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Thongchai Winichakul

Portrait of Thongchai   Winichakul

Thongchai Winichakul ธงชัย วินิจจะกูล (b. 1st Oct. 1957, Bangkok), is a Thai historian and researcher in Southeast Asian studies, Emeritus Professor of Southeast Asian history at the University of Wisconsin – Madison (USA), and Emeritus Research Fellow with the Institute of Developing Economies (IDE-JETRO), Japan. A former president of the Association for Asian Studies, he is regarded as a leading expert in the history of Thai nationalism who coined the term of ​“geo-body of a nation.” 

As a student organizer and political activist, he took a leading part in the democratic protests at Thammasat University violently quashed by the Thai military and right-wing paramilitaries, culminating in the 6 October 1976 ​“Thammasat Massacre” in which at least 46 protesters were murdered, some raped, beaten or burned to death. In the aftermath these dramatic events, he was arrested among other thousands of students, indicted as ​“ringleaders” with 18 other demonstrators and imprisoned until their release by a royal amnesty on 16 September 1978. Of this somber page of Thai modern history, Thongchai Winichakul has said it was ​“unforgettable yet unrememberable.”

After briefly returning to Thammasat University, he went on to the University of Sydney to complete his graduate education, and came back again to Thammasat U as a lecturer in 1988 – 1991, and visiting professor at Pridi Banomyong International College in 2022 – 2023. Senior Researcher at the Institute of Developing Economies (IDE-JETRO), Japan from 1991 to 2016, he joined the Department of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1991, where he became professor in 2001 until his retirement in 2016. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003, and named president of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) in 2013 – 2014. 

Thongchai Winichakul first major published work, Siam Mapped (1994), received the John Simon Guggenheim Award (1994−1995), The Harry J. Benda Award in Southeast Asian Studies (1995) and the Grand Prize of the Asia Pacific Book Award, the Asian Affairs Research Council, Japan, for the Japanese edition (2003). His Moments of Silence: The Unforgetting of the October 6, 1976, Massacre in Bangkok (2023) was awarded the Grand Prize of the Fukuoka Award (2023), the George McT. Kahin Award by the ASS (2022) and the EuroSEAS Humanities Book Prize (2022).

Publications

[under construction]

  1. Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1994.
  2. “The Changing Landscape of the Past: New Histories in Thailand Since 1973,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 26 – 1, 1995, pp. 99 – 120.
  3. “The Quest for ​‘Siwilai’: A geographical discourse of Civilizational Thinking in the Late 19th and early 20th Century Siam”, Journal of Asian Studies 59, 3, August 2000: 528 – 549.
  4. “The Others Within: Travel and Ethno-spatial Differentiation of Siamese Subjects, 1885 – 1910,” in Civility and Savagery: the Differentiation of Peoples within the Tai Speaking Polities, ed. Andrew Turton, London: Curzon Press, 2000, pp.38 – 62.
  5. “The Others Within: Travel and Ethno-spatial Differentiation of Siamese Subjects, 1885 – 1910”, in Civility and Savagery: Social Identity in Tai States, ed. Andrew Turton, London: Curzon Press, 2000: 38 – 62.
  6. “The Quest for ​‘Siwilai’: A geographical discourse of Civilizational Thinking in the Late 19th and early 20th Century Siam”, Journal of Asian Studies 59, 3, 2000, pp.528 – 549.
  7. “Post-modern Historical Studies,” Collected Articles to Celebrate the 60th Birthday of Charnvit Kasetsiri, ed. Thanet Aponsuwan and Kanchanee La-ongsri, Bangkok: Matichon Publishing, 2001, pp. 350 – 390.
  8. “Remembering/​Silencing the Traumatic Past: the Ambivalent Memories of the October 1976 Massacre in Bangkok” in Cultural Crisis and Social Memory: Modernity and Identity in Thailand and Laos, ed. Charles F Keyes and Shigeharu Tanabe, London and New York: Routledge/​Curzon, 2002: 243 – 283.
  9. “Remembering/​Silencing the Traumatic Past: the Ambivalent Memories of the October 1976 Massacre in Bangkok”, Cultural Crisis and Social Memory: Modernity and Identity in Thailand and Laos, ed. Charles F Keyes and Shigeharu Tanabe, London and New York: Routledge/​Curzon, 2002, pp. 243 – 283.
  10. “Writing at the Interstices: Southeast Asian Historians and Post-National Histories in Southeast Asia”, in New Terrains in Southeast Asian History, ed. Abu Talib Ahmad and Tan Liok Ee, Athens: Ohio University Press, 2002: 3 – 29.
  11. “Writing at the Interstices: Southeast Asian Historians and Post-National Histories in Southeast Asia”, New Terrains in Southeast Asian History, ed. Abu Talib Ahmad and Tan Liok Ee, Athens: Ohio University Press, 2003, pp. 3 – 29.
  12. “Trying to Locate Southeast Asia from Its Navel: Where is Southeast Asian Studies in Thailand?”, Locating Southeast Asia: Geographies of Knowledge and Politics of Space, Henk Schulte Nordholt, Paul Kratoska and Remco Ruben eds., Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005, pp. 113 – 132.
  13. “Toppling Democracy,” Journal of Contemporary Asia, 38, 1, 2008, pp. 11 – 37.
  14. “Nationalism and the Radical Intelligentsia in Thailand,” Third World Quarterly, 29:3, 2008, pp. 575 – 591.
  15. “Coming to Terms with the West, Intellectual Strategies of Bifurcation and Post-Westernism in Siam,” The Ambiguous Allure of the West: Traces of Colonialism in Thailand, ed. Rachel Harrison and Peter Jackson, Hong Kong University Press, 2009, pp. 135 – 151.
  16. “Rethinking Thai Nationalism”, in The Phantasm in Southern Thailand: Historical Writings on Patani and the Islamic World, vol. 2, ed. Patrick Jory and Jirawat Saengthong, Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University, 2009, pp. 787 – 819.
  17. “Siam’s Colonial Conditions and the Birth of Thai History,” Unraveling Myths in Southeast Asian Historiography, volume in honor of Bass Terwiel, ed. Volker Grabowsky, Bangkok: Rivers Books, 2011, pp. 23 – 45.
  18. [with Arnaud Leveau] ​“Tout doit changer pour que rien né change [Thailand: Everything must change so that nothing changes]”, Thaïlande Contemporaine, dir. Stéphane Dovert & Jacques Ivanoff, Paris, Les Indes savantes, 2011, pp 517 – 541.
  19. [with Eric Taggliacozzo] ​“Gradations of colonialism in Southeast Asia’s ​‘in-between’ places”, The Routledge Handbook of Southeast Asian History, ed. Norman G. Owen, London: Routledge, 2013, pp.36 – 45.
  20. “Asian Studies across Academies: the AAS Presidential Address”, Journal of Asian Studies, 73:4, Nov. 2014, pp 879 – 897.
  21. “The Last Gasp of Royalist Democracy.” Fieldsights — Hot Spots, Cultural Anthropology Online, September 23, 2014.
  22. “Maps from the Formation of the Geo-body of a Nation,” The People, Place, and Space Reader, ed. Jen Jack Gieseking, William Mangold, London: Routledge, 2014, pp. 372 – 376.
  23. “Decentering Thai Studies”, Foreword for Disturbing Conventions: Decentering Thai Literary Cultures, ed. Rachel V Harrison, Rowman and Littlefield International Limited, 2014, pp. xiii-xix.
  24. “Modern Historiography in Southeast Asia: the case of Thailand’s Royal-Nationalist History,” A Companion to Global Historical Thought, ed. Prasenjit Duara, Viren Murthy and Andrew Sartori, Wiley Blackwell, 2014, pp. 257 – 268.
  25. “The Monarchy and Anti-Monarchy: Two Elephants in the Room of Thai Politics and the State of Denial” in Good Coup Gone Bad, ed. Pavin Chachavalpongpun, Singapore: ISEAS, 2014, pp. 79 – 108. 
     
  26. “Thailand’s Royal Democracy in Crisis”, Newsletter no. 72, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, 2015, pp. 4 – 6.
  27. “Buddhist Apologetics and a Genealogy of Comparative Religion in Siam,” NUMEN International Review for the History of Religions, special issue on Religious Studies in Asia, Num 62, 2015, pp. 76 – 99.
  28. “Fabrication, Stealth, and Copying of Historical Writings: the Historiographical Misconducts of Mr. Kulap of Siam”, in A Sarong for Clio, Essays on the Intellectual and Cultural History of Thailand, inspired by Craig J. Reynolds, Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 2015, pp. 41 – 61.
  29. “The Hazing Scandals in Thailand Reflect Deeper Problem in Social Relations,” Perspective #56, Singapore ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, 2015, 9 pp.
  30. Thailand’s Hyper-royalism: Its past Success and Present Predicament”, Trends in Southeast Asia, no.7, Singapore: ISEAS, 2016. 36 pp.
  31. “Southeast Asian Studies in the Age of STEM Education and Hyper-Utilitarianism”, Suvannabhumi: multi-disciplinary journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 10:2, Dec. 2018, pp. 157 – 180.
  32. “Thailand’s Royal Democracy in Crisis” in After the Coup: The National Council for Peace and Order Era and the Future of Thailand, ed. Michael J. Montesano, Terence Chong and Mark Heng, Singapore: ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, 2019, pp. 282 – 307.
  33. Moments of Silence: The Unforgetting of the October 6, 1976, Massacre in Bangkok. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2020.
  34. “Thailand: Kingdom of Enslavement,” Nikkei Asia, Oct 16 2020.
  35. “Southeast Asian Studies in the Age of Disruption,” Journal of Southeast Asian History and Culture (Japan), 49, 2020, pp.11 – 25
  36. “Smashing the ceiling of the unforgetting of the October 6 massacre in Bangkok,” Ari Scope, March 2021, online journal.
  37. “Review: Thai Legal History: From Traditional to Modern Law , eds. Andrew Harding and Munin Pongsapan, Cambridge University Press (2021), 350 pp.” in Thai Legal Studies, vol.1, no.1, 2021, 5 p.
  38. “Confessions to Lese Majesty: A Lens into the Rule of Law in Thailand,” in States and Societies in Motion: Essays in Honour of Takashi Shiraishi, ed. Khoo Boo Teik and Jafar Suryomenggolo, Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2021, pp. 295 – 314.
  39. “Introduction: Reading the Memoirs of Student Communists, the Ex-Guerilla Fighters,“ Communists in the Back Rows by Young One (Comrade Somwang), n.p., 2021, pp. 5 – 14. [“คำานำา: อ่านความทรงจำาของคอมมิวนิสต์นักศึกษาที ่เคยเป็น ​‘คนป ่ า’” คอมมิวนิสต์แนว หลัง โดย ยังวัน (สหายสมหวัง), ม.ป.พ., 2564, น.5 – 14].
  40. “People in the Neo-feudal State of the Lord of Life” Prachatai (online news in Thai and English), 13 Sept 2021, 5 pages [“ประชาชนในรัฐศักดินาใหม่ของเจ ้าเหนือหัว” ประชาไท 13 กย 5 2564] 
  41. “Map is a language”, Fa Diaw Kan special issue for Nidhi Eosriwong 80, 19: 1, Jan-Jun, 2021, pp. 201 – 244. [“แผนที ่คือภาษา” ฟ ้ าเดียวกัน ฉบับ 80 ปีนิธิ เอียวศรีวงศ์ , 19:1, มค‑มิย 2564, น. 201 – 244] 
  42. [foreword to] Memory in the Mekong: Regional Identity, Schools, and Politics in Southeast Asia, eds. Will Brehm and Yuto Kitamura, New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 2022, pp. ix‑x.
  43. “Introduction: Leaving the Outdated Imagination”, in 125 Years of Local Administration in Thailand, 1897 – 2022, ed. Thanet Charoenmuang (5 vols set), Chiang Mai: Creative Center of Chiang Mai, vol.1, 2022, pp. 1 – 29. [“บทนำา: เดินหน ้า ออกจากจินตนาการเก่า” 125 ป ี การปกครองท้องถิ่นไทย พ.ศ.2440 – 2565, ธเนศวร์ เจริญเมือง บก. (ชุด 5 เล่ม), เชียงใหม่ : ศูนย์สร ้างสรรค์เมืองเชียงใหม่ 2565, เล่มที ่ 1, น.1 – 29]; free access.
  44. “Comments on the book ​‘Kwa cha khrong amnat nam’ by Arsa Khampha, Prachatai (online news in Thai and English), 7 Jan 2022, 5 pages. [“ความเห็นต่อ กว่าจะครองอำานาจนำา ของ อาสา คำาภา” ประชาไท 7 มค 2565]