You are invited to a public talk organized by the SFURA Retirees Association,
at 11:30 AM on Tuesday, 15 October 2013,
in Room 126, Halpern Centre, Burnaby Campus, Simon Fraser University
For information contact Professor Jacqueline Viswanathan @ viswanat@sfu.ca
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Materializing a Diaspora:
Southeast Asian Chinese Communities & Their Urbanism,
Architecture & Associated Artefacts
By
Professor Clarence Aasen
Abstract
This illustrated presentation will be about the urbanism, architecture and associated artefacts—such as deities and
temple murals—of a wide range of ethnic Chinese communities across Southeast Asia. It will first very briefly and
generally introduce how, over the last 2000 years, those culturally diverse peoples coalesced to not only be viewed
as ‘Chinese’, but also to become an identifiable and distinctive diasporic community. The presentation will then
concentrate more specifically on: the local scale, public expressions of those communities—particularly, their cities
and towns, architecture, and artefacts—and on what those expressions meant, partly in terms of their forms and
aesthetics, but mainly in relation to their roles in and effects on the local social lives and communal identities of those
various Chinese peoples.
This presentation is part of a much larger, on-going research project in which Professor Aasen has been involved
since 1986. He has written one book on the general topic (Clarence Aasen, The Architecture of Siam, A Cultural
History Interpretation, Oxford University Press, 1998) and is currently working on two more books. Almost all of the
illustrations used will be from the fieldwork which Professor Aasen has conducted in southern China and across
Southeast Asia over the last 27 years.
Brief Bio
Professor Aasen holds degrees in Architecture (B.Arch), Applied Science (M.A.Sc), and Urban and Regional Planning
(Ph.D.) (the latter with an emphasis on urban ethnicity, urban history and political anthropology). Since 1965 he has
taught, held administrative positions and conducted research at the University of Waterloo and Carleton University in
Canada and at Victoria University in New Zealand. He currently lives in Vancouver.