Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences - Institute of Asian and African Studies

Past Conferences

 

EuroSEAS 2019

10–13 September 2019


Vom 10. bis 13. September 2019 fand in Berlin die 10. EuroSEAS (European Association for Southeast Asian Studies) statt, die weltgrößte Konferenz für Südostasienstudien. Die EuroSEAS-Konferenz wird alle zwei Jahre in einem anderen europäischen Land durchgeführt. Die letzte fand 2017 in Oxford statt, vorher gab es Konferenzen in Wien, Lissabon und Göteborg.

Die diesjährige Konferenz wurde von der Südostasienabteilung des IAAW organisiert und
in der Dorotheenstraße 24 durchgeführt. Die organisatorische Leitung oblag Prof. Vincent Houben als Konferenzdirektor und Dr. Benjamin Baumann als Konferenzsekretär. Unterstützt wurden sie von Prof. Boike Rehbein, Prof. Claudia Derichs sowie einem Kernteam studentischer Mitarbeiter*innen und freiwillig mitwirkender Studierender. Über 700 Regionalexpert*innen aus Südostasien, Europa, den Amerikas und Australien nahmen an der Konferenz teil. Insgesamt wurden 664 Paper präsentiert und 140 Panels gehalten, darüber hinaus fanden einige Laboratories und Round Table-Diskussionen statt.

Keynote-Referent*innen waren Prof. Caroline Hau (University of Kyoto) und Dr. Khin Zaw Win (Tampadipa Institute in Yangon). Caroline Hau sprach über ein transregionales Südostasien aus Sicht der Philippinen, während Khin Zaw Win auf die gesellschaftlichen Aufgaben der Regionalwissenschaftler*innen angesichts des wachsenden Populismus hinwies.


More information:
https://euroseas2019.org/

 


 

Kaleidoscopes of Religion: Southeast Asia and Beyond

23–24 January 2015


In global comparison, Southeast Asia stands out as a region marked by a particularly diverse religious landscape: various “ethnic religions” interact with so-called “world religions”, all which find representation in the region. From the popularity of Thai ghost movies in Malaysian cinemas to the growth of the so-called halal industry, it is clear that sweeping modernization in the region has not been accompanied by processes of secularization as predicted by classic modernization theory. Yet the diversity of cosmological ideas and practices present in the region raises the question as to how these phenomena have been interpreted, classified and regulated in the wake of colonialism, nation-state building and globalization: from the purification of “animist” elements to the categorization of ancestor worship as “tradition”, research into Southeast Asian conceptualizations of “religion” reveal that these have both absorbed and contested concepts of “religion” emerging from the context of European modernity.

Over the past three years, the research network “Dynamics of Religion in Southeast Asia” has carried out empirical, historical and comparative research into different manifestations of “religion” and its various “others” - including “secularism”, “animism” and “tradition”. Sociologists, anthropologists, linguists and historians have explored how “religion” is materially and discursively constructed in various Southeast Asian contexts, including in Vietnam, Indonesia, Laos, the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand.

With the conference "Kaleidoscopes of Religion: Southeast Asia and Beyond", the research network wishes to engage with scholars who have worked on “religion” beyond the Southeast Asian region by focusing on three thematic fields: religion and politics, religion and media, and religion and space. Ultimately, the aim is to discuss whether there is a particular quality to the “religious” – and, maybe more importantly, to the study of the “religious” – in the region, and if so, what that would be and how insights from Southeast Asia can contribute to stimulate broader theoretical debates on religion.


Further information:
http://dorisea.de/