Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University (NIU) for a talk by Wan Juliana Emeih Binti Wahed, NIU Fulbright Visiting Scholar and Senior Lecturer at the College of Creative Arts, MARA University of Technology Sarawak Branch, Malaysia. In this lecture, Dr. Wahed will discuss the aesthetic design of Pua Kumbu, a traditional patterned multi-coloured ceremonial cotton clothing created and occasionally worn by the Iban people of Sarawak, West Kalimantan in Indonesia, and Brunei.

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Michigan for a talk by Dr. Yogambigai Rajamoorthy, Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Accountancy and Management at Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), Malaysia. This presentation offers a comparative examination of the acceptance and perception of different types of vaccination in Malaysia and Indonesia, comparing and contrasting factors shaping public attitudes toward immunization across these countries.

Join the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU for a talk by Dr. Jessica Rahardjo, Research Associate at the Khalili Research Centre, University of Oxford. Dr. Rahardjo’s lecture will explore the adoption of Islam in Indonesia through the adoption of specific tombstone forms and their subsequent transformations in Aceh and the Minangkabau highlands in western Sumatra.

Join the Southeast Asia Program (SEAP) at Cornell University for a talk by Dr. Liang Wu, a SEAP Postdoctoral Associate at Cornell University with affiliations in the Department of Science & Technology Studies and the interdepartmental consortium Cornell Oceans. Dr. Wu presents a case study of Filipino among other Southeast Asian seafarers working in the international shipping industry across the global oceans, thus expanding the conventional definition of “Maritime Southeast Asia” – the archipelagic region of Southeast Asian countries situated between Indian and Pacific Oceans.

Join the Council on Southeast Asia Studies at Yale University for a talk by Phil Acimovic, Lecturer in the Department of Music at Yale University, and a gamelan musician and composer. Acimovic will discuss how the gamelan courses at Yale address the challenges of spontaneity and flexibility of Javanese gamelan in two musical contexts, klenèngan (concert music) and wayang (shadow plays).

Join the LSE Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asian Center for a talk by Rianne Subijanto, Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Baruch College, City University of New York. Her book, Communication against Capital: Red Enlightenment at the Dawn of Indonesia, tells a story of the processes through which ordinary people mobilized an anticolonial communist resistance against Dutch rule through the production of revolutionary communication in the 1920s.

Join the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute for a roundtable discussing insights and innovative approaches to inform more responsive policymaking in order to address the needs and aspirations of Southeast Asia’s next generation. Speakers include: Professor Nina T. Castillo-Carandang, pioneering health sociologist at  the University of the Philippines’ College of Medicine; Shahhanim Yahya, Senior Research Executive for the Institute for Youth Research Malaysia; Voradon Lerdrat, Director of Research and Policy Partnerships at 101 Public Policy Think Tank (Thailand); Dr. Sari Damar Ratri, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Research (IFAR), Monash University Indonesia; Dr. Rayner Kay Jin Tan, Assistant Professor at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore and National University Health System; and Dr. Tu-Anh Hoang, founder and Director of the Center for Creative Initiatives in Health and Population (CCIHP) and chair of the Vietnam Gender-based Violence Prevention and Response Network.

Join the Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University for a panel by Southeast Asian language faculty at Cornell on their experiences with, and contributions to, the Southeast Asian Language Council from 2019 to 2024. Speakers include: Yu Yu Khaing, Burmese Language Lecturer; Jolanda Mendaun Pandin, Senior Lecturer of Indonesian; Hannah Phan, Khmer Language Instructor; Thess Savella, Filipino Language Instructor and President of the Consortium for the Advancement of the Philippine Languages and Cultures; and Thúy Tranviet, Vietnamese Language Instructor.

Join the Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University for a talk by Patrick Daly, a Staff Scientist for Sustainability and Resilience in the Department of Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Daly synthesizes nearly two decades of historical and geo-archaeological research in Aceh, Indonesia to build a detailed paleo-tsunami history, demonstrating that the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was the latest in a 7,000-year history of recurring, massive events in the region.

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor for a talk by Adam Bobbette, geographer and Lecturer in Political Geology at the University of Glasgow. Professor Bobbette’s talk explores how the modern earth and environmental sciences were shaped by Indonesian intellectuals and knowledge traditions on the slopes of Javanese volcanoes.

Join the Southeast Asia Coalition for Academic Freedom (SEACAF) for its orientation and general assembly. This is a key opportunity for members to shape priorities, engage in meaningful discussions, and contribute to the next phase of SEACAF’s work in 2026.

Throughout 2025, there have been scores of activities commemorating the centennial of Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Indonesia’s most internationally translated literary figure. His novels have been translated into at least 49 languages. New foreign language editions in French and Chinese have recently appeared. Within Indonesia, however, his works are never, or extremely rarely, discussed in public schools. In the official or semi-official historical narrative of Indonesia, he was part of Indonesian society that was banned and marginalised. Pramoedya himself was 14 years in prison without charge from 1965 and his works, including the famous BUMI MANUSIA (This Earth of Mankind), published after his release from prison in 1979, was also banned. It was only after the fall of Suharto in 1998 that Pramoedya’s books could be purchased in a bookshop.

Join the Graduate Education and Training in Southeast Asian Studies (GETSEA) consortium for an information session for undergraduate students. In this session, graduate students studying Southeast Asia in universities across the United States will discuss resources, programs, funding, advisors, and other topics related to pursuing a graduate degree in Southeast Asian studies.

Join the Center for Remembering & Sharing for a concert that explores the theme of immigration, growing out of their own rich multi-ethnic family and musical histories, from Africa, Japan, Timor, Taiwan, Haiti, and beyond. Curated by Jen Shyu, the concert features Jen Shyu herself (vocals, Taiwanese moon flute, Japanese biwa, Korean gayageum), Sumi Tonooka (piano), and Val Jeanty (SoundChemist).

Join the EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop for a workshop on making prints, using letterpress and risograph technologies, to collectively produce a zine or short monograph. This workshop includes a brief introduction by Rianne Subijanto, Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Baruch College-CUNY, and Meghan Forbes, author of Technologies for the Revolution: The Czech Avant-Garde in Print. This event will highlight histories of print culture from Indonesia to Czechoslovakia a century ago, in which the working class and avant-garde artists utilized printed matter and modern channels of communication to push for an anti-capitalist, anti-colonial future.

Join the Indonesia Institute at Australian National University (ANU) for their annual Human Rights Day panel, which brings together experts with deep knowledge of the historical evolutions of human rights activism and protections, from independence to the present day. Speakers include: Sidney Jones (NYSEAN and NYU), Dede Oetemo (GAYa NUSANTARA Foundation), Usman Hamid (Amnesty International Indonesia), and Robert Cribb (ANU). Dyah Ayu Kartika, PhD candidate in the Department of Political and Social Change at ANU, will moderate the discussion.

Join the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute for a talk by Dr. Kaewkamol (Karen) Pitakdumrongkit, the Interim Secretary General and incoming Executive Director of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council’s (PECC) International Secretariat. Dr. Pitakdumrongkit will examine the key findings of the PECC State of the Region Report 2025-2026, which gathered data from over 500 leaders across 24 economies on their outlook for the region from 2026 to 2027.

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa for a webinar on how grounded, context-sensitive research contributes to a deeper understanding of environmental challenges and supports more equitable and sustainable approaches to environmental knowledge production. Speakers include: Dr. Micah Fisher (UH Mānoa), Xiaoyun Neo (UH Mānoa), Areerat Worawongwasu (UH Mānoa), Abdurrahman Abdullah (Universitas Hasanuddin), Irfan Saputra (Universitas Hasanuddin), and Aswin Baharuddin (Universiti Malaya). Dr. Mary Mostafanezhad will moderate the webinar.

Join the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute for a seminar on the Southeast Asia Climate Outlook Survey, a region-wide annual survey to understand the climate awareness and perceptions of Southeast Asian citizens towards climate action. Presenters include Melinda Martinus, Lead Researcher at ISEAS, and Dr. Samuel Chng, Research Assistant Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities, Singapore University of Technology and Design.

Join the Indonesia Project at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy for a talk by Dr. Andini Pramono, who will discuss the economic and environmental impacts of Commercial Milk Formula (CMF) in Indonesia, revealing substantial economic loss when CMF displaces breastmilk in Indonesia.

Join the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute for a seminar on the importance of peatlands in Southeast Asia as carbon sinks and contributors to megadiverse ecosystems. Discussions will highlight the potential and challenges of peatlands as Nature-based Solutions (NbS) in Southeast Asia, particularly from data and community perspectives. Speakers include: Dr. Matthew Ashfold (University of Nottingham, Malaysia), Dr. Azliyana Azhari (Monash University Malaysia), Dr. Alex Lechner (Monash University Indonesia), Dr. Helena Varkkey (Universiti Malaya), and Dr. Gusti Z. Anshari (Tanjungpura University, Pontianak, West Kalimantan, Indonesia).

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University (NIU) for a talk by Jui-Ching Wang, Professor of Music Education and World Music at NIU’s School of Music. Professor Wang will discuss a project called “Performing Southeast Asian Art Goes to School,” which helps develop curricula that use performing arts to teach K-12 students important historical context from Asian American Communities. This project connects NIU students and local in-service teachers with Asian American community members to raise awareness of Asian American cultures and history.

Join York University’s Canadian Southeast Asian Studies Initiative Research Colloquium 2025–26 for their inaugural event featuring Irene Poetranto, Course Instructor of Contemporary Asian Studies and PhD student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto, who will discuss the impact of Indonesia’s changing internet landscape on dissent, civic discourse, and the pursuit of democratic reform.

Join the Regional Economic Studies Program at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute for a talk by Dr. Deasy Pane, a Wang Gungwu Visiting Fellow at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, an Economist at Indonesia’s National Development Planning Agency (BAPPENAS), and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Indonesian Policy Studies (CIPS). Dr. Pane examines how Indonesia’s economy has been shaped by its deepening trade relationship with China, particularly following the implementation of the ASEAN–China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA).

Join NYSEAN for a book talk by Chiara Formichi, H. Stanley Krusten Professor of World Religions in the Department of Asian Studies. Domestic Nationalism argues that Muslim women in Java and Sumatra, from the late 1910s to the 1950s, were central to Indonesia’s progress as guardians and promoters of health and piety through gendered activities of care work.

Join the Council on Southeast Asia Studies at Yale for a presentation by Dinny Risri Aletheiani, faculty member at the Council on Southeast Asia Studies in the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies and Director of Southeast Asia Language Studies at Yale University. The presentation will look at the Orang Rimba, inhabitants of the rainforest of Southern Sumatera, and how adapting to new environmental changes in their ancestral forest due to land developments have made them a target for a new “educational project.”

Join the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) for a panel on the future of China-ASEAN relations. Speakers include Gita Wirjawan, former Minister of Trade, Indonesia (2011-2014); Bert Hofman, Professor, National University of Singapore and Honorary Senior Fellow on Chinese Economy, ASPI’s Center for China Analysis (CCA); and Brian Wong, Assistant Professor in Philosophy, University of Hong Kong and Honorary Fellow, CCA. The discussion will be moderated by Kevin Zongzhe Li, Affiliated Researcher, CCA.

Join NYSEAN and the Southeast Asia Coalition for Academic Freedom (SEACAF) for a conference examining attacks on intellectual and academic freedom in Southeast Asia and the United States. Scholars, journalists, and activists will gather to look at how universities and intellectuals often become the first target of rising authoritarianism, the costs and benefits of collective action, and the strategies for resistance. The conversation will address the impact of funding cuts, strengthened immigration enforcement, and assaults on higher education in the United States as well as the lessons learned from crackdowns in Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Turkey.

Join Graduate Education and Training in Southeast Asia (GETSEA) for a virtual discussion with Adam Bobbette, author of The Pulse of the Earth: Political Geology in Java, winner of the 2025 Benda Prize. All participants should read the Preface and Chapter 1: “Political Geology as Method.” Those interested in reading more should also consider Chapter 3: “Intercalated: The Political and Spiritual Geographies of Plate Tectonics.”