Emanuel Mayer (History)

Quantifying the Roman Money Supply: Towards a Genealogy of Capitalism
Rome’s economy displayed many seemingly modern features: market-oriented agriculture, mass produced consumer goods, apartment living in major cities, and complex financial instruments. Yet, studies of the Roman economy are hampered by a lack of quantitative data. The Roman government collected detailed economic information on its citizens and subjects through the institution of the census – which is why Mary and Joseph were summoned to Bethlehem – but these records are lost. An unsupervised learning model developed at Yale-NUS College, now allows to automate time-consuming numismatic studies for estimating the amount of coinage minted by the Roman government. Strikingly, Roman monetization rates in the first century were comparable to that of France and England in the time of Newton. This finding raises questions about Rome’s role in the genealogy of Western capitalism.

Lau Ting Hui (Sociology and Anthropology)

Decolonial Endurance: Indigenous World Making on the China-Myanmar Border
Like many countries in Asia, China does not recognize the existence of Indigenous people within its borders, insisting instead on the category of ethnic minority. This denial of Indigeneity forecloses discussions about Chinese colonialism and limits transnational solidarity with Indigenous communities elsewhere. Pushing back against state-sponsored discourses, I propose understanding so-called ethnic minority people in China as Indigenous to connect their experiences to broader questions of colonialism and Indigenous dispossession. I focus my analysis on Indigenous Lisu subsistence farmers on the China-Myanmar border and their experiences of Chinese development. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, I argue that Lisu experience Chinese development as colonialism. Through storytelling, care, play, and prayer, Lisu practice decolonial world making that enables them to endure colonial erasure by sustaining relationships with the land, refusing assimilation, and proposing alternative futures. This paper contributes to discussions about Indigeneity in Asia and decolonial endurance in Asia and beyond.

Sneha Annavarapu (Sociology And Anthropology)

Aesthetics of Authority: Smart Policing, Unruly Citizens, and the Politics of Visibility in Hyderabad, India
Critical to the popular representation of Indian roads as “chaotic” and disorderly, traffic indiscipline is an abiding Orientalist tragicomic stereotype and a source of culturally intimate local humor. In both official discourse and everyday traffic talk, the “typical Indian driver” that treats rules as mere suggestions figures not just as an administrative and epidemiological issue but a symptom of cultural and moral failure of a postcolonial public. State agencies and NGOs in India have long been attempting to make motorists obey traffic rules and regulations using a variety of punitive, persuasive, and infrastructural strategies. Drawing on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork conducted over six years in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, this paper explores the logics of state authority in attempting to elicit obedience and compliance from motorists on the road. Twisting existing research on urban policing in India, it examines how and why traffic law-enforcement in Hyderabad is undergoing an “image makeover” and why traffic police are attempting to position themselves not as agents of state violence but as smart, tech-savvy, and friendly service-providers. Instead of writing it off as marketing frivolity or as an insidious cover, this paper contextualizes and locate these moves within the historical context of postcolonial policing as well as the urban branding of Hyderabad.

Ruben Durante (Economics)

Experience, Narratives, and Climate Change Beliefs
Combining information on the timing and location of US-based natural disasters with large-scale electoral survey data, we study how experiencing natural disasters affects climate change attitudes, and how the this effect is mediated by ideology. We find that exposure to the same disaster increases climate change concerns among liberals but decreases them among conservatives, widening the partisan gap by 11-17%. The documented effect fades over time and with distance from the disaster, is stronger for respondents who are a local political minority, and only holds in areas served by local newspapers. Using LLMs to annotate a large corpus of news reports, we also document large differences between liberal and conservative media in the amount and type of coverage of climate change in the aftermath of disasters. Our results are consistent with natural disasters making the debate around climate change and partisan cleavages on this issue more salient, thus further polarizing initial beliefs. They also suggest that, if not appropriately timed, efforts to build broad consensus for climate policies can backfire.

Peter Millican (Philosophy)

Sceptical (and not-so-sceptical) thoughts on the Philosophy and Psychology of Religion
I raise a dilemma for religious belief in a multi-cultural society, but also reflect on the social value of religion, and invite discussion on how the resulting tension might be eased. This draws on my joint paper (with Branden Thornhill-Miller) on "The Common Core/Diversity Dilemma" (available at https://www.millican.org/papers/2015CCDD.pdf).

Nathanael Gratias Sumaktoyo (Political Science)

The Broader Political Significance of Houses of Worship: Theory and Evidence from Indonesian Mosques
Mosques in Indonesia, temples in India, churches in the U.S. Houses of worship are everywhere and serve social and economic functions. But, do they also have political significance? Can they influence the political attitudes and behaviors of the communities in which they are located? Analyzing surveys and mosques data in Indonesia, this talk illuminates the political consequences of houses of worship.

Faizah Binte Zakaria (Malay Studies)

Crisis, Resilience and Morality in Tambora and Krakatoa
How did communities at a volcano’s epicentre perceive the causes and impacts of major eruptions? How was crisis defined and coped with? This seminar attends to these questions by comparing two rare Malay accounts - Syair Kerajaan Bima and Syair Lampung Karam - by eyewitnesses to Tambora and Krakatoa, reflecting on their chaotic aftermath.

Kung Chien Wen (History)

Authoritarian Apologetics: Wu Teh-yao, Cultural Dualism, and the Diasporic Origins of "Asian Values" in Singapore
This talk traces the boundary-crossing career and engages with the writings of former University of Singapore political scientist and Nanyang University vice-chancellor Wu Teh-yao (1916-94) to make the case for Wu as a conservative, pro-establishment legitimizer of "Asian Values" in 1970s-90s' Singapore.

Nicholas Kuipers (Political Science)

Meritocracy Reconsidered: Bureaucratic Selection and Nation-Building in Indonesia
Many countries select civil servants via examinations. In this talk, I argue that the outcomes of these tests prompt attitudinal shifts on the part of winners and losers—particularly when successful applicants disproportionately hail from specific ethnic, racial, or religious groups. Looking at Indonesia, I present evidence in support of this argument from a survey conducted in partnership with the Indonesian civil service agency, in which we solicited survey responses from the universe of applicants for civil service jobs. Matching responses to the database of test scores, I show that individuals who failed the exam are more likely to (1) support preferential treatment for in-groups, (2) reflect negatively on an ethnically inclusive national identity, and (3) believe the recruitment process was corrupt. Building on these empirical results, I conclude by presenting a reconceptualization of the decision to implement civil service reform as a trade-off between the twinned demands of state-building and nation-building.

Sudatta Ray (Geography)

Beyond Lights: The Changing Impact of Rural Electrification in Indian Agriculture
Electricity is deemed essential for development, and yet we remain unclear about the avenues through which electrification impacts household incomes and other economic outcomes. This talk illustrates how specific targets of rural electrification policies have important consequences for household incomes and food security of smallholder farmers in India.

Siddharth George (Economics)
Am I An Impostor? The Impacts of Being Admitted to College Through Affirmative Action
We study how being admitted via affirmative action affects the self-image and academic performance of minority students in China. Several unique features of China's college admissions system allow us to cleanly estimate the impact of getting admitted to a particular college on merit vs by affirmative action. We find that students admitted via affirmative action have worse self-image, perform worse academically, have lower career aspirations. Collectively, our results suggest that affirmative action triggers impostor feelings among minority students, which may hurt their performance in elite environments.

Elliot Prasse-Freeman (Sociology and Anthropology)
Rights Refused: activism, violence, and blunt biopolitics amidst Myanmar’s cursed transition

Steven C. Pan (Psychology)
Applying the Science of Learning to Enhance Educational Practice: Evidence-Based Learning Strategies