Conference Program

COTS 54th Annual Meeting, Northern Illinois University, 2026

In-person Schedule

All presentations will be in the Capitol Room, Main Floor, Holmes Student Center
All meals will be in at Ellington’s, Main Floor, Holmes Student Center.
The Holmes Student Center has several gender inclusive bathrooms

Friday, November 6

Friday Conference Schedule
Time	Description	Location
12–12:10 PM	Welcome remarks By the COTS 2026 Organizing Committee	Capitol Room, Holmes Student Center
12:15–1:15 PM	Opening keynote Deputy Consul General Varapol Chensavasdijai of the Royal Thai Consulate-General, Chicago.	Capitol Room, Holmes Student Center
1:15–2:30 PM	Lunch	Ellington’s Restaurant, Holmes Student Center
2:30–3:45 PM	Panel 1: Society and Culture John Hartman – Royal Reverberations from the Publication of Sanuk Neuk ‘Amusing Imaginings’ Molly Pasley – Educating the Blind in Thailand: An Orientation and Mobility Specialist’s Knowledge Exchange Tour Yu Tsao – Becoming Christian: Gendered Dimensions of Religious Conversion among Hmong Women Rui Zhao – The Gender of Native Chieftaincy: Tai Elite Women in the Sino-Southeast Asian Borderland Moderator: Hao Phan	Capitol Room, Holmes Student Center
3:50–5:05 PM	Panel 2: Gender, Identity & Language Anchana Wachira-Asakon – The Bad Girls Dictionary as Subversive Lexicon: Feminist Meaning-Making Against Development Discourse Clayton Shuttleworth – “A Place for People who Speak Like Us”: the Affordances and Limitations of Enregistering Queerness in Chiang Mai Nattamon Saphaokham – Queer Words in Translation: Thai LGBTQ+ Language, Western Influence, and Local Authenticity Peyton Rundell – Queer Vernacular, Affect, and Kinship among Thai Youth: Feeling “Real” Through Language Moderator: Aarie Glas	Capitol Room, Holmes Student Center
5:10–6:25 PM	Panel 3: Politics & Policies Aarie Glas – Agency and leadership in ASEAN: Thailand’s pursuit of status quo consensus and calibrated change Edgardo Diaz Vega – Patterns of Authoritarian Repression in Myanmar and Thailand (2021–2025) Montita Sowapark – “Minimize Suffering, Protect Life”: Abortion in the Age of Decriminalization Phoom Langsaman – The Development of Cosmopolitan Humanitarian Norms in the Thai–Cambodian Border Camps Moderator: Micah Morton	Capitol Room, Holmes Student Center
7 PM	Potluck At the home of Dr. Trude Jacobsen Gidaszewski. Directions and details will be provided to in-person attendees.	Home of Dr. Trude Jacobsen Gidaszewski

Saturday, November 7

Saturday Conference Schedule
Time	Description	Location
7:30–9 AM	Breakfast	Ellington’s Restaurant, Main Floor, Holmes Student Center
9–10:15 AM	Panel 4: Lanna Chanodom Thannrat – Preliminary Archaeological Evidence on Early Phayao Parit Chiwarak – Mandala or Feudal: Mandala State Model in Lanna Perspectives Malavika Reddy – Law and Kingship in Mae Sot During the Reign of King Bhumibol Taylor Easum – “We need a university for Lanna Thai!”: Chiang Mai University and the Meaning of Urban History and Heritage in Northern Thailand Moderator: Catherine Raymond	Capitol Room, Holmes Student Center
10:15–10:30 AM	Tea/coffee break	Capitol Room, Holmes Student Center
10:30–11:30 AM	Conference keynote Jane Ferguson	Capitol Room, Holmes Student Center
11:30 AM–12:30 PM	Two options: Southeast Asian Collections tour and exhibit viewing Viewing of the exhibit “Thai Studies & COTS History,” with Hao Phan, Southeast Asian Collection Librarian and Curator. (Meet in the lobby of Founders Memorial Library, located across the MLK Commons from the Holmes Student Center.) Graduate student writing workshop With Dr. Leslie Woodhouse-Castro. Limit: 12 students. Sign up for the graduate student writing workshop
12:30–1:45 PM	Lunch	Ellington’s Restaurant, Holmes Student Center
1:45–2:45 PM	Interactive music workshop With Ajaan Chamni Sripraram, Director of the NIU Thai Music Ensemble. No previous musical experience necessary.	Capitol Room, Holmes Student Center
2:50–3:50 PM	Panel 5: T(H)AI Diaspora Danuporn Kaewchuea – Thai Diaspora and Culture identity: soft power influence in Hungary Nida Sanglimsuwan – The Stigma of Authenticity: How Thai Restaurateurs are Caught between Cultural Expectations and Creative Agency Adrian Beyer – Ambivalent Migrations: Transmasculine Diaspora Communities in Thailand Moderator: Kanjana Hubik Thepboriruk	Capitol Room, Holmes Student Center
3:50–4 PM	Tea/coffee break	Capitol Room, Holmes Student Center
4–5:15 PM	Panel 6: Music Athita Kuankachorn – Bridging East-West String Sonorities: Conveying Thai String Idioms on the Cello for Cultural Sustainability Dolhathai Intawong – Transcultural Fusion in Thai Contemporary Music: A Case Study of Thai Choral Opera: Manohra Nam Yamprai – Composing Solidarity: ‘Tai no musume’ and the Sound of Thailand-Japan Relations, 1941–1945 Emma Bell – The Lanna Phin Pia: Sustainability Within Regional Thai Musical Heritage Moderator: Erick White	Capitol Room, Holmes Student Center
5:20–6:35 PM	Roundtable: Transcending Ethnomusicology: Honoring the Legacy of Terry E. Miller (1945–2025) Jittapim Yamprai Sara Miller Sonia Srichai Andrew Shahriari Priwan Nanongkham Supeena Insee Adler Chamni Sripraram	Capitol Room, Holmes Student Center
7–9 PM	Reception and music performance By the NIU Thai Music Ensemble and guest artists from Kent State University and UCLA.	Capitol Room, Holmes Student Center

Sunday, November 8

Sunday Conference Schedule
Time	Description	Location
7:30–9 AM	Breakfast	Ellington’s Restaurant, Main Floor, Holmes Student Center
8:00–9 AM	COTS business meeting	Capitol Room, Holmes Student Center
9–10:15 AM	Panel 7: Environment & Society, Part 1 Colin Kuehl – Should I Stay or Should I go: Deconstructing Climate Immobility among Agrarian Communities in Thailand Habbat Shah – Econareative and Solastalgia in post-draught situation Boonyarak Chuanchit – Assessment of Water Quality and Microplastic in an Urbanizing City’s Groundwater, Thailand Alan Potkin – The defunct Pak Mun Dam Community Museum: Re-purposing a 2015 archival documentary as a “digital memorial” Moderator: Melissa Lenczewski	Capitol Room, Holmes Student Center
10:20–11:35 AM	Panel 8: Environment & Society, Part 2 Panathip Chimrak – The Logistics of a Waste-to-Energy Plant: Waste Transfer and Environmental Cost in Thailand Ian Baird – Sand and Gravel Mining along the Mekong River in Thailand: Exploring the Contradictions between Capitalist Extraction and Beliefs in Spirits Yuting Zhou – Sensing Seed: Embodied Knowledge, Everyday Negotiation, and the Co-production of Seed Legitimacy in Thailand Li Yu – How maps can connect people with multi-sensory environments Moderator: James Wilson	Capitol Room, Holmes Student Center
11:40 AM–12:55 PM	Roundtable: Debating “Enchanted Modernities” – Rethinking Indigeneity, Ethnicity and Religion in the Upper Mekong Micah Morton Nancy Eberhardt Kathleen Gillogly Erick White	Capitol Room, Holmes Student Center
1 PM	Conference closing	Capitol Room, Holmes Student Center

COTS 2026

Contact

Please send general inquiries to:
Molly Pasley, Ed.D. (mpasley@niu.edu)
Chair, NIU Council on Thai Studies Committee