November 5th, 2009
Islamism: What Is to Be Said and Done?
In the News: Woodrow Wilson International Center for ScholarsMore than any of his predecessors, President Obama has reached out to "the Muslim world." But what of the terms and the timing of that demarche? If, as expected, he visits Indonesia next year, he will try to build on his oratorical successes in Istanbul and Cairo by addressing Muslims in the country that has more of them than any other. Read more »
October 27th, 2009
Where Did They Go and What Have They Been Up To? John Ciorciari
John D. Ciorciari was a Shorenstein Fellow at APARC in 2007-08 and an affiliate of APARC and SEAF in 2008-09 while a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Upon leaving Stanford he took up a position as an assistant professor in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. Read more »
SEAF Scholars Traveling to Philadelphia despite Old Joke
In the NewsPast, present, and future Southeast Asianists linked to SEAF have ignored the hoary joke about the contest whose first prize is one week in Philadelphia and whose second prize is two weeks in that city. Several of them are on the program of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) to be held, yes, in Philadelphia on 25-28 March 2010. Read more »
October 26th, 2009
Morada and Jones on Hard Choices
In the NewsEdited by SEAF Director Don Emmerson and co-published in 2008-09 by APARC at Stanford and ISEAS in Singapore, Hard Choices: Security, Democracy, and Regionalism in Southeast Asia continues to attract attention. Excerpted below are two differing but equally thoughtful recent reviews: 
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September 24th, 2009
From Terror To Trade, White House Moves To Engage SE Asia
In the News: National Journal Online on September 24, 2009Southeast Asia is something of a potpourri for foreign policymakers. The region includes the world's largest Muslim-majority nation in Indonesia, booming bilateral trade, terrorism, one of the world's most repressive regimes in Myanmar, and growing Chinese influence.
August 25th, 2009
SEAF scholar's book on Malaysian Islamism is published
Fall 2007 SEAF visiting scholar Joseph Liow's study of Piety and Politics: Islamism in Contemporary Malaysia has been published by Oxford University Press. Liow is an associate professor in the Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He worked on completing the manuscript at Stanford. SEAF director Don Emmerson blurbed the book as "broad in coverage yet rich in detail, cautionary without being alarmist, [and] a cogent antidote to wishful thinking about religion, society, and the state, not only in Malaysia but in the wider Muslim world as well."
July 24th, 2009
Kudos for Hard Choices
In the News: Asia Pacific Viewpoint on August 1, 2009Here is what University of Queensland Prof. Alex Bellamy thinks of a recent book, Hard Choices: Security, Democracy and Regionalism in Southeast Asia, edited by SEAF Director Don Emmerson: "It is widely acknowledged that Southeast Asia stands at a fork in the road. The ratification and adoption of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Charter in 2008 has given the regional body new found legal status, ...
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July 23rd, 2009
Where Are They Now? Ony Jamhari
In the NewsOny Avrianto Jamhari taught the Indonesian language at Stanford in 2005-06 as a Foreign Language Teaching Assistant (FLTA) under Fulbright sponsorship. He was active on campus in other ways as well, including organizing an Indonesian film festival. SEAF Director Don Emmerson enjoyed working with him on research projects in Indonesia. In 2009 Ony began teaching Indonesian language and culture at Woosong University, Daejeon, South Korea. Read more »
Contexts of terror in Indonesia
Op-ed: Asia Times OnlineJim Castle is a friend of mine. I have known him since we were graduate students in Indonesia in the late 1960s. While I labored in academe he went on to found and grow CastleAsia into what is arguably the most highly regarded private-sector consultancy for informing and interfacing expatriate and domestic investors and managers in Indonesia. Friday mornings he hosts a breakfast gathering of business executives at his favorite hotel, the JW Marriott in the Kuningan district of Jakarta. Read more »
July 21st, 2009
Don Emmerson on NPR: Who's Behind The Jakarta Bombings?
Shorenstein APARC, FSI Stanford In the News: WBUR/NPR on July 17, 2009In an interview with Boston's WBUR90.9, Donald Emmerson, the director of the Southeast Asia Forum at Stanford University, discusses theories connecting the recent deadly hotel bombings in Jakarta with Indonesia's July 8 presidential election. Emmerson says Jemaah Islamiyah - a militant Islamist group suspected in the attack - may be trying to focus on foreigners to reduce any public backlash against the violence by targeting "a hotel that is symbolic of foreign investment," but that it is difficult to find a clear motive for the attacks. "I frankly think that these are fanatics, deeply committed to some form of an Islamic state. At that level, if you believe in jihad so deeply, maybe reasonable explanations fall short of the mark."
June 15th, 2009
What's Up with Southeast Asian Studies at Stanford? Recap, Prospect, Controversy
Shorenstein APARC, FSI Stanford NewsThe 2008-09 academic year was a busy time for the Southeast Asia Forum (SEAF). A dozen on-campus lectures by Southeast Asianists from Australia, Germany, Malaysia, Thailand, and the United States ranged from country-specific topics such as labor resistance in Vietnam, political opposition in Malaysia, and the 2009 elections in Indonesia, to broader-brush treatments of Southeast Asian identities and modernities, regional repercussions of the global economic slowdown, and the wellsprings of "late democratization" across East Asia. Read more »
June 11th, 2009
Obama's Trifecta: So Far, So Good
Op-ed: East Asia Forum on June 11, 2009US President Barack Hussein Obama's speech on 4 June 2009 in Cairo, the second of three planned trips to Muslim-majority countries, was outstanding. Read more »
January 13th, 2009
Indonesia expert Don Emmerson interviewed by Christopher Taylor
In the News: Everything Indonesia on January 12, 2009Christopher Taylor, an award-winning freelance journalist from New York and author of the Everything Indonesia blog, interviews Donald Emmerson about upcoming elections in Indonesia and the prospect of U.S.-Indonesia relations during the Obama administration.
- » Everything Indonesia: Interview with Don Emmerson, pt1
- » Everything Indonesia: Interview with Don Emmerson, pt2
December 16th, 2008
Visiting Scholar's research on Southeast Asia published and forthcoming in Japan
Yoshiki Kaneko is a professor at Dokkyo University in Saitama, Japan. SEAF hosted him as a visiting scholar at Stanford for part of 2007 to continue or complete the research and writing of several Japanese-language manuscripts on Southeast Asia that are now in print or awaiting publication. They include three chapters in edited volumes: two forthcoming in 2009, "Ethnicity and Politics in Malaysia and Singapore," in Beyond Ethnic Politics in South and Southeast Asia (Keiso Shobo), and "The Collapse of Judicial Independence under the Mahathir Administration in Malaysia," in Rethinking Southeast Asia Politics (Keio University Press); and one published in 2007, "The Function of the Judiciary in the Democratization Process in Southeast Asia," in New Political and Economic Order in Southeast Asia: Changes and Challenges aft the Asian Currency Crisis in 1997 (Daito-Bunka University, 2007).
August 6th, 2008
Southeast Asian Studies at Stanford: A rising profile
Five Southeast Asia scholars are slated for residence at Stanford for the upcoming academic year. Shorenstein APARC and the Southeast Asia Forum will host four of them: three were selected under the Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Initiative on Southeast Asia, and one is a recipient of a 2008-09 Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellowship. A fifth scholar will be on campus as a National Fellow of the Hoover Institution. Read more »
August 1st, 2008
Stanford undergraduates pose questions for Singapore in Singapore Journal
The inaugural (March 2008) issue of PRISM, an undergraduate journal published by the University Scholars Programme (USP) of the National University of Singapore (NUS), carries a dozen essays. Six were written by Stanford undergraduates for a Stanford Overseas Seminar taught in Singapore in September 2006, and six by NUS undergrads in the USP for an NUS course taught at Stanford in May 2007. Read more »
Indonesian economist named Shorenstein APARC/Asia Foundation Visiting Fellow for 2009-2010
Sudarno Sumarto has been selected to become the second Shorenstein APARC/Asia Foundation Visiting Fellow. He will be in residence at Stanford during the 2009-2010 academic year. Read more »
Machiavelli for economic reformers?
Shorenstein APARC/Asia Foundation Fellow, Dennis Arroyo completes monograph on economic policy strategems in Asia.
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Hedging Alignments, Financing Resilience, and Assessing Pol Pot's Cambodia by John Ciorciari, 2008-2009 Shorenstein Fellow
Fellowships are more often won on the promise of completing a book than books are finished before the fellowships end. Dr. Ciorciari broke this "rule" by completing his book manuscript in Spring 2008 and submitting it to Cornell University Press for possible publication. Read more »
July 31st, 2008
State of the art of the state?
Stanford University Press publishes SEAF-initiated book on Southeast Asia in Political Science
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July 15th, 2008
Pyongyang expected to sign Treaty of Amity and Cooperation. Is membership in the East Asia Summit next?
KSP, SEAF In the News: Australia Broadcasting Corporation on July 15, 2008South East Asia Forum Director, Donald Emmerson discusses what impact, if any, there will b e on US-North Korean relations and ASEAN-North Korean relations once Pyongyang signs the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation at next week's Southeast Asian regional security meeting in Singapore. 
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February 27th, 2008
BBC interviews SEAF Director Emmerson about passing of Suharto
Shorenstein APARC, FSI Stanford In the News: BBC on January 27, 2008Suharto, the army general who ruled Indonesia with an iron hand from more than three decades (1966-98), died in Jakarta on Jan. 27. Later that day the BBC's NewsHour solicited reactions from various observers, including SEAF Director Donald Emmerson, who recalled Suharto's regime in the context of US-Indonesian relations.
December 20th, 2007
Applications from mid-career and senior Southeast Asianist scholars for the 2008-2009 Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Distinguished Fellowship on Southeast Asia.
AnnouncementThe National University of Singapore and Stanford University invite applications from mid-career and senior Southeast Asianist scholars in the social sciences or humanities who would like to spend up to nine months between August/September 2008 and August/September 2009 at NUS and Stanford writing and doing research on or related to contemporary Southeast Asia.
November 21st, 2007
ASEAN adopts charter despite differences over Myanmar
In the News: To the Point, KCRW, National Public Radio on November 20, 2007A long-time loose group of countries focused on trade and business, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is trying to forge a common market roughly similar to the European Union. But the question of how to confront Myanmar's crackdown on democracy has left ASEAN divided. Will Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore start to take a stand on democracy, and are they turning away from the US as China booms? Dr. Donald Emmerson is director of the Southeast Asia Forum at Stanford's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the author of many papers and books on the region comments on the adoption of the charter on KCRW's To the Point. Link to audio file of the entire day's show below. Professor Emmerson's interview begins at about 42 minutes into the show.
October 22nd, 2007
Protest and repression in Burma (Myanmar): What is to be done?
There is no consensus as to what outsiders can or should do in response to the dire situation inside Burma (Myanmar). At least that was the impression left by a vigorous discussion at a standing-room-only event convened by SEAF on October 18, 2007 on "Burma's Crisis: What Should Outsiders Do?" Read more »
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