Religion, Nationalism, and Resistance in Southeast Asia and its Diasporas
Course Overview
Southeast Asia is home to the world’s largest stateless population and some of the longest-running ethnic and religious conflicts, yet the region remains understudied. This course examines how religion, ethnicity, and nationalism shape identity politics, minority–majority tensions, civil war, and resistance movements in the region and its global diasporas. Through case studies such as the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar and ethno-religious movements in Southern Thailand and the Philippines, we explore how religious traditions can both fuel exclusion and violence and offer resources for reconciliation and peacebuilding. We will analyze Western perceptions of the Dalai Lama’s version of Buddhism alongside its paradoxical roles in legitimizing violence and inspiring nonviolent resistance through the lived experiences of insiders. The course engages
doctrinal, historical, and lived perspectives to illuminate how communities navigate power, military rule, and everyday forms of hidden, symbolic, and public resistance, as well as the roles of social media, social movements, advocacy, and activism in both homeland and exile contexts.
Seminar Leaders
Dr. David Thang Moe
Affiliate Scholar
Yale Council on Southeast Asia Studies
David Thang Moe is a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer in Southeast Asian Studies at Yale University, and a Co-chair of Religion in Southeast Asia Unit at the American Academy of Religion. In addition, Moe holds academic appointments as a Scholar Associate at Harvard University’s Asia Center within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences; a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Political Science at Columbia University; a Research Affiliate at the MIT Center for International Studies; a CURA Research Fellow at Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies; and an Adjunct Professor of Religion and Asian Studies in the University of Connecticut’s Department of Asian and Asian American Studies.
Dr. Pum Za Mang
Associate Professor
Myanmar Institute of Theology
Educated at Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ, and Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN, Pum Za Mang is an associate professor of World Christianity at Myanmar Institute of Theology, Yangon, Burma, and was a research scholar at Luther Seminary (2022-2023).
He has published scholarly articles in Asia Journal of Theology, Church History, Church History and Religious Culture, Dialog, International Journal of Public Theology, International Review of Mission, International Bulletin of Mission Research, Journal of Church and State, The Journal of World Christianity, The Expository Times, The Review of Faith & International Affairs, Studies in World Christianity, Word & World, and World Christianity and Interfaith Relations.
Syllabus and Readings
Course Schedule
FRIDAY, OCT 2
Week 1: Beyond Mainstream Protests: Voices from the Ungovernable Villages and Valleys
Hosted on Zoom
Required readings
- Scott, James C. The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland
Southeast Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009, read, “Hills, Valleys, and
States: An Introduction to Zomia,” pp. 1-39.
FRIDAY, OCT 9
Week 2: The Origins and Theories of Nationalism
Hosted on Zoom
Required readings
- Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the origin and Spread of
Nationalism. New York: Verso, 1983, read “Introduction,” pages 1-7 only. - Anderson, Benedict. “Western Nationalism and Eastern Nationalism: Is There a Difference that Matters? In New Left Review 9 May/June (2001): 31-42.
FRIDAY, OCT 16
Week 3: Religion and Politics of Anti-colonial Movement
Hosted on Zoom
Required readings
- Ileto, Reynaldo. “Religion and Anti-colonial Movements.” The Cambridge History of
Southeast Asia, ed, Nicholas Tarling. Vol 2. New York: Cambridge University Press,
2008, chapter 4, read pages 213-244 only.
FRIDAY, OCT 23
Week 4: Post-colonial Nationalism and Anti-Ethnic Minority Movement
Hosted on Zoom
Required reading
- Keys, Charles. “Theravada Buddhism and Buddhist Nationalism: Sri Lanka, Myanmar,
Cambodia, and Thailand,” The Review of Faith and International Affairs, 14/4 (2006):
42-52.
Video: “Myanmar’s Anti-Muslim Monks.” Al Jazeera, 2015.
FRIDAY, OCT 30
Week 5: Protest and Resistance: Comparative Approaches
Hosted on Zoom
Protest and Resistance: Comparative Approaches
Required reading
- James C. Scott, “Everyday Forms of Resistance.” The Copenhagen Journal of Asian
Studies. 4//89 (1989): 33-62.
FRIDAY, NOV 6
Week 6: Decentralized and Interreligious Resistance to Military Power (Myanmar)
Hosted on Zoom
Required readings
- Pum Za Mang, Iselin Frydenlund, Phyo Wai & Susan Hayward. “Religious Responses to
the Military Coup in Myanmar.” The Review of Faith & International Affairs 19/3 (Fall
2021): 77-88. - James C. Scott and David Thang Moe, “The Study of the Burmese Revolution: Its Three
Distinct Forms of Resistance.” Unpublished (2023). - Video: “Myanmar Diaries.” This firsthand short film traces Myanmar’s trajectory from
the February 2021 military coup to nationwide protests and civil disobedience, followed by brutal repression in which thousands of peaceful protesters were imprisoned and killed, and ultimately to a growing popular armed resistance against the brutal junta.
FRIDAY, NOV 13
Week 7: Women, Warriors, and War: Gender and Resistance
Hosted on Zoom
Required readings:
- Yin Le Le Tun. “Testimony.” Independent Journal of Burmese Scholarship, Special
Issue: Memories of Leaving the Myanmar Military vol. 1 (August 2022): 194-99. - Collins & Gynn. “Visible and Invisible Barriers for Women in the Karenni War Zone.”
Independent Journal of Burmese Scholarship 4/2 (2024): 33-42.
FRIDAY, NOV 20
Week 8: Social Media and Diasporic Mobilizations
Hosted on Zoom
Required readings
- Lim, Merlyna. Social Media and Politics in Southeast Asia. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2024, pages 38-58 only.
FRIDAY, NOV 27
Week 9: Academy, Advocacy, and Activism: Hidden and Public Resistance
Hosted on Zoom
Required readings
- Scott, James C. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven,
CT: Yale UP, 1990, chap. “The Infrapolitics of Subordinate Groups,” pp. 183-201. - Anderson, Toor S. et al, “Activism in the Social Media Age.” Pew Research Center
FRIDAY, DEC 4
Week 10: Religion, Conflict, and Peacebuilding: Wrap Up
Hosted on Zoom
Required reading
- Peter Friedlander, “Conflict and Peace in Buddhism.” In The Ashgate Research
Companion to Religion and Conflict Resolution, ed. by Lee Marsden. Burlington, VT:
Ashgate, 2012, pp. 79-98.
Foundational Resources for the Course
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism, rev. New York: Verso, 2016 [originally in 1983] (PDF: online access).
Anitwongse, Kusuma and W. Scott Thompson, eds. Ethnic Conflicts in Southeast Asia.
Singapore: ISEAS, 2005 (online access here).
Scott, James C. The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland
Southeast Asia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009.
———. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1990 (online access).
———. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance: New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 1985 (online access).
Certificates of Satisfactory Completion
Participants who attend 8 out of 10 complete seminar sessions are eligible to receive a Certificate of Satisfactory Completion signed by the Dean of The New School for Social Research.