152 episodes listed below
Scholarly routes into Southeast Asia.
New Books in Southeast Asian Studies is an academic interview channel built around recent research on Southeast Asia. Its conversations range from Timor-Leste’s unsettled dead and Singaporean Islamic self-help to Thai electoral politics, Indonesian Islam, sex work in film and literature, and food writing under climate stress.
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New Books in Southeast Asian Studies is an academic interview channel where recent books become a way into Southeast Asian politics, culture, history, religion, law, literature, and social life. It is not built around hot takes. It is built around researchers explaining what they studied, how they studied it, and why the subject still matters. The conversations often begin with a book’s intellectual path before moving into the worlds the book describes. That gives the show a deliberate pace and a strong sense of scholarly context. Recent episodes show the channel’s range clearly. Timor-Leste appears through Lia Kent’s work on spirits, memory, state formation, Santa Cruz, social repair, reconciliation, and peace building. Singapore appears through Nurhaizatul Jamil’s study of Islamic self-help, Malay-Muslim women, religious authority, piety, work, love, and state racialization. Human rights enters through discussion of global business, local struggle, non-judicial remedy, Rajasthan mining deaths, widows, compensation, and the limits of leverage across value chains. Literature and film enter through Leslie Barnes’s book on sex work in Southeast Asia, with attention to documentary form, spectatorship, ambivalence, and Phnom Penh before 1975. The channel also makes room for essays and public scholarship, including a Gastronomica conversation about Chiang Mai, haze, illness, culinary tourism, climate, and care. Its political lane is equally substantial. Episodes cover Thailand’s February 2026 snap election and constitutional referendum, Poonjai Thai, conservative politics, and military-rule legacies. Another conversation frames Islam, society, and politics in Indonesia through a specialist discussion of the world’s single largest majority Muslim country and the world’s third biggest democracy. A further episode reaches beyond the region to Asia after Europe, colorful cosmopolitanism, and Asian universalisms. The show’s value is cumulative. It lets a listener hear Southeast Asia through books, but also through fieldwork, institutions, memory, law, religion, aesthetics, and contested public life. It suits patient attention. The reward is depth without theatrical urgency.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants careful, book-centered conversation about Southeast Asia’s politics, societies, cultures, and histories. It is a strong fit for people who prefer specialist context to compressed news commentary.
What sets it apart: The channel’s distinction is its academic breadth: one feed can move from Timor-Leste’s dead and Singaporean self-help cultures to Thai elections, Indonesian Islam, documentary film, human rights remedy, and food writing under climate stress. It treats each subject through authors and specialists rather than general punditry.
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-st…
From Santa Cruz's missing dead to a documentary's mirrors, your certainties get a polite cross-examination.
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A thoughtful account of how Timor-Leste's dead continue to shape memory, land, and peace.
The Unruly Dead comes through as a study of how spirits, memory, and state formation remain entangled in Timor-Leste. Leah Kent draws on two decades of work on social repair, reconciliation, and peace building to move beyond elite politics, trials, and truth commissions, toward…
A grounded look at why local solidarity and international remedy often fail to meet.
Global Business and Local Struggle follows workers and activists trying to turn human rights language into actual remedy when global supply chains leave them with little leverage.
A thoughtful conversation about sex work, documentary form, and the unstable line between looking and knowing.
Leslie Barnes's conversation about Sex Work in Southeast Asia, Scenes of Ambivalence in Literature and Film presents the book as a cross-disciplinary study of sex work, literature, and film.
A food essay leads into haze, illness, and the ethics of seeking authenticity in northern Thailand.
A search for authentic food in Chiang Mai turns into a more unsettled question about what travel means when smoky skies, illness, climate, and care are all part of the journey.
A discussion with Dylan Loh about how small states navigate and shape the liberal world order, set against the backdrop of the 2024 super election year and potential impacts of Donald Trump's return.
Sugata Bose discusses his book 'Asia after Europe' and the concept of colorful cosmopolitanism versus colorless cosmopolitanism.
Sonia Faleiro discusses her book on how Buddhist extremism is shaping modern Asia, challenging perceptions of Buddhism as solely peaceful.
["Leah Kent describes Timor-Leste's dead as actors who demand burial, ritual, and state attention, not static memory.", "Natalie Pearson, a Senior Lecturer in Heritage Studies at the University of Sydney and co-host of the channel, interviews Kent, a Research Fellow at Victoria University Australia and author of The Unruly Dead: Spirits, Memory, and State Formation in Timor-Leste.", "Kent traces 20 years of work on social repair, transitional justice, and peace building in Timor-Leste, starting with United Nations work in the early 2000s and moving through serious crimes prosecutions and the truth commission.", "The conversation moves from the 24-year Indonesian occupation and the 2018 Corre Meta Nacional to Santa Cruz, Likisa, and rural recovery commissions that gather remains into ossuaries and archives of remains."]
["On New Books in Southeast Asian Studies, host Jacqueline Michael talks with Dr.
New Books Network's Global Cooperation Special Series features Global Business and Local Struggle: Reimagining Non-Judicial Remedy for Human Rights, the 2025 Cambridge University Press book by Tim Connor, Annie Delaney, Fiona Haynes, Kate MacDonald, and Shelley Marshall.
Michael Vann of Sacramento State University interviews Leslie Barnes about Sex Work in Southeast Asia: Scenes of Ambivalence in Literature and Film, published by Edinburgh University Press in 2025.
Alyssa James talks with writer-historian Kemi Bajan about "Chiang Mai 2015," her Spring 2025 Gastronomica essay on failed culinary tourism in northern Thailand.
Robert Cribb and Sandra Wilson examine 13 Japanese war-crime cases to ask how people become war criminals.
Hans Harmakaputra’s book examines Christian-Muslim relations in Indonesia after the 1998 Reformation, focusing on Christian resistance and belonging.
Nicholas Evan Sarantakes says Douglas MacArthur declared Manila fallen on February 6, 1945, although fighting lasted another month.
Dr.
An interview with Robert Hefner discussing the intersection of Islam, society, and politics in Indonesia.