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Penny Edwards

Portrait of Penny   Edwards

A Professor at the South and Southeast Asia Studies Departmen, University of California at Berkeley (USA), a writer and translator, Penelope ​‘Penny’ Edwards specializes in history of Literature, Buddhist studies, Gender studies, and the modern history of Burma (Myanmar) and Cambodia, in particular in relation with French colonialism.

In 2022 – 2023, she was granted a sabbatical to work on Ephemeral Angkor, a cinematic and literary history of twentieth century Cambodia, and Kindred Spirits, a group biography of four women. ​“Her translation into English of Seth Polin’s iconic novella L’anarchiste was to be published by Gazebo Books, Australia, in 2023. Parts of it have been shared online [Words Without Borders, 2015]

At UCLA Berkeley in the 2020s, Penny Edwards has been teaching the courses ​‘Love Craft: Epic Romance of Southeast Asia’ (SEA190) and ​‘South and ​‘Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha: History and Modernity in Theravada Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka’ (SEA C275).

She is the author of the reference book Cambodge: The Cultivation of A Nation 1860 – 1945. (2008: University of Hawai’i Press).

Publications

  1. “Shifting Boundaries: A Century of Chineseness in Cambodia,”, unpublished paper presented at the 48th Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, Honolulu, Hawai’i, April 1996.
  2. “Womanizing Indochina: Fiction, nation, and cohabitation in colonial Cambodia, 1890 – 1930,” in Domesticating the Empire: Race, Gender, and Family Life in French and Dutch Colonialism, University Press of Virginia, 1998: 108 – 130.
  3. [with Yuan-fang Shen] ​“United by the Sweep of a Tarnished Brush,” Panorama 18, 2000: 4 – 5.
  4. “Putting Burmese Women on the Map (and in their place): Constructing Race and Gender in British Burma,” Background Paper, International Workshop on ​“Gender and the Transmission of Values and Cultural Heritage (s) in South and Southeast Asia”, Belle van Zuylen Instituut, Amsterdam, May 2000.
  5. “Restyling colonial Cambodia (1860 – 1954): French dressing, indigenous custom and national costume,” Fashion Theory 5 – 1, 2001: 389 – 416.
  6. “Propagender’: Marianne, Joan of Arc and the Export of French Gender Ideology to Colonial Cambodia (1863 – 1954),” in Promoting the Colonial Idea: Propaganda and Visions of Empire in France, Tony Chafer & Amanda Sackur eds., Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2001: 116 – 130.
  7. “Half-cast: staging race in British Burma,” Postcolonial Studies: Culture, Politics, Economy 5 – 3, 2002: 279 – 295.
  8. [with Yuanfang Shen] Beyond China: Migrating Identities, Canberra: Centre for the Study of the Chinese Southern Diaspora, Australian National University, 2002. | and ​“Beyond Pug’s Tour: National: Migrating Identities.”
  9. “On Home Ground: Settling land and domesticating difference in the’non-settler’colonies of Burma and Cambodia,” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History (JCCH) 4 – 3, 2003.
  10. “Relocating the interlocutor: Taw Sein Ko (1864 – 1930) and the itinerancy of knowledge in British Burma,” South East Asia Research 12 – 3, 2003: 277 – 335.
  11. [ed. with Shen Yuanfang] Lost in the whitewash: Aboriginal-Asian encounters in Australia, 1901 – 2001, Canberra: Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University, 2003. | Lost in the whitewash: Colloquium Report, 2003.
  12. “Making a Religion of the Nation and Its Language: The French Protectorate (1863 – 1954) and the Dhammakāy,” in John Marston & Elizabeth Guthrie eds.: History, Buddhism, and New Religious Movements in Cambodia, 2004: 63 – 85.
  13. “Mixed Metaphors: Other mothers, dangerous daughters and the rhetoric of child removal in Burma, Australia and Indochina,” Balayi: Culture, Law and Colonialism 6, 2004: 41 – 61
  14. “Taj Angkor: enshrining l’Inde in le Cambodge,” in France and Indochina: Cultural Representations (After the Empire: The Francophone World and Postcolonial France), Kathryn Robson & Jennifer Yee eds., Lexington Books, 2005: 13 – 27; also Kindle edition.
  15. “Outside In: Sino-Burmese Encounters,” in China Inside Out: Contemporary Chinese Nationalism and Transnationalism, Pál Nyíri & Joana Breidenbach eds., Central European University Press, 2005, 368 p.
  16. [tr. from Khmer of [Jhāt Sʹrāṅ] Chheat Sreang’s] The Buddhist institute: A short history, Phnom Penh, Buddhist Institute, 2005, 76 p.
  17. “Grounds for protest: placing Shwedagon pagoda in colonial and postcolonial history,” Postcolonial Studies 9 (2), 2006: 197 – 211.
  18. [editor] Special Issue: Buddhism, Siksācakr (Journal of the Center for Khmer Studies) 8 – 9 (2006 – 2007).
  19. “Buddhism and Social Development in Cambodia since the Overthrow of the Pol Pot Régime in 1979,” Siksācakr 8 – 9, 2006 – 2007: 98 – 110.
  20. “Achar Hem Chieu (1898−1943), the ​‘Umbrella Demonstration’of 20th July 1942 and the Vichy régime,” Siksācakr 8 – 9, 2006 – 7: 70 – 81.
  21. “Approche du bouddhisme Hòa Hảo au Cambodge,” ibid., 206 – 7: 45 – 54.
  22. [with Debjani Ganguly, Jacqueline Lo] ​“Pigments of the imagination: Theorising, performing and historicising mixed race,” Journal of intercultural studies 28 – 1, 2007: 1 – 13.
  23. “Dressed in a Little Brief Authority: Clothing the Body Politic in Burma”, in The Politics of Dress in Asia and the Americas, Sussex Academic Press, 2007: 121 – 138.
  24. “Subscripts: reading Cambodian pasts, presents, and futures through graffiti,” in Expressions of Cambodia: The Politics of Tradition, Identity and Change, Leakthina Chau-Pech Ollier & Tim Winter ed., Routledge, 2007: 39 – 52; 2nd ed. 2017.
  25. Cambodge: the Cultivation of a Nation, 1860 – 1945, University of Hawai’i Press, 2008; repub. 2017.
  26. [ed. with Anne Ruth Hansen, Judy Ledgerwood] At the Edge of the Forest: Essays on Cambodia, History, and Narrative in Honor of David Chandler, Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asian Program Publications, 2008, 137 p.
  27. “Between a song and a prei: Tracking Cambodian history and cosmology through the forest”, in At the edge of the forest: Essays on Cambodia, history, and narrative in honor of David Chandler, Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications 2008: 137 – 162.
  28. “Nationalism by design. The politics of dress in British Burma,” IIAS Newsletter 46. 2008.
  29. “The moral geology of the present: Structuring morality, menace and merit,” in People of Virtue: Reconfiguring Religion, Power and Morality in Cambodia Today, Singapore, NIAS Press, 2008: 213 – 37.
  30. [with Sambath Chan] ​“Ethnic Chinese in Cambodia”, Ethnic Groups in Cambodia, Center for Advanced Study, 2009: 174 – 234.
  31. “Bitter pills: colonialism, medicine and nationalism in Burma, 1870 – 1940,” Journal of Burma Studies 14 – 1 (University of Hawai’i Press), 2010: 21 – 58.
  32. “A Strategic Sanctuary: Reading l’Inde française through the Colonial Archive,” Interventions (International Journal of Postcolonial Studies) 12 – 3, 2010: 356 – 367.
  33. “Sojourns Across Sources: Unbraiding Sino-Cambodian Histories,” Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review 4, 2012: 118 – 136.
  34. [with Lorraine Paterson] ​“Introduction to ​‘Mediating Chineseness in Cambodia’,” Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review
    1 – 4, 2012.
  35. “Endnote to” Mediating Chineseness in Cambodia”- Sojourns Across Sources: Unbraiding”, Cross Currents 4, 2012: 118 – 136; [online].
  36. “Gandhiji in Burma, and Burma in Gandhiji,” in Rethinking Gandhi and Nonviolent Relationality: Global Perspectives, Debjani Ganguly & John Dock eds., Routledge, 2008; 2nd ed. 2014.
  37. “’This is a religious battle… to revolutionize the political outlook… to spiritualize our politics.’ (MK Gandhi, speech at Mirzapur Park, Calcutta, 23 January 1921”, ibid., 2008, 2014.
  38. “Imaging the Other in Cambodian Nationalist Discourse before and during the UNTAC Period”, in Propaganda, Politics and Violence in Cambodia, Taylor & Francis, 2016: 50 – 72.
  39. “Watching the Detectives: the Elusive Exile of Prince Myngoon of Burma,” in Exile in Colonial Asia: Kings, Convicts, Commemoration, Ronit Ricci ed., University of Hawai’i Press, Perspectives on the Global Past series, 2016: 248 – 278.
  40. “The tyranny of proximity: Power and mobility in colonial Cambodia, 1863 – 1954”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies (JSAS) 37 (3), 2016, 421 – 443.
  41. “Archival detours: Sourcing colonial history,” in Sources and Methods in Histories of Colonialism: Approaching the Imperial Archive, Kirsty Reid & Fiona PaisleyRoutledge eds., Routledge, 2017: 32 – 46.
  42. “Time travels: Locating xinyimin in Sino-Cambodian histories”, in Globalizing Chinese Migration: Trends in Europe and Asia, Pál Nyíri & Igor Saveliev eds., Routledge, 2003; 2n ed. 2020: 254 – 289.
  43. New Decade, New Directions, special issue of Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia (ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute) 36 – 3, 2021: 573 – 600. [contributions by Alexandra Kaloyanides, Chiara Formichi, Cuong T. Mai, Richard Fox, Kelly Meister Brawn, Nathan McGovern, Penny Edwards, Oona Paredes].
  44. [translation of parts of Soth Polin’s novel] ​“From The Anarchist”, Mānoa 33−2÷1, 2021: 168 – 175.
  45. [review] ​“Locations of Buddhism: Colonialism and Modernity in Sri Lanka by AM Blackburn; Buddhist Pilgrimage Centers and the Twelve-Year Cycle: Northern Thai Moral Orders,” Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 36 – 3, 2021: 591 – 594
  46. [with Kenneth Wong] ​“To Write a History,” Mānoa 34 – 2, 2022: 179 – 185.
  47. “Interview with Kyaw Zwa Moe,” Mānoa 34 – 2, 2022: 197 – 203.
  48. “Beyond words: Going off script in Theravada Southeast Asia,” JSAS 53 (1−2), 2022: 344 – 348.
  49. “Return Engagements: Contemporary Art’s Traumas of Modernity and History in Sài Gòn and Phnom Penh by Việt Lê,” Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia (ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute) 38 – 2, 2023: 244 – 247.
  50. [review] ​“La réforme politique en Birmanie pendant le premier moment colonial (1819 – 1878) by Aurore Candier,” Journal of Burma Studies 27 (1), 2023: 187 – 190.
  51. “Inarguably Angkor”, in The Angkorian World, Routledge, 2023: 629 – 644.
  52. [panel discussion with Penny Edwards, LinDa Saphan, Leslie Barnes, Rane Prak, Margaret Jack, Emily Mitamura] ​“A Discussion of Faded Reels: The Art of Four Cambodian Filmmakers (LinDa Saphan, 2022),” 2024 AAS (Association of Asian Studies) Annual Conference, Seattle, Washington, USA, March 14 – 17, 2024.
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