About the talk:
Siam abruptly became Thailand on June 24, 1939. With this announcement, the Phibunsongkhram Regime embarked on a quest to transform Siamese subjects into Thai citizens through their Cultural Mandates. Most long lasting and prominent was Mandate 10, issued on January 15, 1941, which required all Thais to dress 'appropriately' in public. This talk will examine in detail the lengths to which the Phibunsongkhram regime went to enact this new law as well as the new Thainess and modern Thai womanhood under construction in this period, including the afterlife of such policies and practices in modern-day Thailand and the Thai diaspora.

About the speaker:
Kanjana Hubik Thepboriruk is a linguist and an historian. She is an associate professor of Thai language and Thai Studies in the Department of World Languages and Cultures and a research associate at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University. Her research examines the notion of "Thainess" and how it is defined, transmitted, and performed by Thais in Thailand and in the diaspora, in the past and in the present, and the role the Thai language does or does not have in these processes. Her current project, Thais in Illinois, is funded by the Henry Luce Foundation and is a collaboration with Thai American high school students in the Chicagoland area to tell the stories of their communities through oral histories and cultural ephemera. A touring exhibit with Chicago Public Libraries is slated for 2027.