A field that arose in the 1970s to tackle Western colonization and its aftermath, postcolonial studies drew on and interrogated other humanistic paradigms to become a seminal intellectual development. Chua Beng Huat (2008) notes, however, that postcolonial studies have “bypassed one of the most colonized regions of the world”—namely, Southeast Asia (231). To some extent due to postcolonial studies’ early emphasis on South Asia and Africa, this gap between the field and the area is also rooted in the peculiarity of independence in Southeast Asia, which was marked by the Cold War in which “[colonialism’s] oppressive history [...] was displaced by the fear [...] of communism” (232) and by nation-building projects defined by democracy/authoritarianism, multiracial politics, and subnationalist armed conflict. In this context, in what ways does Southeast Asia constitute a limit of postcolonial studies that points to yet other possibilities in the field? How might postcolonial studies be critical to the analysis of Southeast Asian topics (e.g., modernization, authoritarianism, racial conflict)—which are also postcolonial topics?

Against the supposed poverty of postcolonial studies in Southeast Asia, Elmo Gonzaga uncovers how postcolonialism has been articulated in the region in interdisciplinary scholarship—specifically, through the English-language journals Wacana in Jakarta, Manusya in Bangkok, and Kritika Kultura in Manila. Situating the journals’ emergence in the context of neoliberalization in the ‘Global ‘90s,’ Gonzaga explores how their postcolonial ethos of giving space to marginalized perspectives conflicts with Southeast Asian universities’ efforts to internationalize through world rankings and indexes. In the process, he shows that the journals’ imagination of Southeast Asia is shaped by the tensions between postcolonialism, regionalism, and transnationalism.

Focusing on Singapore, whose capitalist reputation as “Global Asia” is conditioned by colonialism and race, Cheryl Narumi Naruse examines how Singapore as a postcolonial nation-state demands concepts other than the ones traditionally used in postcolonial studies. In Singapore, postcoloniality is regarded as an obstacle to national aspirations; hence it has become wayward—i.e., unmoored from its traditional significations. Examining this waywardness, she argues, enables us to address the gaps between Southeast Asia and postcolonial studies that in Singapore are rooted in histories of authoritarianism, illiberalism, and rapid development. To examine the dynamics of postcolonial cultural imaginaries and the historicity of capitalism in Singapore, she reads a revered stateman’s memoir with a pop novel, Lee Kuan Yew’s A Singapore Story and Kevin Kwan’s Rich People Problems.

Turning to a nation that was not formally colonized but was nonetheless propelled into modernity by colonial influence, Phrae Chittiphalangsri moves away from theories of different forms of colonialism that do not abide by the traditional model to instead raise the question of colonial temporality. Following Ganguly’s view that postcoloniality should not be regarded as an epoch but as a ‘particular mode of historical emergence’ (2006: 162), Chittiphalangsri looks at ‘the moments of disjuncture’ where the concepts of time become problematic in the making of homogenous narratives that subsume coloniality under modernity. Borrowing Anderson’s notion of non-synchronism with the nation’s ‘homogenous, empty time,’ she reads King Chulalongkorn’s adaptation of The Mikado, Kukrit Pramoj’s Four Reigns, and Kaewklao’s Daen Dao to argue that Thailand’s noncolonial past contributes to postcolonial criticism by showing how a noncolonial temporality illustrates ‘time’ as an instrument of colonization.

Based on the ways that Southeast Asia was a product of a U.S. imperial imaginary that was doomed to fail, Chris Cañete Rodriguez Kelly explores Southeast Asia’s disarticulation from postcolonial studies through the lens of imperial failure. Through two Tagalog guerilla novels—Amado Hernandez’s Mga Ibong Mandaragit (Birds of Prey), which shows how the Philippines remains unknown everywhere, and Ruth Firmeza’s Gera (War), which connects revolutionary struggle in the Philippines, Nicaragua, and Vietnam—they explore the Southeast Asian desire for legibility and its impossibility, as if exclusion is a precondition to historical understanding.

These panelists not only focus on a variety of national traditions and literary genres but also employ different critical strategies to explore the ways that postcolonial studies intersect with, but may also have to be changed through, Southeast Asian studies, thus celebrating one of literary studies’ most transformative paradigms through critique. This session would be of interest to MLA attendees working on area, postcolonial, comparative, transnational, diasporic, and race studies, not to mention literary history, historicism, and Southeast Asian literature. Each panelist will have 12 minutes to present their papers, which will be enforced by the presider, who will introduce the panel for no more than 6 minutes. This leaves us with more than 15 minutes for discussion.