Author: Le Minh Khai

This author has written 1171 articles

The Digital Age World Does Not Need Southeast Asian Studies – And That’s the Problem

Today I stumbled across an article by historian Thongchai Winichakul on “Southeast Asian Studies in the Age of STEM Education and Hyper-Utilitarianism.” Being a fan of Thongchai’s work on Thai history, and seeing that this essay covers a topic that I’m always interested in – Southeast Asian Studies in the current (digital) age – I decided to read it.

It is no secret that the world of area studies in general, and the humanities in particular, are not faring well these days. What I find problematic is that in discussing this issue many academics simply try to argue that area studies (or history or the humanities, etc.) is important because it promotes/teaches critical thinking or certain knowledge that leads to a more meaningful life.

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Exploring Brunei

For the past six months I have been living in Brunei. Before coming here, like many people I know, I knew very little about the country and did not know what to expect.

After arriving, I quickly realized that Brunei is incredibly beautiful.

At present there isn’t much of a tourism industry. And while that will likely change to some extent in the years ahead, hopefully whatever changes come will not disrupt the lifestyle and beauty of the country.

I’ve been making videos to document my explorations (and to practice video editing). I’m sharing the ones I’ve made here for anyone who is curious to see what beautiful Brunei looks like, as it is indeed beautiful.

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Ooi Keat Gin, An Historical Encyclopedia of Southeast Asia, & the State of Southeast Asian Studies

In this video, Professor Victor T. King of the Institute of Asian Studies at Universiti Brunei Darussalam continues his discussion with Professor Ooi Keat Gin, an historian in the School…

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History is Ending. . .

As a blog that has the word “history” in its title, I think we need to pause and talk a little bit about that word, because it’s in the news again. Let me explain.

I used to serve as an undergraduate advisor for a History Department in the US, and in that capacity, I saw that starting around 2012 the number of students majoring in History started to decline rapidly. That decline continued for about 5 years, until the number of majors was around 50% what it had once been.

This same decline in History majors has taken place at universities all across America (and I’m sure in other parts of the world too), and historian Benjamin M. Schmidt has just published a new article about this topic.

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Introducing Historian Ooi Keat Gin

Ooi Keat Gin is an historian who has written extensively on World War II and its aftermath on Borneo. Among his many works are Rising Sun over Borneo: The Japanese Occupation of Sarawak, 1941-1945 (Springer, 1999), The Japanese Occupation of Borneo, 1941-45 (Routledge, 2010) and Post-War Borneo, 1945-1950: Nationalism, Empire and State Building (Routledge, 2013).

I recently made this video of a conversation that anthropologist Victor T. King had with Ooi Keat Gin about his career and work, and I share it here with anyone who is interested in learning about this historian and his many writings.

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Southeast Asian Studies, Orientalism, Decolonization, Baby Boomer Politics & Sympathetic Essentialism

This video continues the conversation started in the previous post about Southeast Asian Studies. We start by talking about the article “Can There Be Southeast Asians in Southeast Asian Studies?” by Ariel Heryanto and then move on to talk about Orientalism, Decolonization, Baby Boomer Politics and Sympathetic Essentialism.

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ASEAN Studies and Southeast Asian Studies – Morning Meditations

I’ve been sick recently, but I have a lot of ideas in my head and so I decided to record a video about them.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the field of Southeast Asian Studies, and how it fits (or doesn’t) in the world today. In the process, I came across some articles in Vietnamese online papers about a recent conference on Southeast Asian Studies in Vietnam that was recently held at Vietnam National University in Hanoi (VNU).

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What the Internet Can Tell us about the Field of Asian Studies

Anyone who has visited my flash blog about the need to transform Asian Studies for the digital age (Content Asian Studies) or who has read my piece in the Mekong Review on the decline of Asian Studies knows that I think a lot about the changes that are taking place in the world today (the rise of the Internet, the decline of the Humanities, etc.) and how those changes affect those of us who work in the field of Asian Studies.

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