Stanley J. Tambiah Lecture in Thai Studies

Stanley J. Tambiah Lecture in Thai Studies

The Asia Center supports an annual lecture series named for the late Professor Stanley Tambiah, the Esther and Sidney Robb Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus at Harvard University. The inaugural Tambiah Lecture was delivered by Professor Katherine A. Bowie, University of Wisconsin, Madison, in October 2014. This was followed by lectures from Professor Justin McDaniel, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania,Thongchai Winichakul, Professor Emeritus of History, University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Penny Van Esterik, Professor, Department of Anthropology, York University, Toronto, Canada.

The most recent Tambiah Lecture was given on February 27, 2020, on The Thrall of Monarchy: A History of Royalism through a Study of Prince Prisdang by Professor Tamara Loos, Department of History, Cornell University

Past Lectures 

Spring 2019, Tamara Loos | The Thrall of Monarchy: A History of Royalism through a Study of Prince Prisdang

Fall 2018, Penny Van Esterik | Materializing Thai Heritage: Chance and the Life Cycle in the New Ethnology

Fall 2016, Thongchai Winichakul | The Invented Old Siamese Conceptions of the Monarchy

Fall 2015, Justin McDaniel | On the Back Streets of the Galactic Polity: Studying Indian Religions in Modern Thailand

Fall 2015, Katherine Bowie | The Politics of Rituals: Humor and the Vicissitudes of the Vessantara Jataka in Thailand

Harvard University's Asia-Related Resources