LuceSEA Competition Announces Grant Award to Early Modern Period Transitions in Southeast Asia: Environmental Dynamics, Social Change, and Globalization – a five-year grant of $740,000
UCLA will join forces with University of Hawai’i and University of Washington to establish the Program for Early Modern Southeast Asia. The period between 1400 and 1830 will be the focus of research by a network of scholars in archaeology, climate science, anthropology and history. Undergraduates, graduate students, and SEA-based early career scholars will participate in annual field schools and workshops in SEA, with an emphasis on previously neglected local and indigenous histories. A community engagement plan will bring local SEA stakeholders into the research process. PEMSEA incorporates outreach to heritage students and SEAsians in Los Angeles. The Program promises to bring SEA into global discussions on environmental change during the early modern period. The reconstruction of past environments will help contemporary researchers and policymakers understand the pace and threat of land-use changes in SEA today. Asian partners include National Chengchi University (Taiwan), Partido State University (Philippines) and Polytechnic University of the Philippines.
UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies receives $740,000 grant from Luce Foundation
The Henry Luce Foundation awarded a grant of $740,000 to the UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS) to support the project Early Modern Period Transitions in Southeast Asia: Environmental Dynamics, Social Change, and Globalization, described as “an exciting project” by Luce Program Director for Asia, Helena Kolenda.
The grant was awarded through the Luce Initiative on Southeast Asia and will establish the Program for Early Modern Southeast Asia (PEMSEA), directed by Stephen Acabado, associate professor of anthropology and core faculty member of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology. Acabado also serves as director of CSEAS. Faculty from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa and the University of Washington will serve as collaborators on the grant. The project will run from July 2021 through June 2027 with an additional $1.4 million institutional support from various units at UCLA including the International Institute, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, Dean of Humanities and Dean of Social Sciences.