2015 International Summer School in Southeast Asian Studies
'The Return of the Past: Memory Making and Heritage in Southeast Asia'
at USM in Penang, Malaysia
Post-colonial states in the Southeast Asian region have been described as being strongly oriented towards the future, prioritizing modernization and development. In recent years however, the past seems to have taken on a renewed relevance. This intensive two-week course brings experts from Berlin, Penang and Yogyakarta together to discuss memory and its transmission as a social, cultural and political phenomenon. Hegemonic state-centred narratives about the past are compared with bottom-up popular memories in order to understand how multiple identities are formed, contested and modified.
The summer school is jointly organized by Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Universitas Gadjah Mada (Indonesia) and Universiti Sains Malaysia. The upcoming 2015 Summer School will be held at USM in Penang, Malaysia. In the first week of the summer school, lecturers of various disciplinary backgrounds (history, political science, anthropology) will introduce students to some of the main theories on memory and heritage and will give them insights into important research that has been done on these issues in Southeast Asia. The second week is dedicated to students' mini-fieldwork projects which are conducted in small groups and require students to visit various pre-colonial, colonial and contemporary memory sites and to speak with people connected to these sites.
If you are interested in applying for the 2015 summer school, please sign up for the course via AGNES here and keep an eye on this page for upcoming information regarding the application process.