jonathan Sweet
Working on Luang Prabang as a World Heritage site.
Michel Lorrillard
Director of the L'Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient office in Vientiane
. Besides teaching at the National University of Laos and collecting
resources for Lao Studies (one of the finest libraries on Lao Studies
(esp. Buddhist material) in the world is at the EFEO), he is finishing
a book on epigraphy of Laos. Once finished, it will be the first
comprehensive catalogue and summary of all inscriptions in the country.
His most recent work is: Lorrillard Michel, «Le centre de
Vientiane de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient»,
La lettre de l'afrase , n° 59, mai 2003, p. 3-5, as well as
a talk on the history of Lao Scripts at the Sirinthorn Anthropology
Center in Bangkok.
PhD Candidate in the Anthropology Program at the Australian National University. He has worked in Laos as an advisor to a government newspaper, news agency and private business magazine. He is currently writing an ethnography about urban youth in Vientiane.
PhD candidate at Simon Fraser University. She is a consultant for the James HW Thompson Foundation, Bangkok, and an Advisor for the Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre, Luang Prabang.
Received his PhD from Harvard University 's Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies in 2003. Presently he teaches Buddhism and Southeast Asian Studies at the University of California , Riverside . His research foci include Lao, Thai, Pali and Sanskrit literature, Southeast Asian Buddhism, ritual studies, manuscript studies, and Southeast Asian history.
PhD Candidate (social anthropology), Macquarie University, Australia. His research focuses on mobility and sex commerce, in relation to discourses of prostitution, labour migration and human trafficking in Mainland Southeast Asia. His fieldwork (2005-2006) was carried out in Laos and Thailand, where he has previously worked as a development consultant and Project advisor for the Lao office of the UN inter-agency project on human trafficking in the Greater Mekong sub-region (UNIAP).
Nurse-anthropologist (PhD anthro. U Washington). Moved through the ranks to professor of nursing (& adjunct professor in anthropology & public health) at U Washington, where she directed the SEA Center 2001-5. Summer 2006 moved to U Pennsylvania as ass't. dean for global health, nursing. Program officer for the Ford Fdn. in New York 1993-8 in sexual & reproductive health. Research based in urban ChiangMai: a longitudinal naturalistic exploratory study of mother-child pairs over 27 years (involving 8 years fieldwork in Thailand) with focus upon gender and class interface with reproductive health development policies.
Robert J. Muscat
Robert J. Muscat is a consultant and independent researcher focusing
on conflict in developing countries. Previously he served as economic
advisor to the governments of Thailand and Malaysia, and as Chief
Economist in USAID. He has authored books and articles on Thailand
and numerous policy studies and evaluations concerning Indonesia,
Cambodia, and other Asian and African countries.
( mhnelson_bkk@yahoo.de ) is a Visiting Scholar at the Faculty of Political Science of Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok (Thailand), and a Senior Research Associate in Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Passau (Germany). His research has focused on Thai politics, comparative sub-national government and decentralization, and globalization in Southeast Asia. He published the book Central Authority and Local Democratization in Thailand (1998), and co-authored (with Jürgen Rüland, Clemens Jürgenmeyer, and Patrick Ziegenhain) a book on Parliaments and Political Change in Asia (2005). In addition, he has edited the two volumes Thailand's New Politics (2002), and Thai Politics: Global and Local Perspectives (2005). His Thai Politics Bibliography of more than 3,000 entries can be found at http://www.leeds.ac.uk/thaipol . A more recent PDF version can be downloaded at http://www.iseap.de/images/PDF/Workingpaper/polthai%5B1%5D.pdf .
Khongdeuane Nettavong
Director of the National Library of Laos and scholar of Lao literature.
She works closely with local and foreign scholars in the preservation
of Lao palm-leaf manuscripts.
Mayoury Ngaosrivathana
One of the most prolific scholars in Lao Studies. Recent publications
include: Ngaosrivathna Mayoury, Ngaosrivathna Pheuiphanh, «
Early European im-pressions of the Lao », in Mayoury Ngaosrivathana,
Kennon Brezeale (eds.), Breaking new ground in Lao history : essays
on seventh to twentieth centuries , Chiangmai : Silkworm Books,
2002; and Ngaosyvathn Mayoury, Ngaosyvathn Pheuiphanh, Crisis management
and technics of power in imperial Vietnam . An annotated translation
of Chronicle of our Imperial court's behavior towards the affairs
of the country of Ten Thousand Elephants , Tokyo : Centre of Southeast
Asian Studies for UNESCO's Bibliotheca Codicum Aiaticorum, 2000.
As well as extensive work on the Siamese-Lao wars of the early 19
th century.
Graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The focus of my studies is Pali literature. In particular, I am interested in Buddhist narratives such as Jatakas and chronicles.
Prakong Nimmanahaeminda
Thai scholar of Lao and Northern Thai literature based at the Chulalongkorn
University and Silapakorn University in Bangkok . Recently spoke
at the Lao Literary Heritage conference.
am an architectural historian who specilizes in the connections between Asian wooden and vernacular architecture, English and American architecture. In particular the development of the "Queen Anne" style in the west, the balloon frame structure were all dervied from SE Asian prototypes and imported by the English domestically. I am a contractor for the Secretary of State's Office in Delaware and was preservation officer of Sussex County for five years. I am a graduate of the University of Delaware and Colorado Technical University and a planning to pursue a Ph.D. within the next two years.
Associate Professor of Lao language and literature at the National
University of Laos, he received his Masters degree in Moscow and
his PhD from Hanoi . Although he has several projects underway,
he is most concerned with the way traditional Lao poetic forms and
tropes are used in modern letter writing, diaries, and fiction.
Long time meber of the EFEO and scholar of Lao history based in
Paris. Recent work: Phinith, Saveng, Histoire du pays lao, de la
préhistoire à la république , Paris: L'Harmattan,
1998.
Recently completed her PhD on Lao identity at Hull . She is a post-doctoral
fellow at the Asia Research Institute at the National University
of Singapore. Her most recent publication was "Narrative, Memory
and History: Multiple Interpretations of the Lao Past" ( Asia
Research Institute Working Paper #4 ). Singapore : Asia Reseacrh
Institute, 2003.
Professor of Buddhist studies and Northern Thai history and literature
at the Social Research Institute at Chiang Mai University in Northern
Thailand . He has published several studies of Buddhist narratives
and local history in Thai and English. He is currently assisting
in the study and preservation of Lao manuscripts in Northern Thailand.
Researcher on Lao history at the University of Munster , she is
undertaking project on the political history of Laos . Recent work:
Raendchen Jana, "Plain of Jars," in Encyclopaedia of Modern
Asia , New York : Scribner, 2002; and, Verhalten in Laos . Des-Reihe
Länder-Verhaltenspapiere, Deutche Stiftung für Entwicklung
, Bad Honnef: 1994.
Editor of the Journal of Tai Culture and expert in Lao literature
(especially in the Tai dialects of the Black Tai, Red Tai and upland
Lao peoples).
Born in Nongbok, Khammouan Laos and immigrated to the US at the age of four. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Saint Cloud State University , with a focus on the importance of the Vessantara Festival in Minnesota and its role in bridging the generational gap. He received his Master of Arts in Southeast Asian Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison as an Advanced Opportunity Fellow. His Master's thesis was examining the “Continuity and Changes of Buddhism from ‘Old' State to ‘New' State of the Lao People's Democratic Republic”. Saengmany is currently serving as a board member for the Laotian American National Alliance. In addition, he is currently in the process of working on a project detailing the history of Lao nationalism and its legacy in constructing the transnational Lao identity.
Lecturer at the University of Education in Freiburg/Breisgau (geography and didactics). Experience in Lao and Thailand studies. Field trips with students in Thailand. Research foci include rural developement, migration, tourism and prostitution.
A Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at Cornell University specializing in the modern histories of Thailand and Vietnam. His dissertation, "In Buddha's Company: Thailand's Experience in the Vietnam War," will be completed in the spring of 2007.
Professor of Lao literature and administrator at the National University
of Laos, he is presently undertaking an analysis of how Lao literature
is taught at the university level.
Sam-Ang Sam, a Khmer born ethnomusicologist and performer, was educated
in Cambodia at the Royal University of Fine Arts, in the Philippines
at the College of Music, University of the Philippines, and in the
United States at Connecticut College and at Wesleyan University,
where he received his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Music Composition
and Ethnomusicology respectively. Dr. Sam has taught at Cornish
College of the Arts and the University of Washington (USA), the
Salzburg Seminar (Austria), the National Museum of Ethnology (Japan),
and the Royal University of Fine Arts (Cambodia). Presently, Dr.
Sam is Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Letters, and Humanities at Paññasastra
University of Cambodia and Principal of the Paññasastra
International School, both in Phnom Penh (Cambodia), where he also
teaches. Dr. Sam is a recording artist and has written and published
several articles and books on various aspects of Khmer culture.
He has received numerous grants, awards, and honors, including the
US National Heritage Fellowships and the John D. and Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation Fellowships.
A first year PhD student in religious studies at Arizona State University. Her research interests include, Theravada Buddhism and modernity, Engaged Buddhism, and Buddhism and memoir.
PhD student in History of Religion at the Univ of Chicago working on Buddhism and politics in Sri Lanka and Thailand
PhD-candidate at Muenster University, Germany. My research focusses on Thai political history, especially political parties.
1972: B.A. (Teaching English as a Foreign Language), University of Northern Iowa,
1973: M.A (English Linguistics), University of Northern Iowa
1979: Ph.D., Linguistics, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, thesis on "text-linguistics"
Since 1979: Department of Linguistics, University of Salzburg, Austria.
Interests: Sociolinguistics, Second Language Acquisition, Empirical / Quantitative Methods (Applied Linguistics); Acoustic Phonetics; Language Typology, Field / Ethnolinguistics (General Linguistics)
Language Interests: "Asian languages" (Japanese, Chinese, Mon-Khmer)
Fieldwork on Maniq and Lua? (Endangered Mon-Khmer Languages) in Thailand (=Current projects).
Bounteum Sibounheuang
Professor of Lao literature and religion at the National Sangha
College based at Wat Ong Teu. He is an expert in traditional chanting
of the Vessantara Jataka in Pali and Lao and trains a new generation
of young Lao novices and monks in chanting and ritual performance
of religious narratives.
Sarinda Singh
A postdoctoral fellow in anthropology at the University of Queensland. Her research focuses on interpretations of environmental change, conservation, development and authority in Laos.
Ven. Onekeo Sittivong
Senior monk and abbot of Wat Pakkhan and Wat Xiangthong in Laung
Pabang, Ven Onekeo is also actively involved in manuscript preservation
in Northern Laos .
Frank Smith
Frank Smith coordinates Khmer instruction and is the Heritage Language
Facilitator at the Southeast Asian Studies Summer Institute at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison. From fall through spring he lives
in Bangkok, Thailand, where he writes multimedia teaching materials.
His most recent publications (tentatively to be distributed by University
of Hawaii NFLRC, beginning late 2006) are "Muk Khmae: an Introductory
Khmer Language Textbook," "Kamlang Phiasaa: A Khmer Heritage
Language Textbook for University Level," (both 2006) "Beginning
Lao Study Guide" and "Than Samay: A Lao Heritage Language
Textbook for University Level" (both 2005).
Professor, Anthropology, University of Hawai'i-Manoa, has worked in Southeast Asia since 1987 and currently co-directs the Lower Mekong Archaeological Project (LOMAP) in the Mekong delta. In collaboration with Cambodia's Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, LOMAP links research with training on the origins of pre-Angkorian civilization in southern Cambodia. Stark's primary specialties include political economy, state formation in Southeast Asia, and ceramic ethnoarchaeology; she has also published several edited volumes on these topics. personal website: < http://www.anthropology.hawaii.edu/faculty/stark/ >
Lower Mekong Archaeological Project website: < http://www.anthropology.hawaii.edu/resources/projects/cambodia/cambodia.htm >
Professor of History at the University of Queensland . Started in
Lao Studies as an agricultural advisor for USAID in Laos , then
joined United Press International, for whom he covered the Second
Indochina War from Laos and Vietnam for three years. He will retire
from the University of Queensland this year. Author of several well-known
books on Lao history. His most recent book was A Short History of
China and Southeast Asia : Tribute, Trade and Influence (Allen & Unwin, 2003), an article on Chinese-Lao relations will appear in
April's Journal of Contemporary Southeast Asia . He has also been
examining the relationship between political culture, institutional
reform and economic development as part of a small consultancy for
the World Bank. He shall present a paper on this at the Asian Studies
Association of Australia conference in Canberra in June, and hopefully
publish it somewhere later.
My dissertation research focused on memories of 1970s student movement and state violence, examining film/ media/ art, commemorations, issues of gender. My current research investigates how Thais negotiate their own political and economic identities in the US. I look at cases of labor trafficking, issues of citizenship/ migration, how Thais partake in "homeland politics" through film, video stores, internet and satellite television in Los Angeles.
Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies and Director, Center for
the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School. Buddhism
in Southeast Asia with a focus on Thailand. Recent publications:
Becoming the Buddha: The Ritual of Image Consecration in Thailand
(2004), Sacred Mountains of Northern Thailand and Their Legends
with Sommai Premchit and Phaitundokbuakaew (2004), The Buddhist
World of Southeast Asia, rev.ed. (2006).
Ph.D. student at the University of Leeds, School of Politics and International Studies. Her research concerns the politics of the decentralisation of basic education in Thailand. She has taught at Thammasat University and has a master‘s degree from the LBJ School of Public Affairs and a bachelor‘s degree in government and philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin.
Ph.D. candidate at the University of Muenster (Germany), Department of Social Anthropology. In 2004, he did anthropological and historical field research in Vientiane/Laos and currently writes his dissertation about Lao national historiography and iconography, focussing on different ideological strategies of reconstructing and representing the „Lao nation“.
Undergraduate student at the University of Washington majoring in Southeast Asian studies, with a special interest in the region of Thailand-Laos-Cambodia. My future plans for work and study in the area focus on poverty, hunger, politics [especially political relations with the United States], and public-health.
jonctham@u.washington.edu
Working at Mahasarakham University and researching Lao literature
in Northeast Thailand.
Native of Savannakhet, Laos, who settles with his family in Canberra, Australia, since 1975. He currently works in the Australian public service. Thongrith gained a PhD from the Australian National University in 2004. His thesis examines the link between social memory and the maintenance of ethnic identity in Lao diasporas in Australia and the USA, by analysing the performance of the Lao traditional wedding ceremony, especially the Soukhouane ceremony. His research interest also covers the role of Buddhism in ethnic identity maintenance (especially among the Lao communities in Australia). Thongrith is currently researching and writing a Lao-Lao dictionary with a group of friends and monks in Sydney.
Professor of Thai and Lao literature at Mahasarakham University
in Northeast Thailand . She is involved in preserving traditional
Lao (and Isan) music and storytelling traditions in both countries.
She travels to elementary and secondary schools as well as universities
in Laos , Thailand and the United States to perform Lao stories
and encourage performance as pedagogy.
Lecturer in Political Science and Humanities at Menlo College in Atherton, CA situated in the middle of California's Silicon Valley. His research interests include displaced ethnic groups in Southeast Asia as well as the political economics of the area. He has been a Visiting Professor at Khon Kaen University in northeast Thailand, particpates in the Southeast Asia Geography Association as well as Lao Studies Organziation international conferences and has researched in both Cambodia and Laos. He is completing his PhD studies at Capella University.
Obtained her M.A. in Social Anthropology from the University of Paris X – Nanterre (France) and studied Lao and Thai languages at National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO/Paris). She is currently a PhD candidate at Nanterre preparing a dissertation with the preliminary title Tracery and Metamorphosis: Textile worlds in Vientiane (Lao PDR). The thesis aims to explore the different stages of production, distribution and consumption of textiles in the Vientiane area and focuses on two trajectories. The first one follows the circulation of textiles from ‘weaving villages' to the largest market of Laos located in Vientiane, while the second one (only evolving in recent years) explores the transposition of textiles from private workshops of the capital to international markets and museums. Her previous research focussed on the redefinition of traditional therapeutic massage practice in Thailand and associated concepts of the body.
Degrees from Concordia University-Saint Paul and Xiangtan University, Xiangtan City, Hunan Province, People's Republic of China. Presently, working at the Center for Hmong Studies Hmong Archives.
PhD student at UC Berkeley in History, working on Thai history. Currently working on my dissertation, which focuses on a Lanna (Chiang Mai) princess, Jao Dara Rasami, who became a consort of King Chulalongkorn. Her story, centering on issues of gender politics and ethnic identity, illuminates the context of intense imperialist competition surrounding Siam's transformation from kingdom to nation-state.
MA student of Japanese, Thai and American Studies at the University of Hamburg. She is currently enrolled as a research student in Kyoto University, writ ing her thesis on the foreign trade between Siam and Japan in the 17th century. Her main research interests are the bilateral relationship between Thailand and Japan, Thailand's Southern conflict and democratization in Southeast Asia.
I am currently finishing up my PhD in social anthropology at the London School of Economics. My dissertation titled "Memory and (Re)making Moral Order in the Aftermath of Violence in a Highland Khmer Village in Cambodia" concerns the thematic topics of representations and types of pasts, social memory, morality, violence and healing.
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