Public lecture: Pan-regional Responses to Indian Inputs in Early Southeast Asia by Prof Pierre-Yves Manguin

Registration details here. The talk is on Tuesday!

Date: 22/01/2008
Time: 16:00 – 17:30
Venue: Asia Research Institute, 469A Tower Block, Level 10, Bukit Timah Road, National University of Singapore

CHAIRPERSON
A/P John Miksic, Southeast Asian Studies Programme, NUS

ABSTRACT
The term ‘Indianization of Southeast Asia’ has caused more trouble than most in the Southeast Asian history business. Used in a colonial era, particularly by the Greater India school of Majumdar and Nilakanta Shastri, to imply colonial types of colonization, political domination and cultural transfer, it was reinterpreted in a nationalist era to imply selective adaptation and localization of some Indian ideas found useful to Southeast Asian rulers. Now that Southeast Asianists and South Asianists are at last resuming their interrupted conversation on a more equal basis, how can we best understand this process of cultural change? Professor Manguin will use the recent archeological finds in various corners of Southeast Asia to suggest an even-handed approach to one of the greatest turning-points in Southeast Asia’s evolution.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Pierre-Yves Manguin joined in 1970 the research staff of the Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO, French School of Asian Studies), where he now holds a position of “directeur d’études” (professor). He also teaches at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS, Paris). He obtained his PhD in History from Sorbonne University. He lived and worked in Indonesia for extended periods, and headed the Research Centre of the EFEO in Jakarta. His research focuses on history and archaeology of the coastal states and trade networks of Southeast Asia. He has lead archaeological programmes in Indonesia and Vietnam, on the archaeology of Srivijaya (South Sumatra), of Tarumanagara (West Java), and of Funan (Vietnam). He has published on themes related to maritime history and archaeology of Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean and South China Sea.