Wherever I am, the world comes after me.
It offers me its busyness. It does not believe that I do not want it.
Now I understand why the old poets of China went so far
and high into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.
"The Old Poets of China" by Mary Oliver

The May 2014 Coup: Thoughts on Royal Nationalism, Democracy, and Organized Crime | A Public Lecture

Details

The UP Asian Center and the UP Department of Political Science will be sponsoring a public lecture, The May 2014 Coup: Thoughts on Royal Nationalism, Democracy, and Organized Crime on Thursday, 30 April 2015, 2:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., Seminar Room, Hall of Wisdom, GT-Toyota Asian Cultural Center, Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman. The lecture is free and open to the public; seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. 

 

In this lecture, Dr. Federico Ferrara examines Thailand’s royal nationalism, which has helped legitimize a succession of military coups and non-democratic regimes since the late 1950s. Indeed, since then, royalists have periodically been reduced to taking desperate measures in order to impress upon the public that democratic institutions expose the nation to anarchy and chaos.  Ferrara also addresses the longstanding tendency of Thailand’s royalist establishment to rely on the methods of organized crime to stretch the limits of its cultural hegemony, reflecting on the connection between the recent intensification in the harshness of such measures and the decline of the country’s royalist order. 

 

Dr. Federico Ferrara has a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University and is currently Assistant Professor at the Department of Asian and International Studies, City University of Hong Kong.  He specializes on and has written about comparative political institutions, political parties, and elections, contentious politics, and Thai politics. His scholarly work includes several journal articles in The American Journal of Political Science and The Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, and the International Political Science Review, among others. Dr. Ferrara is the author of the book, The Political Development of Modern Thailand, published by Cambridge University in March 2015. 

 

Seats are available on a first-come, first-served basis, but the organizers would appreciate an email expressing intent to come: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The Asian Center offers M.A. degrees in Asian Studies with four fields of specialization: Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and West Asia. The Center also has an M.A. program in Philippine Studies that allows students to major in Philippine society and culture, Philippine foreign relations, or Philippine development studies. The Center offers a Ph.D. program in Philippine Studies in conjunction with the College of Arts and Letters and the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy. The Asian Center publishes Asian Studies: Journal of Critical Perspectives on Asia, the latest issue of which can be downloaded here.