Brown Bag/Local Lore program “The Center for Southeast Asian Studies at NIU: An International Window on the World

The March Brown Bag/Local Lore program will feature Dr. Eric Jones, Director for the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, and he will present his talk: “The Center for Southeast Asian Studies at NIU: An International Window on the World.”  Receiving his Ph.D. in History from the University of California-Berkeley in 2003, Jones is a specialist in colonial Southeast Asia and the author of Wives, Slaves, and Concubines: A History of the Female Underclass in Dutch Asia (DeKalb: NIU Press, 2010). He is also the host of Southeast Asia Crossroads podcast, available on Soundcloud, which feature conversations with experts covering topics from history and politics to art and culture in Southeast Asia.

During this program Jones will discuss the Center’s history and the relationship between Southeast Asia and the DeKalb area. For starters, the Center for Southeast Asian Studies is dedicated to increasing the world’s knowledge and understanding of the 11 countries of Southeast Asia. Established in 1963, the Center grew out of one of the first Peace Corps training programs for Southeast Asia volunteers. Currently, NIU teaches five Southeast Asian languages: Burmese, Indonesian, Khmer, Tagalog and Thai. In 1997, it was designated a U.S. Department of Education Title VI National Resource Center, the only such center on campus and one of only six in the nation. Join us to find out more!