Trude Jacobsen Gidaszewski

Current Research

I am finishing a biography of Sherlock Hare, who typifies the experience of many lesser sons in the British Empire with more money than sense. Forcibly repatriated from Burma in 1891, Hare continued to bombard the India Office with schemes for exploiting various places in the Indian Ocean—despite his communications emanating from the Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally Insane until his death in 1914. Shorter projects include analytical pieces on present-day politics and society in Myanmar, Vietnam, and Cambodia, and NGO approaches to gender-based violence in the Mekong Delta. I am also the series editor for Bloomsbury Press’s The Cultural History of Southeast Asia.

Major Publications

Books

• Sex Trafficking in Southeast Asia: A History of Desire, Duty, and Debt. London: Routledge, 2017. ISBN 9781138683075.
• Lost Goddesses: The Denial of Female Power in Cambodian History . Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) Press, 2008. ISBN 9788776940010.

Articles/Book Chapters

• Gender, Status, and Hierarchy in the Age of Angkor. In Damian Evans, Miriam T. Stark, and Mitch Hendrickson (eds), The Angkorian World, 5 vols. London: Routledge, 2023.
• Querulous queens, bellicose brai: Cambodian perspectives toward the female agency. In Vina Lanzona and Frederik Rettig (eds), Women Warriors in Southeast Asia, London: Routledge, 2020, pp. 48-63.
• “Independence to Disaster: Cambodia 1945-1975.” In Tim West, ed., Cambodia and the West, London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2018.
• “The Curious Case of Sherlock Hare: Race, Class and Mental Health in British Burma.” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 15.3 (Winter 2014). Nominated for the Berkshire Prize 2014.

Teaching Interests

I teach courses on South and Southeast Asia, French Indochina, violence, and gender history. My interests also include pre-1800 history, women’s studies, and public health in Southeast Asia. I frequently offer curriculum workshops for community colleges and universities worldwide.

Courses Taught

• HIST 140 - Asia to 1500
• HIST 141 - Asia since 1500
• HIST 342 - Southeast Asia to c. 1800
• HIST 346 - Women in Asian History
• HIST 395 - Historical Methods
• HIST 495 - Senior Thesis
• ILAS 590 - iNGOs and Globalization

Interdisciplinary Affiliations

• Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality
• Center for Nonprofit and NGO Studies

Prizes and Awards

• Excellence in Online Teaching Award (2022)
• Presidential Commission on the Status of Women Outstanding Mentor Award (2021)
• Honors Faculty Fellow (2020-2021)
• Remote Teaching Fellow (2020-2021)