Gatty Rewind Podcast

In this episode, host Francine Barchett teams up with co-host Lijun Zhang, a Cornell PhD student in history, for a riveting conversation with Dr. Martina Nguyen, Associate Professor of History at Baruch College, City University of New York. Dr. Nguyen shares the story of a provocative newspaper column penned by prominent Vietnamese intellectual Nguyễn Văn Vĩnh, under a female pseudonym! She explores how the column stirred debates around masculinity, femininity, and national identity in early modern Vietnam. Plus, listeners get a sneak peek at an upcoming museum exhibition she's co-curating on the iconic ao dài (Vietnamese national garment) during the Vietnam War, which will open at the Cantor Art Gallery in Worcester in fall 2025.   Lightning round: 4:10  Research and Lecture Summary: 13:14 Advice for researchers and recommendations: 55:23  Dr. Nguyen's top recommendations: Songs by Trịnh Công Sơn and Quang Lê Đất Khổ (Land of Sorrows) by Hà Thúc Cần White Lotus by Mike White   The music on the podcast is from "14 Strings!", a Filipino-style Rondalla group established at Cornell University. Check them out here.    Produced by Adam Farihin and Cecilia Liu  

In this special episode, host Namfon Narumol Choochan flips the script by interviewing co-host Win Kyaw, a PhD student in Asian Literature, Religion, and Culture and co-chair of the SEAP Graduate Committee. This episode is inspired by Sean Evan's Hot Ones series, where they eat progressively spicy wings with hot sauce. To add a touch of Southeast Asia, Namfon and Win take on spicy sauces from Thailand and Malaysia. Win shares a snippet of his doctoral work and his experience as an integral part of the Cornell Southeast Asia Program. Tune in to discover hot sauces from Southeast Asia and find out if Namfon and Win can handle the heat! Lightning round (Lecture Summary): 5:53 – Thai Sweet and Spicy Chili Sauce Main interview:  13:12  – น้ำจิ้มแจ่ว (Nam Jim Jaew); What would be the title of your Gatty Lecture? 16:08 – Sriracha; What inspires you to stay in academia and pursue a PhD? 20:26 – น้ำจิ้มซีฟู้ด (Nam Jim Seafood); What made you become interested in 19th Century Burmese literature? 26:22 – Extra Spicy Sukiyaki Sauce; Why did you choose to come to Cornell? What's the best part of being in Cornell Southeast Asia Program (SEAP)? 30:34 – Sambal Gepuk; What is your favorite moment of being a co-chair of the SEAP Graduate Committee? 35:35  – Sambal Belacan; What is your favorite Gatty lecture and why? Advice for researchers and recommendations: 42:18 – Brown Sugar Boba Mochi Win's top recommendation:  Gatty Rewind Podcast by Cornell Southeast Asian Program Spotify Apple Podcast Kiss My Cat by Nightingale Music  The music on the podcast is from "14 Strings!", a Filipino-style Rondalla group established at Cornell University. Check them out here.   Produced by Adam Farihin and Cecilia Liu  

In this episode, host Namfon Narumol Choochan is joined by co-host Win Kyaw, a PhD student in Asian Literature, Religion, and Culture and co-chair of the SEAP Graduate Committee. Together, they speak with Aurore Candier, Associate Professor of History and Director of the Center for Burma Studies at Northern Illinois University. Professor Candier shares her journey into Southeast Asian studies and discusses her theoretical and methodological approaches, including the use of postcolonial frameworks and the reading of Burmese sources to challenge Eurocentric perspectives. Tune in to learn more! Lightning round (Lecture Summary): 4:27 Main interview:  9:00  – How did you become interested in Burmese history and culture? What inspired you to pursue a doctoral degree? 10:50 – How did you become interested in your current project? 12:20 – How is your experience serving as the Director for the Center for Burma Studies at Northern Illinois University? 15:58 – Can you walk us through the basic assumptions of Burmese Historiography? 19:55 – Can you give us more information about why you split Konbaung history into two periods? 23:30  – Can you give us a brief preview of French scholarship on Myanmar? 28:59 – How do you use a decolonial approach while also using some theoretical frameworks from European scholars? 31:48 – Can you tell us about your experience doing archival research in Myanmar? 34:25 – Can you give us the source that you use to examine the contact and circulation of the ideas between the British and Burmese elite? Advice for researchers and recommendations: 36:06 Dr. Candier's top recommendation:  Buddhist Backgrounds of the Burmese Revolution by Emanuel Sarkisyanz The music on the podcast is from "14 Strings!", a Filipino-style Rondalla group established at Cornell University. Check them out here.   Produced by Adam Farihin and Cecilia Liu  

In this episode, host Namfon Narumol Choochan speaks with Arnisson Andre Ortega, Associate Professor from the Department of Geography and the Environment at Syracuse University. First, they discuss his current project, "City of Imperialism," which examines the legacy of former U.S. military bases in the Philippines. Then, they unpack his lecture, "Geonarratives of Hope and Resistance," which is a part of a collaborative project with human rights defenders in Negros Island. It shows that mapping is more than a technical tool, but can be used to support resistance and justice, especially in a place suffering from authoritarian violence like the Philippines. Tune in to find out more about how Prof. Ortega and his colleagues turn cartography into a tool of care and resistance! Lightning round (Lecture Summary): 3:33 Main interview:  8:13  –Could you tell us about your intellectual journey—how you became interested in geography, colonialism, and what ultimately led you to pursue a PhD? 15:15 –How does the tradition of mapmaking connect to the history of colonialism in the Philippines? In what ways does countermapping challenge or push back against those inherited frameworks? 19: 20 –Could you share more about your current book project—its central arguments and what you hope it contributes to the field? 24: 41 – Your work involves collaboration beyond academia. How did these partnerships come about, and what does meaningful collaboration look like in your project? 27:36 – What drew you specifically to Negros Island as a focal point for your research? 34:13  – Could you walk us through the process of your project? Who are the key participants, and how do they shape the knowledge that emerges? 36:40 – In your lecture, you discuss how violence operates within everyday, seemingly mundane life. This brings to mind Hannah Arendt's idea of the "banality of evil." How does this concept help us understand the normalization of violence in the Philippine context? And how do human rights defenders resist within these conditions? 44: 48 – Finally, what advice would you give to students or scholars who want to use academic work to build infrastructures of care and support justice-oriented initiatives? Advice Advice for researchers and recommendations: 44:40 Dr. Ortega's top recommendation:  Urban Ecologies on the Edge: Making Manila's Resource Frontier by Kristian Karlo Saguin The music on the podcast is from "14 Strings!", a Filipino-style Rondalla group established at Cornell University. Check them out here.   Produced by Neen Yada Tangcharoenmonkong, Adam Farihin, and Cecilia Liu  

In this episode, host Namfon Narumol Choochan speaks with Courtney T. Wittekind, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Purdue University. Together, they discuss Dr.Wittekind's lecture, which is part of her forthcoming book, City of Speculation: Unsettled Futures in Urban Myanmar (Stanford University Press), and explore how speculation unfolds amid political, economic, and social instability. Focusing on Southwest Yangon, Dr. Wittekind examines everyday practices of speculation and gambling in a suburb where the Myanmar government proposed a plan to build a new city that never came to fruition. The conversation reflects on navigating the unexpected and uncertainty during fieldwork, especially the pandemic, and how these challenges reshaped her methodology and her scholarly work. Tune in to learn more!  Lightning round (Lecture Summary): 1:15 Main interview: 6:36 6:50 – What did you do before you started a PhD, and what made you pursue a doctoral degree?  9:54 – Did you have a topic in mind when entering grad school, and how did it change? 14:21 – Did you intend to choose Southwest Yangoon as your research focus in your first fieldwork, or did it come afterward? 25:43 – Your research deals with instability. Meanwhile, speculation involves futurity. How do you think of speculation in Southeast Asia, which is fraught with political instability? 31:55 - Who speculates? What does this speculation reveal about Southwest Yangon? 35:03 – Your lecture mentioned the organizing movement advocating for the New City plan. This challenges my understanding of the grassroots movement, which usually organizes against real estate developers. What does this organizing movement reveal about the politics of urbanization in the context of Myanmar? 39:42 – One audience member asked about how to identify the people's desire in the movement, and you admitted that it is hard to identify the real agrarian desire, and one of your chapters discusses the two categories of authentic and inauthentic farmers. How do you distinguish between the two? Are the lines fixed, or are they more fluid? And how do you examine whether the movement stemmed from the real agrarian desire? 44:13 – How did the Coup in 2021 complicate the speculation you're looking at?  47:44 - Since speculation is about futurity, it is always a process involving hope. Given the context of political instability, would speculation be possible without hope? Advice Advice for researchers and recommendations: 50:28 Dr. Wittekind's top recommendations:  Yangon Film School: an institution based in Myanmar, making cutting-edge films Purin films:  a film fund that supports independent cinema in Southeast Asia Don't forget to check out Dr. Wittekind's forthcoming book: City of Speculation, Unsettled Futures in Urban Myanmar. Description:  In 2018, amidst a celebrated political transition, Myanmar's first democratically elected government since 1962 proposed a built-from-scratch "new city" just outside Yangon, the country's former colonial capital and current economic center. 20,000 acres of once-barren rice fields became the site of extraordinary developmental dreams. Farmers on Yangon's outskirts traded cultivation for speculation on land and property, betting on uncertain futures and weighing what, exactly, was worth risking for a chance at transformation. As plans for the new city stalled amid political turmoil, economic liberalization, a pandemic, and a military coup, speculation became both a source of hope and a means of survival when urban dreams faded. Drawing on three years of site-based fieldwork and digital ethnography, Courtney T. Wittekind shows how speculation reshapes citizens' contemporary demands and forward-looking dreams—for themselves as well as their country—in times of crisis. Adopting the lens of "vernacular speculation," she reveals how ordinary people create value, interpret ambiguity, and act on possible futures, even as the promises of democracy and development collapse around them. A powerful account of how hope, anticipation, and uncertainty reconfigure everyday life, City of Speculation captures what it means to imagine—and gamble on—the future in the wake of profound upheaval. The music on the podcast is from "14 Strings!", a Filipino-style Rondalla group established at Cornell University. Check them out here.   Produced by Neen Yada Tangcharoenmonkong, Adam Farihin, and Cecilia Liu