Monthly Archives: October 2015

Visit the Southeast Asia Symposium!

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Hello, SOAN friends!

As part of Puget Sound’s new Southeast Asia programs, which are getting rolling this year, we have been putting together a symposium that will take place this Friday night (10/23) and all day Saturday (10/24), and which includes several events of interest to those of us who love anthropology and sociology. For example:

Professor Philip Dearden

Professor Philip Dearden

Friday at 6pm in Murray Boardroom we’ll have our keynote talk by Philip Dearden from University of Victoria, which will focus on cultural-based approaches to marine conservation around Thailand and mainland Southeast Asia. Dr. Dearden is a prolific and renowned scholar of marine ecology, so this talk promises to be excellent.

 

boat malaysia

Biodiversity and Conservation in Borneo fieldschool course

Saturday at noon in Murray Boardroom we’ll have our first group of student research presentations from folks involved in our 2015 LIASE field school. These students studied and conducted research on issues related to biodiversity and conservation in Malaysian Borneo last summer with Professor Peter Wimberger from EPDM.

 

PacRim 2014-15 group at Atma Jaya University, Yogyakarta Indonesia

PacRim 2014-15 group at Atma Jaya University, Yogyakarta Indonesia

Saturday at 1:45pm, also in Murray Boardroom, our second student panel will feature research presentations from students on our 2014-15 Pacific Rim Asia Study-Travel Program (PacRim), in which all students conduct in-depth independent study projects. Because I was directing the spring semester, we wound up spending a lot of time in Southeast Asia (including Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam), and these presentations will reflect research done in those countries.

Professor Kontogeorgopoulos teaching at a water buffalo camp in Thailand

Professor Kontogeorgopoulos teaching at a water buffalo camp in Thailand

Interested in traveling to Southeast Asia as part of our Luce Foundation sponsored field school program your own self? At 3:30pm, Nick Kontogeorgopoulos will discuss his upcoming LIASE field school course,Political Economy of Southeast Asia (IPE 333), and distribute applications. The course includes three weeks studying ecological challenges through a cultural lens near Chiang Mai, Thailand, at the end of the semester.

Chaopraya Ensemble

Chaopraya Ensemble

Finally, who doesn’t love Thai music and dance? We’re honored to have Chaopraya Ensemble performing a selection of classical and folk pieces on Saturday at 7pm in the Rotunda. Drop by and check it out, it promises to be a really wonderful performance.

 

 

 

 

 


The full schedule and additional information is here — feel free to come to one or all of these events (or some number in between), and invite your friends as well.

Hope to see you there!

Gareth

Jennifer Utrata’s Upcoming SOAN Brownbag Lecture

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Hi all,

The new Student SOAN Club is sponsoring this semester’s first brownbag lecture in the department. Professor Utrata will talk about her new book (Women without Men) and the research behind it. This is a free event, and there will be some food as well. We hope to see you there!

Wednesday, October 21
McIntyre 202
12:00 Noon

Utrata Lecture Poster2

Introducing Jason Struna

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The UPS Department of Sociology and Anthropology would like to welcome Jason Struna to its faculty this year.  Here is a little bit about him.

Jason at the Port of LA/ Long Beach aboard the USS Iowa

Jason at the Port of LA/ Long Beach aboard the USS Iowa

First things first: Thank you for welcoming me to such a warm and collegial place!  I feel very fortunate to have landed among kindred spirits in a great community of learners and researchers.

Like many of you, I am originally from elsewhere in the west—I was born and raised in Denver, Colorado, and just completed my Ph.D. in sociology last spring at the University of California Riverside.  Somehow, Tacoma seems at once familiar and new at the same time,     so it’s an exciting place to call home.

My teaching and research interests have always significantly overlapped, and I intend to continue that trend here in SOAN.  Having been trained as a labor process sociologist, my dissertation focused on warehouses and distribution centers in Southern California, and relationships among workers and firms in that industry.  While a significant theme of that work emphasized the impacts of globalization on those relationships, it also considered the role of labor and community organizations in mitigating some of the social problems workers in the region experienced.  As a result of contact with those groups, I was able to help many of my students engage in internships and experiential learning activities that developed into their own research and activist projects.  My goal is to continue that tradition of cooperative fieldwork, learning with and from our students on and off campus.

Warehouse workers, marching on strike against Walmart contractors and temporary agencies, joined by members of United Farm Workers unveiling their flag in East LA (2012).

Warehouse workers, marching on strike against Walmart contractors and temporary agencies, joined by members of United Farm Workers unveiling their flag in East LA (2012).

I am still getting my feet wet here at Puget Sound, but I am really encouraged by the rich intellectual, social, and personal life enjoyed by students, faculty, and staff in our community. Here’s to collaborating with you all in the classroom and beyond, and thanks again for inviting me to be a part of such a dynamic environment.