New event!
📆2nd Dec
🕠5:30pm UK Time

LSE Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre and the Department of Gender Studies host @merweiss.bsky.social for talk "Scapegoating queers: Pink-blocking as state strategy" discussing how queer identities continue to be targeted & scapegoated in Malaysian politics

Latest in the Politics & Society in SE Asia Elements series: Pamela McElwee's Sustainable Development and the Environment in Southeast Asia. How can SEA best address environmental costs of development, beyond SDGs?
Free to download for the next 2 weeks! @pammcelwee.bsky.social
tinyurl.com/5cx83knt

Nick Adams, Trump's pick for US ambassador to Malaysia, has raised eyebrows with his brash persona and lack of diplomatic experience.

His nomination marks a turning point in U.S.-Malaysian relations, according to a political science professor. buff.ly/X65WHRs
By @merweiss.bsky.social @albany.edu

Crazy events occasionally compel me to venture out of my usual cozy niche in comparative politics and into foreign policy ... And few recent events (at least in my world) have been quite so crazy as this nomination.
theconversation.com/malaysia-con...

New article, with Ibrahim Suffian and Ted Lee: "Malaysia’s Democratic Deficit: Why Youth May Not Be the Answer." (Abbreviated abstract: not all youth are politically "progressive.") This piece was looong in coming – so all the happier to see it finally in print!
www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10....

Doing a "Bangkok after Dark" book talk at Book Culture (Manhattan location) on July 9, with Rianne Subijanto who also has a new book.

Details/register: www.bookculture.com/event/112th-...

Thanks to @sunycunyseac.bsky.social for setting it up!

New working paper, with @a2hicken.bsky.social and @edwardaspinall.bsky.social: "New Patterns of Urban Political Reform in SE Asia." What can 18 SE Asian cities tell us about the likelihood and character of urban reform? We dive in here. Thanks to our fab research team and GLD!
tinyurl.com/3eur93v5

A bit delayed in posting, but my recap of Singapore's less-than-shocking general elections last month: eastasiaforum.org/2025/06/03/p...

From Mary Callahan, whose judgment one can trust, on Myanmar earthquake relief: support on-the-ground efforts with "track records of working entirely with local organizations and of moving money with minimal overhead via the informal hundi system IMMEDIATELY." She recommends tinyurl.com/4xatjvvz

The latest Element in Politics & Society in SE Asia is out: Diana Kim's "Rethinking Colonial Legacies across SE Asia"! Kim explores the significance & legacies of Japan's WWII occupation of SE Asia for understanding colonial legacies. Download FREE through 2 April.
www.cambridge.org/core/element...

Upcoming webinar (3/11, 7-8:30pm ET), trying to make sense of (or at least, get a better grasp on) the implications of shifting/collapsing US policy and aid in Myanmar. Germane to that fraught context, but also to the rest of SE Asia and globally.
www.sunycunysoutheastasiaconsortium.org/events

Fantastic new volume in CUP Elements SE Asia series: @merlyna.bsky.social's "Social Media & Politics in Southeast Asia." FREE download through 17 Feb! A nuanced, astute take on character & implications of rise & amplification of social-media platforms across SE Asia (& beyond). tinyurl.com/yeykd4ee

Launching 5 Jan, from Cornell UP: the paperback version of The Roots of Resilience! My book is born again ... 😅 Available for pre-order now!
www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

Happy to announce the latest volume in the CUP Elements series on SE Asia, Jacques Bertrand's ambitious and astute, "State and Sub-State Nationalism in Southeast Asia"! Just in time to include on your spring-semester course syllabi! 😃
FREE to download for 4 weeks: www.cambridge.org/core/element...

Giving a talk previewing the Milk Tea Alliance book at Stanford on December 3, so glad to have @merweiss.bsky.social commenting & Gi-Wook Shin moderating fsi.stanford.edu/events/youth...

Jfc cis people, we really fucking need you on this one. Barring people from accessing bathroom facilities is barring people from public life, and if they succeed here they’re going to move on to barring them from every other possible place.

Call your reps please.

Reposted this elsewhere while watching the election returns come in, as it became clear how much perverse pull transphobia has had in MAGAland. Seems apropos for a first post on this new platform ... SE Asia-focused – or so I thought.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

#CFP “Global Southeast Asia: Continuity and Change,” Association of Southeast Asian Studies conference at St John’s College, University of Cambridge, September 15-17, 2025. Submit paper and panel abstracts by April 30 for consideration.