2005 NEH Institute
Southeast Asia: Indigenous Cultures and Outside Influences

Institute Description

This NEH Summer Institute on Southeast Asia: Indigenous Cultures and Outside Influences will be the eleventh NEH-funded, five-week residential institute hosted by the Asian Studies Development Program (ASDP) within the last thirteen years. Established in 1990 as a collaborative effort of the East-West Center and the University of Hawai`i, ASDP's major objective is infusing Asian content and perspectives into the American undergraduate curriculum.

Southeast Asia's location midway between the major East Asian civilizations on one hand, and the South and West Asian and European civilizations on the other, has exposed it from early times to a wide variety of cultures. Southeast Asia: Indigenous Impulses and Outside Influences will enable the participants to examine how over a period of more than two thousand years Southeast Asian societies have succeeded in selecting and adapting outside influences in the dynamic process of culture contact.

The Institute program is designed both to place Southeast Asia in its broad geographical and historical context, and to provide pedagogically useful insights into the persistent and transformative force of local traditions that continue to inform the region's complex contemporary identity. The Institute will pay particular, critical attention to how historical accounts of Southeast Asia's past reveal particular ways of reading the past; how that past, particularly in the form of religious beliefs and practices, myths and artistic representations, shapes understandings of the present; and how both past and present are concretely understood and experienced in the dynamic societies of Southeast Asia.

Prior to their arrival in Honolulu, participants will read History, Region, and Culture in Southeast Asia by Oliver W. Wolters. It is a stimulating history because it attempts to identify the "cultural matrix" which defined Southeast Asia as a region. By understanding the components of this matrix and the nature of early political units which Wolters had called "mandala polities", participants will begin to see why Southeast Asian societies were so confident in their encounter with the outside world. European colonialism in the nineteenth century had a serious inhibiting influence on Southeast Asian societies, but as in the past they were able to seek creative ways in which to express their indigenous impulses. With independence in the mid-twentieth centuries, Southeast Asian nation-states have continued to confront external ideas on equal terms and to use such ideas to strengthen their own cultures and states. There is no better preparation than Wolters' book for understanding the main theme of this five-week Institute.

On arrival, participants will be provided with a collection of readings selected by Institute presenters as background for their own presentations. Participants will also be provided with bibliographic materials referencing both primary and secondary sources relevant to the themes of Institute presentations. It is important to stress, however, that in a largely non-literate world, performance and the visual arts are significant 'texts' for many Southeast Asians, and for this reason will receive particular attention throughout the Institute. Gender and ethnic relationships, always basic to constructions of identity and community, will be addressed throughout the Institute as part of the overarching theme of diversity.

Southeast Asia: Indigenous Impulse and Outside Influences is designed to meet the needs of faculty from the humanities and social sciences who are interested in deepening the role of comparative cultural studies through the infusion of Southeast Asian materials into their teaching. The lectures, films, readings and discussions will be oriented towards helping Institute participants construct engaging, well-informed, and critically robust course modules and syllabi that will meaningfully integrate Southeast Asia into existing and planned curricula.

To create a cooperative environment for discussion and to deepen specific avenues of inquiry over the course of the Institute, participants will be encouraged to form small working groups based on their discipline and personal interests. Ideas and concerns generated in working group discussions are also expected to feed into participant-moderated Friday morning discussions. These sessions, for which most of each week's presenters will return, will afford participants opportunities: to draw out connections among individual lectures and discussions; to follow up on issues raised during the week; to explore how the content of the week's lectures and discussion reflect Institute themes; and, to consider pedagogical strategies for infusing Institute content into existing and new courses.

Over the course of the five weeks, each participant will develop a course syllabus or module incorporating program content. These projects may be discipline-specific or multi-disciplinary, and may be developed either individually or in small groups. On the final two days of the Institute, participants will present their project results to their colleagues.

East-West Center | 1601 East-West Road | Honolulu, Hawaii 96848 | USA | Established 1960