Tamara Loos
Cornell University, History & Southeast Asia Program, Faculty Member
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Judith Butler's book Gender Trouble, published in 1990, enjoyed its thirtieth anniversary in 2020. To that end, the Association for Asian Studies, the United States’ largest association of academics working on Asia, invited scholars... more
Judith Butler's book Gender Trouble, published in 1990, enjoyed its thirtieth anniversary in 2020. To that end, the Association for Asian Studies, the United States’ largest association of academics working on Asia, invited scholars to consider the importance of her arguments and ideas for Asian studies and scholarship in Asia, including how scholars have diverged from and expanded their studies of gender and sexuality in ways not anticipated by Butler when she first published the book. In this essay, I examine the impact of Butler's book in Southeast Asia. Out of the abundance of scholarship stemming from and about the region's eleven diverse countries and their histories, I prioritize those works that explicitly engage the theoretical insights in Gender Trouble to elucidate the lives of gender-nonconforming communities in Southeast Asia. I include scholarship that allows me to explore the disjunction between categories of analysis that are foundational to Butler's ...
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This chapter examines the context wherein Prince Prisdang Chumsai (1852–1935) had thrived and was ultimately exiled from. It also discusses Prince Prisdang's “silence”—in particular the reason, which he had pointedly removed from his... more
This chapter examines the context wherein Prince Prisdang Chumsai (1852–1935) had thrived and was ultimately exiled from. It also discusses Prince Prisdang's “silence”—in particular the reason, which he had pointedly removed from his autobiography, for his falling out of favor with Siam and its favorite monarch, King Chulalongkorn (r. 1868–1910). In addition, the chapter also explores the relative silence on Prince Prisdang's life and contributions to history in general, as he has only received marginal attention from historians despite his achievements, and despite his own efforts to demonstrate his own historicity by publishing his autobiography. Though turning to Buddhism in his later years, Prisdang did not write about his life as a series of mistakes from which he learned clear-cut Buddhist lessons. Instead, he wrote about what he did for Siam that changed its history and why he should be, but has not been, acknowledged for it.
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Acknowledgments List of Tables Introduction 1. Globalisation and Insulation in Asia 2. State, Society, Individual 3. Human Rights 4. Ethnic Minorities 5. Economic and Social Development 6. Patterns of Population Change 7. Environmental... more
Acknowledgments List of Tables Introduction 1. Globalisation and Insulation in Asia 2. State, Society, Individual 3. Human Rights 4. Ethnic Minorities 5. Economic and Social Development 6. Patterns of Population Change 7. Environmental Impact 8. Family Matters 9. The World of Work 10. Media, Communication, Censorship 11. Using and Creating Knowledge Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index
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ABSTRACT
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The writings and life of French sex radical, René Guyon (1876–1963), offer a fascinating opportunity to examine together western European sexological thought, human rights movements, and imperial privilege in Asia. As one of France’s... more
The writings and life of French sex radical, René Guyon (1876–1963), offer a fascinating opportunity to examine together western European sexological thought, human rights movements, and imperial privilege in Asia. As one of France’s early promoters of sexual rights as a human right, Guyon revealed himself to be a radical advocate for sexual liberation from what he called the ‘hideous bondage of conventional “sexual morality”’ in Europe and America. From his residence in Siam, Guyon penned his magnum opus, Etudes d’éthiques sexueles, a series of nine volumes that he wrote between 1929 and 1944 in which he promoted all consensual sexual acts, regardless of one’s sex, age or race, within ‘ethical limitations.’ His law background earned him a high position in the Ministry of Justice in Siam, where he worked as a legal reformer and judge from 1908 until 1963. His 50-plus years of experience in Siam and sexual adventures in other non-western countries served as an unacknowledged springbo...
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The writings and life of French sex radical, René Guyon (1876–1963), offer a fascinating opportunity to examine together western European sexological thought, human rights movements, and imperial privilege in Asia. As one of France’s... more
The writings and life of French sex radical, René Guyon (1876–1963), offer a fascinating opportunity to examine together western European sexological thought, human rights movements, and imperial privilege in Asia. As one of France’s early promoters of sexual rights as a human right, Guyon revealed himself to be a radical advocate for sexual liberation from what he called the ‘hideous bondage of conventional “sexual morality”’ in Europe and America. From his residence in Siam, Guyon penned his magnum opus, Etudes d’éthiques sexueles, a series of nine volumes that he wrote between 1929 and 1944 in which he promoted all consensual sexual acts, regardless of one’s sex, age or race, within ‘ethical limitations.’ His law background earned him a high position in the Ministry of Justice in Siam, where he worked as a legal reformer and judge from 1908 until 1963. His 50-plus years of experience in Siam and sexual adventures in other non-western countries served as an unacknowledged springbo...
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... history. Tamara Loos elaborates on the processes of modernity through an in-depth study of hundreds of court cases involving polygyny, marriage, divorce, rape, and inheritance adjudicated between the 1850s and 1930s. Most ...
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1. Am Hist Rev. 2009 Dec;114(5):1309-324. Transnational histories of sexualities in Asia. Loos T. Cornell Univ. PMID: 20425923 [PubMed - in process].
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In 1900, in the British colony of Singapore, a Siamese man, Manit, shot his beloved British wife, Maude, and allegedly attempted suicide. Several competing interpretations of the incident exist. In one, Manit is considered a deranged and... more
In 1900, in the British colony of Singapore, a Siamese man, Manit, shot his beloved British wife, Maude, and allegedly attempted suicide. Several competing interpretations of the incident exist. In one, Manit is considered a deranged and treacherous fraud; in another, he is a pitiable cuckold; in the third, he is a respectable gentleman suffering from unrequited love. Surprisingly, given