About the summer school

Welcome to the Blog of the International Summer School in Southeast Asian Studies 


This blog showcases research done within the framework of the International Summer School in Southeast Asian Studies, an annual event jointly-organised by Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang (USM), the Institute of Asian and African Studies of Humboldt Universität zu Berlin (IAAW-HU), and Universitas Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta (UGM).

This series of summer schools was first initiated in 2011 as a bilateral programme involving just USM and HU. The first three schools, on the topic of “In(Congruities) between Nation, State and Civil Society,” were hosted by USM. The widespread interest in and overwhelmingly positive response to the summer school has consistently confirmed its value and encouraged us to expand this joint venture to include other Southeast Asian universities.

Since 2014, we have been investigating the topic “The Return of the Past: Memory Making and Heritage in Southeast Asia.” Hosting and organisational duties shifted from USM to UGM, thus beginning a new phase of alternating the summer school between Yogyakarta and Penang. That year, we were additionally pleased to include students from Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University. In 2015 the summer school returns to USM and we welcome for the first time students from Vietnam National University in Hanoi. We will continue to work on the topic of "memory making and heritage" at UGM in 2016.

The summer school programme aims to go above and beyond ordinary forms of teaching by giving postgraduate students the opportunity to gain a more holistic and multi-disciplinary perspective of the subject matter. A central component of the programme are the students' independent research projects. This year (2015) students are focusing on several memory sites in and outside Penang.

This blog will become a continuous showcase of research done within this framework. All student work will be posted here and their research will be supplemented with occasional reflective essays written by participating lecturers on the themes of memory, memory-making, memory politics and nationhood, and the construction of history and heritage in both Southeast Asia and Europe. These issues have become "hot topics" in Southeast Asia and throughout the world. We hope that this blog, disseminating our findings to the broader community, will generate ideas and conversations both in time (from past to future students and lecturers) and space (from the local places where the summer schools are held to the global community).




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