Seminar Series: Abstract

Theory and the Writing of Southeast Asian History
Prof. Vincent Houben - Humboldt University Berlin

Writing Southeast Asian history is a hybrid undertaking, situated halfway between the discipline of history and so-called area studies. Over the past ten years or so major debates have been conducted on the legitimacy of area studies in the face of increasing globalization. At the same time history as a discipline has felt the impact of several ‘turns’ in the social sciences and humanities. Currently studies on transnational processes at sites of cultural interaction and set within broad global dynamics emerge everywhere. The Southeast Asian region, because of its specific character as a contact zone, seems particularly suited to pursue this new research paradigm. The crucial question is, however, what kind of theoretical approaches can be thought of to enable Southeast Asian history to be written in a novel manner