NIU to host first international
Thai conference on U.S. soil

by Tom Parisi

More than 300 scholars from across the world are expected to visit NIU for the upcoming Ninth International Conference on Thai Studies.

The conference will be held from Sunday, April 3, through Wednesday, April 6. It will be the first international Thai studies conference held in the United States.

Kasit Piromya, the Thai ambassador to the United States, and Darryl Johnson, former U.S. ambassador to Thailand, are expected to be among the attendees. The conference also is expected to draw nearly two dozen NIU alumni who hold scholarly posts in Thai studies here and abroad.

“In a lot of ways, this will be a coming home for many of the conference participants,” said Arlene Neher, an NIU scholar of Thailand who is serving as director of the conference. Neher said $125,000 in funding was raised to bring scholars from abroad to DeKalb.

The conference focuses on a broad definition of Thai studies, including studies of all ethnic groups within the Kingdom of Thailand, as well as Thai/Tai peoples of Southeast Asia, India and China. About 185 papers have been submitted for the event. “This will be bigger than any of the Thai conferences that have been held previously,” Neher said.

“We’re honored to be hosting the first international Thai conference on U.S. soil,” added Susan Russell, director of the NIU Center for Southeast Asian Studies. “Scholarship on Thailand has long been of keen interest to our center, and it’s great to see so many scholars coming from Thailand and abroad to participate. Arlene has done a terrific job organizing the event.”

Russell’s center is sponsoring the conference, coordinated through the Office of External Programming in Liberal Arts and Sciences. Founded in 1963, the university’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies is the second oldest of its kind in the nation and one of seven National Resource Centers for Southeast Asian studies.

Students can work toward a minor or a graduate concentration in Southeast Asian studies; courses are offered in the region’s languages, literatures, anthropology, geography, history, religion, music, art history and government. NIU’s center has particular strengths in the study of Thailand, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Organizations providing funding and support to the Thai conference at NIU include the Rockefeller Foundation, Toyota Foundation, The Asia Foundation in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Department of Education, the Association for Asian Studies at the University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the Royal Thai Consulate General in Chicago.

More information about the Ninth International Conference on Thai Studies is available online at www.niu.edu/thaiconf/.

3-28-05