Major SUNY-wide grant will support Southeast Asian studies network with contributions from Associate Professor Lauren Meeker

A collective of SUNY and CUNY faculty members specializing in Southeast Asian studies has secured a $550,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to support a robust scholarly network and a rich variety of new academic activities and opportunities across the system.

The first field school experience will be held in Chiang Mai, Thailand in January 2024, and applications are now open to all SUNY and CUNY students and faculty until Sept. 10. Use this link for more information and to apply.

Lauren Meeker, associate professor of anthropology at SUNY New Paltz, is one of the 10 SUNY/CUNY faculty members who endeavored to attain this funding and who will coordinate the four-year pilot program.

Among the activities supported by this grant will be special courses, an annual field school and workshop abroad in a Southeast Asian country, publication support and a speaker series.

The effort to build a statewide Southeast Asia Consortium aims to connect students, faculty, alumni and community members around the following objects:

Enhancement of Southeast Asia-related scholarly infrastructure for teaching and research, to benefit both Southeast Asian-identified and Southeast Asia-focused students and researchers;

Developing and enhancing collaborations and networks, both across New York and between the US and Southeast Asia; and

Working in new and emerging areas of inquiry, through grants to support teaching and research around a signature annual theme.

Each year, the Consortium will explore a single interdisciplinary theme through curriculum, research, and public outreach. For the first three years, the themes will be:

Sites and Spaces of Mobilization and Protest (2023-24, in Chiang Mai, Thailand)

Southeast Asian Identities in Popular Culture and Literature (2024-25 in Kuala Lumpur/Johor, Malaysia)

Climate Change, Sustainability, and Geography (2025-26 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and Siem Reap, Cambodia)

Meeker is a co-organizer for the 2024-25 theme, Southeast Asian Identities in Popular Culture and Literature.

New Paltz students and faculty interested in learning more about this exciting initiative are invited to contact Meeker at meekerl@newpaltz.edu.

Please feel free to contact Benjamin Tausig at benjamin.tausig@stonybrook.edu  if you would like further information about the 2023-24 workshop and field school.

The Henry Luce Foundation’s Luce Initiative on Southeast Asia is a multi-year grants competition with the broad goal of strengthening the study of Southeast Asia in institutions of higher learning in North America and in Southeast Asia by providing resources for the creation of models, strategies, and partnerships that not only bolster existing program structures but also take them in new directions.