Margaret (Maggie) Bodemer completed her dissertation entitled “Museums, Ethnology and the Politics of Culture in Contemporary Vietnam” as of May 2010. This Fall, Bodemer presented as part of the 75th Anthropology Anniversary Colloquium Series on Museums, Anthropology and the Work of Culture in Contemporary Vietnam: The Politics of Memory in the Exhibit “Hanoi Life under the Subsidy Era” at the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology.

Congratulations to Maggie and our best wishes on her future endeavors!

CSEAS is proud to promote our alumni achievements and projects. Email updates to us at cseas@hawaii.edu>>>
Join the CSEAS Alumni & Community group on LinkedIn.

This course represents part four of the Southeast Asian Cinema courses, alongside Cinema of Southeast Asia, Cinema of Thailand, and Cinema of Indonesia. The instructor has provided a course summary and list of selected readings; the complete syllabus (with readings, films, etc.) will be available closer to the start of the fall semester.

Course information | Instructor: S. O’Harrow | Thursdays 12:00 – 2:45 p.m. | 3 credits | syllabus

Anon., n.d., “South Vietnamese actress Kieu Chinh – a short bio-filmography”

Corrigan, Timothy, 1998, A Short Guide to Writing about Film –
-Ch. 3 Topics & Terms
-Ch. 4 Writing about Film

Do, Tess, 2006, “Bar girls and Street Cinderella: Women, Sex and Prostitution in Le Hoang’s Commercial films”

Doherty, Thomas, 2010, “The Death of Film Criticism”

Greene, Graham, 1955, The Quiet American

Hamilton, Annette, 2009, “Renovated: Gender and Cinema in Contemporary Vietnam”

Harris, Jack, 2005, “Nostalgia for the Countryside, directed by Dang Nhat Minh”

Nam Cao, 1941, Chí Phèo

Nam Cao, 1943, Old Hac

Ngo Phuong Lan, 2007, Modernity and Nationality in Vietnamese Cinema – Appendix I: Vietnamese Film: a brief history

Nguyen Huy Thiep, 1989?, Nostalgia for the Countryside Phillips, Richard & James Steffin, n.d., “The Quiet American as film – two views”

Westrup, Laurel, 2006, “Toward a New Canon: The Vietnamese Conflict Through Vietnamese Lenses”

1 – 4 July 2010 at IDECAFE, Ho Chi Minh City, VIET NAM

The Annual Southeast Asian Cinemas Conference (ASEACC) began in May 2004 with the inaugural conference organized by and held at the Asia Research Institute-National University of Singapore. An organising committee comprising young scholars and film practitioners was formed shortly after 2004 and a decision made to make it an annual event that would rotate through the region: thus far Singapore 2004, Bangkok 2005, Kuala Lumpur 2006 and Jakarta 2007. Future conferences are planned for Manila 2008, and Saigon 2009.

The conference aims are to raise the level of film discourse in the region as well as to promote global awareness about Southeast Asian Cinemas as a diverse field of study within film studies and area studies. It seeks to showcase and create academic and social discourse among scholars, film critics, buffs and media activists about the multiple new cinemas from the region, highlighting film as a vehicle for artistic expression, socio-cultural reflection, as an ideological and educational tool and to provide a forum for international networking among participants. The unique feature of the conference is its interdisciplinarity and combination of theory and practice: it is a place where film scholars, anthropologists and sociologists and cultural activists mingle with filmmakers, critics, programmers, archivists, and other film practitioners. The conference usually includes academic panels focusing on contemporary issues facing filmmakers, history, genre, gender and other identities, etc., film screenings and dialogue with film practitioners.

more info

Looking for a place to listen to radio from across southeast asia? The CSEAS staff recently discovered radiotime, a free streaming radio program online called radiotime! All the major southeast asian countries are listed, in addition to other countries across the globe. Some countries are even further categorized by locality! Check out the site and be sure to let us know what you think!

Until today, the Muslim Societies in Asia & the Pacific program (MSAP) only had a facebook presence online, so we are very excited to announce their new website: http://www.msiahawaii.com!  We hope our readers enjoy the site as much as we do!

The Center for Southeast Asian Studies would like to recognize the incredible efforts of graduate assistants, Nezia and Effendy, who were instrumental in the building of the Muslim Societies in Asia program.  The quality and success of the current MSIAP is a testament to their hard work and the CSEAS wishes them the best of luck on their future endeavors.

The First International Conference on
HUMAN RIGHTS in SOUTHEAST ASIA

Organized by the Southeast Asian Human Rights Studies Network and the Center for Human Rights Studies and Social Development (CHRSD), Mahidol University, Thailand.

14-15 October 2010
Bangkok , Thailand
www.seahrcon.org

Human rights in Southeast Asia are at a critical juncture. There are a number of positive developments in the promotion and protection of human rights, such as, the institutionalization of the ASEAN Inter-governmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), formation of national human rights commissions or institutions and the development of a dynamic human rights discourse within the region. These occur, however, alongside a significant amount of human rights violations in a wide variety of areas. There is still much work to do in the promotion and protection of human rights of ASEAN peoples.

The First International Conference on Human Rights in Southeast Asia intends to bring together academics, researchers, graduate and post-graduate students, civil society organizations and government agency representatives who work on the research and greater understanding of human rights in Southeast Asia . It seeks to explore the ways researchers and civil society have begun to make more critical contributions to deepening the understanding of human rights-based framework and actual issues through in-depth engagement with localized sites within the Southeast Asian region. Likewise, as human rights is an emerging area of study at universities and academic institutes in Southeast Asia , the conference also aims to provide a venue for the increasing body of research work being done by academics and graduate students on Southeast Asian human rights.

Possible Panel Themes will include:
1. Universality and particularity of human rights
2. Individual and collective rights
3. Gender, sexuality and women’s rights
4. Rights of vulnerable and marginalized groups
5. Peace, conflict, security and human rights
6. Challenges to human rights in Southeast Asia
7. Media, advocacy and popularization of human rights

Paper Submission Details
Those who wish to present a paper at the conference are invited to submit an abstract of 300-350 words and a short biographical paragraph of 150 words in English by 30 June 2010 to Ms. Saksinee Emasiri at seahrcon@gmail.com. Please indicate to which proposed panel you think your paper would best fall under. The full paper should be about 5,000-6,000 words.

Successful applicants will be notified by 15 July 2010. Full papers are due on 30 September 2010.

Photo taken from flickr user j l t under creative commons license

Wednesday, 28 April
6:30 p.m. – Korean Studies Auditorium

Viet Nam, 2002 (107 min)
Vietnamese with English subtitles
Director: Viet Linh
Cast: Duong Don, Dung Nhi, Trang Minh, Thuy Nga

Early 20th century, northern Viet Nam. Nguyen (Dung Nhi), a westernised nobleman and landowner, befriends Tam (Duong Don), a “dan day” (three-stringed instrument) player after the latter is accused of murder. Nguyen hides him in his estate, making him a supervisor and a confident, but in doing so, Tam is forced to leave his lover, the singer To (Thuy Nga). A life-changing event forces Master Nguyen to turn his back on everything modern, burning his own Western furniture and clothes, and forcing his villagers to destroy their few modern possessions, including tools, books and toys. Tam, seeing the land sliding into misery and his master retreating into madness, tries to help him and his people.

Mê Thao is interesting for what it tells us about Vietnamese culture and Vietnam’s perception of itself. There are many themes in this movie: the conflict between modernity and tradition; the complexity, rigidity, and violence of traditional class relations; the ambiguous role of the colonists (both seen as oppressors and as liberators); and a repressed sexuality.

There are many impressive scenes in this movie including a stunning visual where dozens of giant lanterns are lit and set free in the night sky, a tradition re-invented for the movie by the superb director Viet Linh (The Traveling Circus). Also remarkable is the “cat tru” chamber music, a thousand-year old art that plays a decisive role in the film, and sounds like a Vietnamese version of the Blues, as harsh, plaintive and moving as its American counterpart. -Gilles Tran

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HIFF and AsiaPacificFilms.com present a special opportunity to sample the site for one month totally free. AsiaPacificFilms.com offers a film festival experience by streaming a growing collection of over 250 feature films, documentaries and short films from established and emerging across Asia and the Pacific including Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

Choose to subscribe for a second month, and proceeds directly go to support the Hawaii International Film Festival.

Here’s how to do it:
1. Simply visit AsiaPacificFilms.com and enter this exclusive HIFF coupon code to redeem your free month trial: HIFFohana2010
2. Stay the second month and support HIFF while continuing to watch great movies from Asia and the Pacific Islands. You can cancel at any time.

This offer expires April 15, 2010 so we hope you’ll take some time to visit http://asiapacificfilms.com and take advantage of this opportunity! Mahalo to HIFF for their

sample now

Wednesday, 17 March
6:30 p.m. – Korean Studies Auditorium

Việt Nam, 1976 (156min)
Vietnamese with English subtitles
Dir: Bạch Diệp
Cast: Trà Giang, Như Quỳnh, Trần Phương

Adapted from the novel Storm at the Seaside by Chu Van, this anti-Catholic melodrama set in North Viet Nam in the 1950’s presents a sweeping view of the early days of the post-French era. Woven into the story is the relationship between two sisters, Nhan and Ai, both of whom have been abandoned by their husbands. Nhân (Trà Giang) lives in fear of breaking her bonds with the Church, while Ái (Như Quỳnh) struggles with the Church’s moral code and develops a relationship with another man. But Holy Day drives deeper than mere melodrama. Screenwriter and director Bạch Diệp takes us inside the massive social and political changes sweeping the north. We are witnesses to the infighting, even among families, as the Communist party begins to organize at the village level. Issues related to food production, distribution, and land management cause turmoil enflamed by local gossip and backstabbing that is barely tempered by the steady village cooperative chairman, Tiệp (Trần Phương). Throughout, political reactionaries working for the Church attempt to undermine Catholic support for the government in North Viet Nam, further dividing the population. Interspersed between these backstories are examples of epic filmmaking (considering the period in which the film was made). You’ll marvel at the scene in which the entire village works to fill in reclaimed land before the sea tide washes away their labor.

This black & white classic has been translated by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies and is being screened here for the first time with English subtitles.

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Thursday, 18 March 2010 at 3:00pm
Crawford 105

Anthropology Spring 2010 Colloquium Series
Co-Sponsored by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies

Presented by Dr. Terry Rambo, Special
Professor at Khon Kaen University, THAILAND

More information can be found at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Dept. of Anthropology webpage.

Image taken from Lucas Jans under creative commons licensing.