New Mandala

From time-to-time New Mandala readers get in touch with Andrew and I with questions about doing a graduate degree on mainland Southeast Asia (and other) topics.  We always do our best to provide helpful advice.
At the ANU, the College of Asia and the Pacific (which encompasses the Faculty of Asian Studies, Research School of Pacific and [...]

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Southeast Asia in the seventies can scarcely avoid its measure of difficulties and troubles as the result of the mass of unsolved problems which confront even the most successful of the governments in the region.  It seems proper to suggest that all the evidence which is currently available points towards an absence of cataclysms, but [...]

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Long-time readers will recall that when I interviewed historian Michael Aung-Thwin back in November 2007, some of his statements caused consternation among those who take a different view of pre-modern Burmese history.  Donald M. Stadtner has recently published a piece that takes on the range of contested perspectives about the “diverse cultural strands that made [...]

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Since its inception in 2006 New Mandala has continuously welcomed guest contributions. To date we have hosted over a hundred of these. We regard them as one of the core strengths of the website.
Building on this existing foundation of guest posts, today we are launching New Mandala’s Four Letter Words.  This series of invited contributions will showcase short scholarly [...]

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Thank you to everyone who has commented on New Mandala’s trial comments policy.  We have, to keep the issue at the top of the agenda, penned this short reaction to your many thoughtful suggestions and critiques.
From where we sit, the conversation that has started in response to the original comments policy post is a perfect example [...]

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Over the past years New Mandala has benefited from the over 11,000 comments hosted on the site.  Many of these contributions have opened up important new areas for debate and discussion.  We have always appreciated the time and effort that so many readers devote to the task of commenting.
In the hope of further improving New [...]

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Good with calendrical and astrological charts?
Prize auspiciousness above all else?
Have a flair for seeing patterns in numbers that nobody else sees?
Instinctive about the past?
Already know what the future holds?
Looking for new challenges?
An exciting opportunity has recently opened up at New Mandala, a website run out of the Australian National University.  The website managers are seeking a consultant [...]

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Last week I put together a brief post highlighting academic opinion on the unfolding Thai crisis.  Today I have a more up-to-date summary of the wide-range of scholarly perspectives reported around the world.  As always, if New Mandala readers have other relevant snippets they would like to see featured please don’t hesitate to add them as [...]

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Previously I used to think that to address a man in his own language is invariably the best method of approach if you can speak it fluently, but French was more appropriate for high Cambodian officials, who liked speaking a European language.  On the way down from the frontier through villages, knowledge of the Cambodian [...]

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To help some of the non-Thai New Mandala readers who are looking to the Thai-language media for updates on the unfolding political crisis in Thailand I have put together a quick guide to a few of the abbreviations and acronyms that are being most commonly used right now.  I hope it is useful for someone out there in the great digital yonder.
Getting inside [...]

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