Epistemologies and Emplacements | Theara Thun and Kisho Tsuchiya

The Centre for Southeast Asian Research, with the co-sponsorship of the Global History of Anti-Colonial Thought Research Excellence Cluster and the UBC Myanmar Initiative, warmly invites members of the UBC community and public to our second event in the series Histories of Anti-Colonial Thought in Southeast Asia.

About the talk

Dr. Theara Thun (University of Hong Kong) will speak on his recently published book which delves into Cambodia’s intellectual traditions during the precolonial, colonial and post-independence eras. It challenges the assumption that the Western model of history completely replaced indigenous historical thought. Instead, the book argues that despite the emergence of Western historical writings during colonial encounters, precolonial historical scholarship was never entirely displaced. The precolonial indigenous scholarship interfaced with the Western model of historical thought, resulting in the creation of a new epistemological body of knowledge in and of itself.

Dr. Kisho Tsuchiya (Kyoto University) will speak on his recently published book, which shows that the prevailing perceptions of East Timor have been shaped by large-scale wars, postwar consolidation, and the dominance of foreign observers. The transitions that construct what we know about East Timor have followed the rhythm of devastating violence and regime transformations. Playing a role as well are personal, institutional, and geopolitical interests and the creativity of Timorese and foreign observers. Acknowledging this cycle, Tsuchiya interweaves narrative of crucial events and political movements with an analysis of Timor’s connections to global circulations and historical transitions.

About the speakers

Dr. Theara Thun is a postdoctoral fellow in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong. A trained scholar in Southeast Asian Studies, his research interests primarily focus on cross-intellectual interaction, post-war education, higher education studies, and ethnic studies. He is the author of a book titled Epistemology of the Past: Texts, History, and Intellectuals of Cambodia, 1855-1970 (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2024). In addition, his research has been published in the Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Critical Asian Studies, Asian Studies Review, and TRaNS: Trans-Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia.

Dr. Kisho Tsuchiya is an assistant professor in the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Kyoto University. He is a historian and Southeast Asian area studies scholar specializing in colonialism, the Cold War, race and ethnicity, social warfare, place and space, borderlands, identity politics, community formation, religious transformation, human rights, and multi-culturalism. His book Emplacing East Timor: Regime Change and Knowledge Production, 1860-1910 (University of Hawai'i Press, 2024) explores the relationship between the cycle of regime change and that of knowledge production, offering an alternative framework to periodize the history from 1850s to 2010s. In addition to his first monograph, he has published his research in Indonesia, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, and Revista Oriente, as well as in a chapter for the forthcoming book Cold War Asia: Unlearning Narratives, Making New Histories (Cornell, 2025) edited by Hajimu Masuda.

About the series

In recognition of the 70th anniversary of the Bandung Afro-Asian Conference, the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second Indochinese War and the 25th anniversary of the Timorese independence referendum, the series Histories of Anti-Colonial Thought in Southeast Asia aims to bring various Southeast Asian genealogies of anti-colonial thought into conversation and spotlight them for the broader UBC community and public. The series will provoke conversation about underexplored lineages of anti-colonialism and democracy within the academy and popular discourse in anticipation of the Anticolonial Ideas of the Global Symposium held by the Global History of Anti-Colonial Thought Research Excellence Cluster in April 2025.